MOSCOW, July 24 (RAPSI) - Ex-Finance Minister of the Moscow Region Alexey Kuznetsov, who stands charged with embezzling over 11 billion rubles (nearly $200 million), has pleaded guilty.

Moscow’s Basmanny District Court would hear his case under a special procedure, without evidence examination, on August, the court’s spokesperson Yunona Tsareva told RAPSI on Wednesday. Trials are usually held under the special procedure when a defendant admits guilt.

Kuznetsov, who fled abroad in 2010, was extradited from France to Russia in January 2019.

According to investigators, from 2005 to 2008, a group organized by Kuznetsov unlawfully obtained the right to recover debts of enterprises operating in the housing and utilities sector of the Moscow Region and embezzled funds in the amount of more than 11 billion rubles of the Moscow Regional Investment Trust Company.

Other defendants in the case have been already convicted and sentenced. Ex-deputy finance minister of the Moscow Region Valery Nosov has received 14 years and 9 months behind bars. Ex-CEO of the Moscow regional government's Moscow Regional Trust Company Vyacheslav Telepnyov has been given 10 years in prison.

Moreover, in January 2018, Moscow’s Basmanny District Court sentenced the U.S. citizen, real estate mogul and ex-wife of Kuznetsov Janna Bullock to 11 years in prison in absentia for embezzlement.