Russia detains federal youth agency official and Synergy private university vice-rector over allegedly unusable online courses
Update: Denis Ashirov, deputy head of Russia’s youth affairs agency Rosmolodezh, has been detained in a fraud investigation involving contracts with Synergy University, sources told RBC.
Authorities searched Synergy University as part of a theft investigation and detained Vice Rector Mikhail Yerofeyev, REN TV and TASS reported.
Kommersant reported that Yerofeyev is suspected of stealing funds while carrying out a government contract and is being held in a temporary detention facility. The investigation concerns a contract worth 31.5 million rubles that Synergy received in 2023, the newspaper reported.
Investigators allege that subcontractors did most of the work to create an online professional development course, spending no more than 13.5 million rubles. However, the university received full payment after the work was accepted, and investigators believe its management may have stolen or embezzled the remaining 18 million rubles. The resulting courses also proved unusable in practice, Kommersant reported.
The university said the searches and other investigative actions concern two government contracts signed with Rosmolodezh in 2023 and 2024. Synergy maintains that it completed the work on time and that the educational programs it created “actually worked”: More than 50,000 people completed the training, and more than 36,000 received professional development certificates, the university said in a statement.
The university also said it was operating as usual and cooperating with investigators. It said investigators had opened a case over an alleged crime without targeting specific employees and that no one has been charged. It did not comment on Yerofeyev’s detention.
Synergy University (Moscow University for Industry and Finance “Synergy”) grew out of the Moscow Higher Banking School in 1995. It received state accreditation in the mid-2000s and is now one of Russia’s largest private universities.
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