MOSCOW, October 1 (RIA Novosti) – Russian police are hunting for a former senior executive at a subsidiary of Russian oil giant Rosneft, suspected of being involved in embezzling a resort facility and four luxury vehicles in Russia’s North Caucasus, police officials said on Tuesday.
Valery Kardanov allegedly carried out the property scam immediately before resigning as head of Rosneft’s subsidiary in the Kabardino-Balkaria Republic at the end of last year, costing the company over 1 billion rubles ($30.8 million), the Interior Ministry said in a statement Tuesday.
Kardanov allegedly facilitated the illegal purchase of the state-controlled oil company’s resort facility in a nature reserve area near Mount Elbrus, transferring ownership “to third persons,” according to the police statement.
Acting together with a group of unnamed associates, he also embezzled “four expensive vehicles of a prestigious brand” from the company’s Rosneft KBTK subsidiary, the statement said.
Kardanov, whose current whereabouts is unknown, has been arrested in absentia and put on an international wanted list. He could not be reached for comment as of Tuesday morning.
Two criminal cases have been opened on fraud charges, the police said.