The Moscow Basmanny Court decided that the former Deputy Minister of Culture of the Russian Federation, Olga Yarilova, should be detained until June 16. This was reported by RIA Novosti with reference to the press service of the court.
“The court granted the inspector’s petition to choose a restraining measure in the form of detention,” the court said.
Yarilova is charged with abuse of power under Part 3 of Article 285 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. Officially, it has not yet been reported what crime the former official may have committed and how much damage it could cause.
However, REN TV claims, citing a source, that Yarilova was accused of embezzlement of 125 million budget rubles.
He said the official was suspected of illegally spending 125 million rubles by listing the “World’s Tallest Ice Cream Museum” on the “Pushkin Map”. Despite the fact that the museum, located in one of the towers of the city of Moscow, is not an object of culture, schoolchildren can pay for admission using the Pushkin Card.
Yarilova’s lawyer requested that her client be placed under house arrest.
The media had previously reported that Yarilova was detained on April 19 as part of a criminal investigation into the theft of more than 200 million rubles while participating in the Pushkin Map project.
Its representatives have yet to comment on the progress of the case.
The investigation believes that certain Viktor Yakubov, Emil Gurbanov and Ilya Safonov cheated employees of a financial institution and Ministry of Culture by stealing more than 200 million rubles using fictitious “Pushkin cards” from Post Bank, TASS reported. According to the investigation, they organized a mass ticket purchase, but did not organize any cultural events.
His property worth 100 million rubles was confiscated. All three have been in custody since January.
Yarilova became Deputy Minister of Culture of the Russian Federation in 2018. She resigned voluntarily in September 2022.
The Pushkin Card program, opened on September 1, 2021 – young people aged 14-22 can use it to participate in cultural events, museums and exhibitions, using a limit of 5 thousand rubles per year.
On March 9, Yuri Chikhanchin, head of Rosfinmonitoring, during a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, told him about the fraudulent scheme with the return of tourists, as well as the revealed criminal plot with the Pushkin Card.
According to him, the program used the compilation of fictitious lists of people who needed help, but in reality these people did not exist.