The Moscow Times Police Search Office of Realtor Inkom

The Moscow Times

Police on Thursday searched the central office of real estate firm Inkom in connection with an investigation into the theft of 550 million rubles ($17 million) at formerly city-owned Bank of Moscow.

Uniformed officers armed with submachine guns arrived at the Moscow office Thursday morning in search of documents linked to “an employee of the company,” Konstantin Popov, formerly head of Bank of Moscow’s audit committee, Inkom Real Estate spokesman Anton Gololobov told Interfax.

Popov owns 50 percent of Inkom, with the other 50 percent owned by Sergei Kozlovsky, Gazeta.ru reported.

Popov gave evidence to police during questioning Thursday morning, Gololobov said.

A police spokesperson told the news agency that the search was not in any way related to Inkom’s activities.

Moscow police interrogated Popov in connection with an investigation into the theft in 2009 and 2010 of 547 million rubles from Bank of Moscow, which was acquired by state-controlled VTB in 2011. Employees of the bank are suspected of having used more than 300 fraudulent currency transactions to steal the funds.

Police conducted more than 10 searches at the residences of suspects in the case on May 30, according to Interfax.