A suspect in embezzlement at the unfinished fuel storage of the cosmodrome arrested
In Blagoveshchensk, Alik Aleksanyan, general director of the Moscow company Respect-SM, was arrested for fraud at the Vostochny cosmodrome. Under contracts with the Center for the Operation of Ground Space Infrastructure Objects (TSENKI), Respect-SM was supposed to complete the construction of the cosmodrome facilities, however, having received an advance payment of 700 million rubles, it completed work only for 100 million, and another 60 million were stolen. In the near future, the former chief engineer of TsENKI Vladimir Zhuk, who is already under investigation, may become a defendant in this case.
Employees of the TFR and FSB detained Alik Aleksanyan on Tuesday, and on Thursday, at the request of the investigation, he was arrested by a resolution of the Blagoveshchensk City Court. Interestingly, before sending the businessman, who comes from the Spitak region of Armenia, to jail for two months, Judge Oleg Filatov found that the investigation of the criminal case was at the initial stage, when evidence was being collected and consolidated; not all participants in the crime are known to law enforcement agencies, and the suspect himself has connections in law enforcement agencies, business circles and government agencies, which he can use to interfere with the investigation.
The presiding officer took into account that Alik Aleksanyan heads a fairly large company that has been building facilities for Roscosmos, Gazprom, Russian Orthodox Church and Russian Railways for two decades, and the suspect himself has positive characteristics and many thanks. It was also noted that the suspect rented an apartment in Blagoveshchensk, in which he may be under house arrest during the investigation, however, as the judge concluded, all this is clearly not enough to deny the investigation.
According to the Investigation Department of the TFR in the Amur Region, the crime imputed to Alik Aleksanyan was committed during the implementation of contracts concluded in 2020. Initially, the directorate of the Vostochny cosmodrome and JSC TSENKI signed an agreement for the completion of construction and installation work at the facility “Construction of a complex for the production and storage of rocket fuel components. Site No. 3.2 “, which is located in the closed city of Tsiolkovsky, Amur Region. Then the management of TSENKI entered into three agreements with OOO Respect-SM for a total amount of more than 4 billion rubles. It should be noted that “Respect-SM” was simultaneously completing the construction of not only the fuel storage, but also the houses for the organizers of space launches in the Zvezdny microdistrict of the same ZATO. The construction of these facilities was frozen back in 2015.
According to the investigation, the management of TsENKI was supposed to transfer “Respect-SM” an advance in the amount of 10% of the concluded contracts. However, according to the ICR, from the end of July to November 2020, the top managers of TsENKI, having exceeded their official powers, sent a total of 700 million rubles to the partner. The company, on the other hand, completed work for only 100 million rubles. At the same time, with the use of LLC Baval, affiliated with Respect-SM, at least 60 million rubles were stolen, the investigation believes.
If a case of fraud on an especially large scale was initiated against entrepreneurs (part 4 of article 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation), then against unidentified leaders of TsENKI – about exceeding official powers with causing grave consequences (part 3 of article 286 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). It should be noted that one of the defendants in this case is now the former Director of Infrastructure Operations – TsENKI Chief Engineer Vladimir Zhuk. Earlier, he was detained and placed in custody, as Kommersant reported, in the framework of a criminal case of abuse of office (part 1 of Art. 285 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) in connection with the commissioning of an incompletely constructed water intake, which led to an unfinished fuel storage. Then he and other defendants were released, and now they can be sent back to jail.
Fedor Maximov
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