OREANDA-NEWS. November 18, 2009. The Pension Fund and the Central Bank of Russia have reported completion of a successful operation to save pension funds: they have prevented an attempt to steal RUB 1.25 bn from the fund’s CBR accounts. An attempt to steal funds was prevented and the entire amount was returned to the account of the Pension Fund at the Central Bank, a CBR source said.

The Pension Fund was the first to report on Tuesday “flagrant cases of fraud” and said it contacted the Bank of Russia the day before about payments worth RUB 1.25 bn from its accounts at CBR which were not authorized. “In the course of an investigation it was discovered that in the afternoon of November 13 an unknown person brought to the operating division of the Bank of Russia two payment instructions allegedly from the Pension Fund against which the bank began to transfer money. In these instructions, whose copies CBR yesterday transferred to the Pension Fund, false signatures of officials of the Pension Fund were identified, seals of the Pension Fund and budget classification codes not used by the Pension Fund”, the latter said.