Lithuanian law-enforcement officials are conducting searches on Tuesday as they continue their pre-trial investigation following the arrest of Sarunas Stepukonis, a former partner at BaltCap Infrastructure Fund (BInF), the Financial Crime Investigation Service (FCIS) confirmed.
“It is normal that various procedural actions are being carried out, including searches,” FNTT spokeswoman Modesta Zdanauskaite told BNS.
She gave no further details.
BaltCap’s lawyer Darius Raulusaitis told LRT Radio on Tuesday that he was not aware of the searches.
BaltCap representatives later told BNS that no searches were taking place at the company’s headquarters.
The Vilnius City District Court on Monday issued a two-week arrest warrant for Stepukonis, who is suspected of having embezzled at least 27 million euros in BInF-managed companies’ funds.
The arrest warrant is valid for 14 days starting from February 10, when he was detained at the FCIS building in Vilnius at the request of the European Public Prosecutor’s Office.
Two pre-trial investigations centering around Stepukonis are being conducted.
In one of them, he is suspected of having embezzled more than 27 million euros. The other probe, closed in 2022 and recently reopened, is looking into a transfer of 3.9 million euros to Stepukonis from a Polish company, purportedly as part of a share sale transaction.
Both investigations are being conducted by the Financial Crime Investigation Service and overseen by the European Public Prosecutor’s Office. Officials are now considering merging the investigations into one.
Stepukonis is believed to have gambled away at least part of the embezzled money at casinos.
Law enforcement bodies have so far refused to disclose how much money Stepukonis has gambled away and whether he still has some of the embezzled funds.
Source: BNS
(Reproduction of BNS information in mass media and other websites without written consent of BNS is prohibited.)