MOSCOW, April 20 (UPI) -- Russia will continue to pursue individuals allegedly involved in a money-laundering case that stripped the national treasury of several billions of dollars, a chief Russian audit official said Saturday.
Sergei Stepashin, the chairman of the state-run watchdog body, the Audit Chamber, added a recent probe into the government's financial dealings had revealed misappropriations of funds received four years ago, just months ahead of the August 1998 economic crash that saw the ruble plunge fourfold.
In his interview with the state-controlled Mayak radio station, Stepashin said the funds had been received through International Monetary Fund loans as part of the global effort to help lift Russia's staggering economy.
However, significant chunks of the loans ended up in private hands whose owners are still unknown.
On Saturday, Stepashin said a criminal investigation that opened "in connection with the serious problems of the IMF loans is still under way."
"We're talking about $4 billion that we haven't been able to track down yet," he added.
According to the official, the Prosecutor General's office is expected to complete the investigation by the end of this year, tipping off the main players involved in the funds' embezzlement.
During ex-President Boris Yeltsin's tenure, wide-spread corruption and abuse of power undermined Russia's fledgling market economy as capital flight was almost uncontrollable with tens of billions of dollars leaving the country every year.
Many of these incidents are believed to have been directly linked with corrupt government officials who were in charge of handling foreign loans and diverted large amounts of money to their private bank accounts, opened overseas in off-shore banks.
In mid-1990s, Yeltsin's liberal, pro-Western stance guaranteed Russia new loans from Western banks which generously pumped cash into Russia's economy to facilitate a paramount economic reform.
The March 1998 ouster of longtime Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin's government signaled that the reform was in deep trouble.
Only five months later, Chernomyrdin's successor, Sergei Kirienko, announced the government had defaulted on its bonds, triggering a nationwide economic crisis that saw millions of people lose their savings and hundreds of banks collapse.