Russian investigators said Friday that they had launched a criminal probe against opposition leader Alexei Navalny and his brother Oleg over suspected fraud.
Navalny and his brother “embezzled 55 million rubles ($1.8 million) from a trading company” and transferred some of the money to another firm they owned to launder the funds, the Russian Investigative Committee (SK) said.
Alexei Navalny created a firm several years ago, and his brother Oleg “used deception” to convince the trading company to sign an agreement for cargo shipping services with this firm in his capacity as an official for Russian Post, Russia’s postal service monopoly.
The shipping services were to be provided “at deliberately inflated prices” according to this agreement, investigators said, and the firm had another company carry out the contract from August 2008 to May 2011.
The brothers then “transferred 19 million rubles ($620,000) from the firm’s account using fictional documents” to another account to “launder the funds they acquired in a criminal manner”, the statement said.
Navalny, one of the leaders of Russian political opposition who became known for campaigning against corruption on his blog, seemed to be caught by surprise Friday.
“I don’t know anything. My phone is on fire. As I understand, I am not enough for them, so they got their hands on my family?” he wrote on Twitter.
The Investigative Committee already has one financial case open against Navalny. He is accused of causing a loss of 16 million rubles to the budget of Kirov region when he advised regional officials in a timber deal.
Navalny is also a witness in the probe into the opposition rally on May 6, when protesters clashed with police. His apartment and office has been searched in the probe.
He has not confirmed he has a brother named Oleg, however a man named Oleg Navalny was shown in a 2010 Channel One report as a deputy director of a subsidiary of Russian Post.
Russia launches fraud probe against opposition leader
