In St. Petersburg, Interior Ministry investigators have completed an investigation into another case of embezzlement of funds from the city budget during the construction of the Gazprom Arena. In the dock were former employees of Vodokanal Andrey Pozdeev and Roman Burashnikov, as well as contractors Serik Chaikin, Vadim Ermakov and Maria Sysoeva. All of them are accused of creating a fraudulent scheme, according to which equipment was ordered at a greatly inflated cost through a controlled company. The amount of payment was indicated under the contracts in excess of 291 million rubles, but in fact it was purchased for much less money. According to investigators, the defendants put the difference in their pocket. Thus, the total damage caused to the city treasury amounted to more than 30 million rubles.
According to the press service of the St. Petersburg police, investigators of the sixth department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia for St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region sent criminal cases to the prosecutor’s office with indictments against five defendants who are suspected of fraud committed on an especially large scale (part 4 of article 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation ) during the construction of the Gazprom Arena. According to the investigation, from 2016 to 2019, Andrey Pozdeev, top manager of Vodokanal of St. Petersburg State Unitary Enterprise, as well as Roman Burashnikov, an employee of the enterprise, secured a contract for the supply and installation of equipment with affiliated companies.
As it became known to Kommersant-SPb from sources in law enforcement agencies, the organizer and leader of the criminal group was Mr. Pozdeev: it was he who developed the plan and method for committing the crime, and also attracted the rest of the participants and created the Fortis commercial organization, where his 38 -year-old acquaintance Vadim Ermakov. Serik Chaykin and Marina Sysoeva were also employed there, who, according to the investigation, helped to realize the criminal intent.
Further, without carrying out the competitive procedure prescribed by law, a contract was concluded between the State Unitary Enterprise and this company for the supply of equipment, in which the cost was inflated in advance – by more than 24 million rubles. So, under the state contract, the amount of payment was indicated in the amount of more than 291 million rubles, with its actual cost of 267 million. According to forged documents, the customer transferred the money to Vodokanal, from where they went to the accounts of Fortis. In turn, Mr. Yermakov transferred money for supposedly performed work and rendered services to the accounts of controlled companies OOO KMD Holding, OOO Fram, OOO G Group and OOO Flymer.
The case file states that, according to the same scheme, but a little later, the State Unitary Enterprise signed a contract with ZAO Project Agency for the supply of Jafar brand equipment, the manufacturer of which was allegedly a European manufacturer, but in fact it was made in China. To make it look like the original, fake nameplates were installed on it, and the head of technical supervision Roman Burashnikov accepted the goods according to forged documents. As a result, the state institution paid 6 million rubles for this, although its real cost was less than a million.
Until 2014, Andrey Pozdeev himself was the general director of the Design Agency – from there he left for a position at Vodokanal, and the company, meanwhile, became one of the main contractors of the State Unitary Enterprise. The suspect also appears in the criminal case, in which the ex-head of Vodokanal, Yevgeny Tselikov, is accused of embezzlement and embezzlement of more than 200 million rubles, as well as abuse of power. The investigation claims that in 2017-2018, Mr. Tselikov illegally put resolutions under the advance payment of ZAO. At the same time, most of the concluded work contracts were not executed, the investigation claims.
The security forces conducted searches at the addresses of residence and work of the defendants, during which they seized two BMW cars, a motorcycle of the same brand, an Infiniti car and a Toyota Land Cruiser, more than 597 thousand rubles, about $ 32 thousand, more than € 27 thousand, computer equipment, phones, hard drives, flash drives and documents, including those establishing the right to real estate. The property of Fortis LLC was arrested for a total amount of about 15 million rubles as compensation for the damage caused.
In 2020, the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation revealed the theft of about 180 million rubles in the supply of video surveillance systems during the construction of a football stadium on Krestovsky Island. A year later, the Kuibyshevsky District Court announced the verdict against nine entrepreneurs and former city officials in the case of fraud during the construction of the facility. Former Vice Governor Marat Hovhannisyan was sentenced to five and a half years in a strict regime.