Russia’s former deputy education minister arrested on embezzlement charges

Russia’s former deputy education minister Marina Rakova was arrested in Moscow, the Interior Ministry’s spokesperson Irina Volk reported on Wednesday, October 6.

Rakova, who is currently Sberbank’s vice president, was put on a wanted list for fraud on October 1. According to Volk, Rakova was detained and taken to the Moscow Police’s Main Investigation Department for questioning.

Sources told TASS and Kommersant that Rakova turned herself in to the police. 

Update. Later in the day on Wednesday, Moscow’s Tverskoy Court jailed Marina Rakova’s common-law husband, Artur Stetsenko, until December 5 on suspicion of large-scale fraud. According to investigators, during the period when Rakova headed the Education Ministry’s Foundation for New Forms of Education Development, Stetsenko was fictitiously employed by this organization. Allegedly, he collected upwards of nine million rubles (more than $124,000 by today’s exchange rage) in “wages” between 2017 and 2019.

The criminal case against Marina Rakova became known on September 29, when law enforcement carried out searches of her home and office. Investigators believe that while serving as deputy education minister in 2019, Rakova embezzled 50 million rubles (approximately $690,500 by today’s exchange rate) in state funds.

Rakova was not detained following the searches and the next day investigators reported that they were unable to get in contact with her. The Interior Ministry subsequently confirmed that Rakova had been put on a wanted list for fraud after she “absconded from the investigation.”