The police laid a new charge against former president of the Bank of Moscow Andrei Borodin and his deputy Dmitry Akulinin. The investigative department of the Russia's interior ministry accused them of large-scale fraud, the crime under Article 159.4 of the RF Criminal Code. Borodin and Akulinin fled from Russia in April 2011 after the police had found out they allocated 12.76 billion roubles ($440m) of unsecured loan to Elena Baturina's Premier Estate Closed JSC.

Borodin and Akulinin are hiding in the UK. A Russian court has issued arrest warrant for both of them.

The police opened criminal investigation into multimillion financial fraud on 10 December 2010, the Russian Mafia (rumafia.com) reported. The investigators probed into 12.7 billion rouble deal to sell the land of 580,000 square metres in the western district of Moscow, which was struck on 25 June 2009. The plot was owned by Ramensakya Trade House LLC, daughter company of ousted Moscow mayor’s wife Elena Baturina's Inteco. Inteco planned to build a 729 thousand square metres residential complex called Setun Hills. The plans abandoned, Baturina decided to sell the land. The purchaser that acquired it was a firm called Premier Estate, founded and operated by Kuznetsky Most Development. After the deal between Inteco and Premier Estate had been struck, an offshore foundation called Argo Capital Partners, registered in the Cayman Islands in 2006, took control of Premier Estate. According to the conclusions of investigators, top managers of the Bank of Moscow colluded with Inteco that received 12.7 billion of roubles from the bank to secure the deal.

In a word, the multimillion loan was allocated to the firm which had been established only three months months before the deal and had an authorized capital stock of just 10,000 roubles (slightly more than $300).

At first the charges of fraud were brought against Boris Shemyakin, head of Kuznetsky Most Development Closed JSC. Later, the police laid charges against Svetlana Timonina, director general of Premier Estate Closed JSC. Back in March 2001 Andrei Borodin and Dmitry Akulinin were accused of abuse of power, the crime under Article 201 of the RF Criminal Code. They were to answer the charges in absentia, since both are in the UK.

In the course of investigation, the evidence was found "sufficient to charge Borodin and Akulinin of misappropriation of property through abuse of power". For instance, the credit agreement, signed by Akulinin, was found. It bears the sign of a circled cross - that is the way Borodin endorsed papers in the Bank of Moscow.

The police said that they had informed Borodin and Akulinin's lawyers of the charge against their clients five days before the charge was officially laid. It was done thus in full compliance with the law.