MOSCOW, Oct 19 – Police said Friday they had arrested a senior Russian executive from the private TNK-BP oil producer on attempted fraud charges linked to his work at a previous regional government post.
The announcement came as Russia’s third-largest crude producer negotiates an acquisition bid by the government-controlled Rosneft company and follows board tension between the Anglo-Russian group’s Russian tycoon co-owners and BP.
A Russian interior ministry statement did not name the TNK-BP official nor specify when the arrest had been made.
It said he headed TNK-BP’s department for cooperation with state agencies and had previously served as the deputy head of the regional government of the Siberian district of Irkutsk.
The Interfax news agency separately identified the executive as Igor Korneyev.