Russian ex-official extradited by France to face fraud charges

MOSCOW: Russia said Thursday that France had extradited a former regional finance official to face trial on multiple counts of fraud, misuse of funds and money laundering after a long legal battle.

The Prosecutor General's office said in a statement that Alexei Kuznetsov had been "extradited to Russia accompanied by staff from the Russian prison service and the Russian bureau of Interpol".

Kuznetsov served as finance minister for the Moscow region between 2000 and 2008, when he left Russia for the United States.

According to investigators he, along with "accomplices", caused losses of more than 14 billion rubles ($203 million at the current rate) to the Moscow regional government.

Kuznetsov was arrested at a hotel close to Saint-Tropez in the summer of 2013 and appealed against his extradition in French courts over the course of five years.

Russia in January last year sentenced Kuznetsov's ex-wife Janna Bullock in absentia to 11 years for embezzling and laundering more than 11 billion rubles. She is a US citizen and the US refuses to extradite her to Russia.

Bullock was found guilty of acting as part of an organised criminal group including Kuznetsov that embezzled state funding from the region and then used the money to buy luxury properties abroad.