Penza, 4 September 2014. PenzaNews. An investigation department official reported the termination of criminal proceedings against Oleg Tyugaev, deputy of Penza City Duma of the fifth convocation and a member of United Russia Party, who was detained in Italy in summer 2013 as a suspect in the criminal case against a criminal gang accused of fraud and causing 67 million rubles to the state.

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“The criminal case was terminated on August 31, 2014,” Andrei Kondrashov, chief inspector of Investigation Department of the Investigative Committee of the Volga Federal District, said on Thursday, September 4.

He said that the case was ended due to the absence of the event of the crime.

“The case was initiated on the VAT refund. VAT was being refunded on the decision of the arbitral court. The defendants appealed to the fact that persecution against them was not stopped, as there is an unreversed judgment of the arbitral court. This decision recognized that VAT refund was legal. In this regard, based on the decision of the arbitral court, the district court found that the prosecution against them must be terminated,” the agency interlocutor said.

Answering the question of a PenzaNews correspondent on Oleg Tyugaev’s current location, who had been under a lengthy investigation for some time, Andrei Kondrashov said he had no information about it.

“Extradition procedure [from Italy to Russia] has not ended by the time of case termination,” he explained.

According to the agency interlocutor, the legal basis of the decision to discontinue the criminal proceedings, in accordance with the established procedure, will be checked by the prosecutor’s office and parent bodies.

Earlier, the investigation claimed that Oleg Tyugaev organized a criminal group, which in the period from 2009 to 2012, illegally reimbursed VAT from the Russian budget by committing fraud on a large-scale on behalf of a number of legal entities.

It was reported that, the members of the organized criminal group stole from the federal budget over 17 mln rubles in 2010, and over 27 mln rubles in 2012. The investigation looked into a number of other facts of illegal VAT refunds on a large scale, over 23 mln rubles, and whether the accused are connected with such advanced fraud schemes.

The total damage caused to the state budget exceeded 67 mln rubles.