A married couple from Magnitogorsk, Chelyabinsk Region, was accused of fraud recently. The couple, who were the official Ford dealers in Russia, received about 40m RUR from sixty-five customers so that they could buy the automobiles, but the money was spent ad libitum, the press officer of Ural Federal District division of the General Prosecutor’s Office reports.

In 2008 and 2009, one of the suspects was a Director of Magtechnocenter, Ford’s official representative in Russia, while his spouse was the company’s CFO.

A portion of the money was invested in putting up a building for a joint stock company Studio Gran Production – Delovoy Partner they had set up; this was an attempt to make the couple’s profits look legitimate.

The couple are accused of crimes described in Article 159 (part 4), Article 160 (part 4), and Article 174.1 (part 2, paragraphs a and b) of the Russian Federation Criminal Code, namely, large-scale fraud, large-scale embezzlement, and money-laundering operations carried out by a colluding group of people who abused their office authority.

Ford’s new official dealer Ford Motor Company had to cover up for the part of the damage and provide forty customers with the automobiles they had paid for.

After the bill of indictment had been read out by the prosecutor, the criminal suit was placed with Magnitogorsk Pravoberezhny District Court.