Saint Petersburg (AFP) – Former Saint Petersburg deputy governor Marat Oganesyan admitted that he embezzled 50.4 million rubles ($848,526) during the construction of the city’s new stadium for the World Cup, the Investigative Committee of Russia said on Thursday.
Oganesyan was arrested in November 2016 over a fraud scheme with a firm that was supposed to provide the stadium with a video scoreboard.
“He arranged a payment of a deposit of 50.4 million rubles to the company that was diverted through shell companies,” the local section of the committee said in a statement.
“Mr Oganesyan knew that the company TDM did not intend to spend this money for the electronic panel in the stadium.”
The 68,000-capacity Saint Petersburg Stadium will host six matches at next year’s World Cup, including the first semi-final on July 10.
