The former commander of the 44th Army Corps of the Leningrad Military District, Major General Alexander Dembitsky, has been arrested on charges related to a large-scale fraud and extortion scheme related to payments to servicemen participating in the war in Ukraine, RBC reported, citing its sources.
According to the information, the 235th garrison military court has ordered Dembitsky to remain in custody for a period of two months. He is placed in the "Lefortovo" pre-trial detention center. Charges have been brought against him in a case of fraud on an especially large scale, related to the private military company "Yastreb". 89 servicemen were recognized as victims in the case.
The investigation believes that the general organized a scheme to embezzle funds from the salaries of contract soldiers. Dembitsky does not admit his guilt.
A day before his arrest, a court in the Belgorod region began considering the case against the founder of the PMC "Yastreb" Alexey Marushchenko. He has entered into an agreement with the prosecutor's office and is accused of murder, extortion, fraud on a particularly large scale and other crimes.
According to RBC, Marushchenko and his associates convinced volunteers who appeared at military commissariats to sign contracts with the Russian Ministry of Defense that if they entered service through the PMC "Yastreb", they would receive significantly higher salaries and avoid the problems typical of the regular army.
The investigation claims that the candidates were asked to pay up to 200,000 rubles (2,261 euros) from their one-time payments for participation in the war. In one of the described cases, a candidate for the PMC "Yastreb" was convinced to transfer about 1.25 million rubles (14,133 euros) in exchange for a promise that he would not be sent to the front line.