ST. PETERSBURG, April 4 (RAPSI) – A criminal case against CEO of Petropolis company Mark Bronovsky charged with a 576-million-ruble ($9 million) tax refund fraud has reached the Krasnogvardeysky District Court of St. Petersburg, according to court records.

The hearing date has not been set yet.

According to case papers, from early 2009 to late 2013, Bronovsky, then director of the group of companies Sotrans, and his accomplices falsified documents and made false entries in the income-tax returns. Therefore, they received illegal VAT refund worth 576 million rubles.

Concurrently, the Primorsky District Court of St. Petersburg is hearing a similar criminal case against Bronovsky and 10 other defendants including lawyers and economists.

Investigators claim that between 2006 and 2009 Bronovsky, a St. Petersburg-based attorney Alexander Shved, then deputy head of St. Petersburg tax service Tatyana Makarova and one more unidentified person organized a criminal enterprise and conspired to commit a 400-million-ruble tax return fraud. Moreover, they are charged with attempted embezzlement of 430 million rubles (over $6 million).

Bronovsky’s assets worth nearly 1 billion rubles (over $15 million) have been seized.