Evroset employees arrested on kidnapping charges

5 Sep, 2008 03:30 / Updated 16 years ago

Two top officials with Russia's largest mobile phone retailer, Evroset, have been detained on charges of kidnapping and extortion. The company's vice president Boris Levin and deputy security chief Andrei Yermilov are accused of kidnapping a shipping agen

Russian business daily Kommersant reported that five years ago a company employee bought stolen phones on the black market to sell in his branches of the Evroset chain. An internal investigation exposed the corruption, which reportedly cost the company an estimated one million rubles.      Prosecutors claim that the two Evroset managers ordered the employee to “compensate for the damage he'd caused” and kidnapped him when he refused. On Thursday a court upheld the decision to keep Yermilov and Levin in custody.