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Court extends detention of Baring Vostok founder accused of embezzlement for 72 hours

The defense of Michael Calvey asked the court to reschedule the meeting as it needs extra time to provide documents concerning the defendant's personality

MOSCOW, February 15. /TASS/. The Basmanny Court in Moscow has extended the detention Michael Calvey, founder of the Baring Vostok fund for 72 hours, a TASS correspondent reported.

"The detention has been extended for 72 hours, the meeting is postponed until 13:00 Moscow time on February 16," the judge said.

The defense of Calvey asked the court to reschedule the meeting as it needs extra time to provide documents concerning the personality of the defendant. Also, the investigation indicated that the file contains documents in English that are not understandable to all participants in the process.

On Friday, the law enforcement forces detained four employees of the Baring Vostok investment fund, including Calvey, on suspicion of embezzling 2.5 bln rubles ($37.4 mln). Calvey is also the controlling shareholder and chairman of the board of directors of Vostochniy Bank.

Russia’s Investigative Committee initiated the criminal case of embezzlement against Calvey and several other employees of Baring Vostok on February 13

On Friday, Calvey and five other employees were detained: Vagan Abgaryan, CEO of the First Collection Agency Maxim Vladimirov, head of financial department at independent private investment firm Baring Vostok Capital Partners Philippe Delpal, head of Investments at Baring Vostok Capital Partners, an independent private equity firm, Ivan Zyuzin, Advisor to the Chairman of the Board of Norvik Bank Alexey Kordichev. They are suspected of committing a crime, under part 4 of Art. 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (Fraud on a large scale as part of a group).

According to the investigation, Calvey created a criminal scheme. As a result of that scheme the 2.5 bln rubles loan the First Collection Agency received from the Vostochniy bank in 2015 was credited with the assignment of shares.

According to investigators, Calvey misled the board of directors of the bank regarding the price of the First Collection Agency’s shares, which were estimated at the amount of debt at a real value of 600,000 rubles and this led to the actual theft of these funds. The criminal case was initiated on the basis of an application by Sherzod Yusupov, a member of the board of directors of Vostochniy Bank filed to the Federal Security Service.