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The Amur Prosecutor’s Office has launched a criminal case against the regional administration’s top officials on abuse of power after the latter illegally increased local energy tariffs to finance a local football club.

The investigation revealed that Amur administration officials illegally financed the region’s football club by including an extra fee in the tariffs for electric energy, a press statement from the prosecutor’s office reported Thursday.

According to the statement, in 2004 the region’s governor Leonid Korotkov addressed the region’s energy commission offering to include an additional fee into the tariffs aiming to secure financing for the football club ‘Amur’. The fee, introduced into the tariffs as ‘expenses for charity’, resulted in a 0.8 kopeck increase in the electric energy tariffs for local residents and totaled 41 million rubles ($1.6 million).

The administration’s actions violated the residents’ constitutional rights through the unjustified increase of their expenses for electric energy and heating, the statement reported.

The case was launched after an inspection by Russia’s Audit Chamber, the statement said.