Employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia discovered the theft of more than 100 million rubles allocated for the implementation of the state program “Pushkin Card”. This was reported by the official representative of the department, Irina Volk.
Police arrested a Moscow businessman suspected of embezzlement.
According to investigators, the suspect helped set up performances in different places in the country, whose tickets could be purchased, among other things, with the Pushkin card. The scammers found young people on the Internet who bought tickets with the budget funds provided on their cards, but who had no intention of attending the events.
“Thus, the funds provided for by the state program for the cultural development and education of youth were stolen. As a result, the Russian Federation suffered damage worth more than 100 million rubles.” – pointed out the Wolf.
He clarified that the fraudulent scheme has been operating since 2021 and that the performances were held in theaters in several regions: Moscow, Saint Petersburg, Bashkiria, Novgorod, Samara, Sverdlovsk, Chelyabinsk and Ulyanovsk.
A criminal case has been initiated against the suspect under Art. 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (large-scale fraud).
Activities are currently being carried out aimed at identifying all accomplices in illegal activities.
The federal project “Pushkin Card”, implemented within the framework of the national project “Culture”, allows young people between 14 and 22 years old to attend various events free of charge by paying for tickets with the “Pushkin Card”. The limit of funds is 5 thousand rubles. The project determines the cultural institutions and events that can be accessed with the card.
As reported EADailyAccording to the results of 2023, Russian teenagers spent about 4 billion rubles from Pushkin cards on movie tickets. With this money, 2.8 million tickets were purchased.
