Police raid the offices of another Moscow university

The police raided the offices of two administrators at Moscow’s Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration on Wednesday, searching the workspaces of financial director Alexander Efremov and Vice President Vladimir Fedotov.

A source in the police told the state news agency RIA Novosti that the raids were conducted as part of a felony investigation into “major fraud related to fictitious employment at the university.”

Another source told the news agency TASS that the searches are connected to the case against former Deputy Education Minister Marina Rakova and Sergey Zuyev, the head of the liberal Moscow School for the Social and Economic Sciences. The source claimed that Efremov and Fedotov are currently witnesses in this case.

According to investigators, Zuyev’s school received state funding to fulfill two government contracts without ever completing the work. Officials say Marina Rakova used her position in the Education Ministry to lobby for this allocation of public money. So far in the case, police have named six suspects, all of whom maintain their innocence.