KABUL, Afghanistan: Almost £1,000,000 in cash was allegedly stolen by Taliban rescuers after a Russian air ambulance crash landed in Afghanistan, media has reported.
The plane – a Falcon 10 air ambulance – was taking a seriously ill woman Anna Evsyukova, 59, from Thailand to Moscow when it crashed in Afghanistan mountains few days back.
Anna and her millionaire husband Anatoly Evsyukov, 65, were both killed in the plane crash but the two pilots miraculously survived alongside two medics on the board.
Following the incident, extraordinary allegations have emerged that a large sum of cash – around £945,000 – went missing from the air ambulance.
The loss was initially reported by Hasht-e-Subh daily in Afghanistan, which said: ‘Reliable sources have told the newspaper that following the theft of this sum of money, the Badakhshan province governor of the Taliban, Mohammad Ayub Khalid, appointed a commission to establish all facts and investigate this incident on orders from this group’s Deputy Prime Minister Mohammad Hasan Akhund.’
The commission will be headed by the chief of the Taliban intelligence directorate for Badakhshan province. Four out of six on board survived as the Falcon 10 plane crash landed in the Afghanistan mountains.
The rescue group that first reached the crash site were linked to the Taliban’s Armed Forces Chief of Staff Qari Fasihuddin Fitrat.
It is unclear who the alleged cash belonged to or why such a large sum was being carried on the ambulance. So far, neither Afghan nor Russian officials have commented on the ‘missing cash’.
The four surviving Russians remain in Afghanistan undergoing medical treatment, according to media reports.
There are also suggestions that the plane crashed because it ran out of fuel. The plane had flown from U-Tapao airport, near Pattaya, and made a refueling stop in India. The plane crashed while en-route to Tashkent for another refueling stop before heading to Moscow.
