The Basmanny court in Moscow arrested for two months, until June 16, the former deputy director of the Ministry of Culture of Russia, Olga Yarilova. This was reported in the press service of the court.
Yarilova was charged with abuse of power, which entailed serious consequences (part 3 of article 285 of the Criminal Code). The defense of the former deputy director of the Ministry of Culture requested his house arrest.
What the crime was and what the amount of damages was, the court did not specify.
The detention of Olga Yarilova became known on April 19. TASS reported that investigative actions were carried out with her in connection with a criminal investigation into the theft of more than 200 million rubles from Pushkin Maps.
According to investigators, in 2022, residents of the Moscow region Viktor Yakubov, Emil Gurbanov and Ilya Safonov used fictitious Pushkin cards issued by Post Bank and stole more than 200 million rubles.
To do this, they organized a massive purchase of tickets, but did not organize any cultural events. Yakubov, Gurbanov and Safonov have been detained since January, and their property worth more than 100 million rubles has also been seized.
Olga Yarilova served as deputy culture minister from 2018 to 2022. The culture ministry claimed she left of her own free will.
The Pushkin Card program allows Russians between the ages of 14 and 22 to pay for trips to theatres, museums, concerts and exhibitions. The card can be issued through the portal “Gosuslugi”, 5,000 rubles are credited to it from the budget. The money can only be spent on cultural events.
The Culture Ministry Russian media said it systematically identifies companies that withdraw money from Pushkin cards under the guise of selling tickets to events.
In March 2023, the head of Rosfinmonitoring, Yury Chikhanchin, reported to Russian President Vladimir Putin the fraud with Pushkin cards.
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