Russian official jailed for creating ghost soldiers

A former Russian defence ministry financial administrator has been sentenced to five years in prison for tampering with servicemen’s official records to create “ghost” soldiers.

Valery Sergeyev, who worked in Stavropol in southern Russia, then wired money to the fake soldiers’ accounts, from which he later withdrew a total of 11 million rubles (about $400,000).

He was jailed on fraud charges, the Investigative Committee’s Chief Military Directorate said.

The committee did not say when Sergeyev worked at the ministry.

This is not the first case of fraud involving Stavropol region defence ministry officials.

Sergei Kochmin, head of the ministry’s Stavropol Territory Financial Administration, and Roman Goryachev, a chief accountant, were previously sentenced to two years each for embezzling over six million rubles (about $200,000).

–IANS/RIA Novosti

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