Sergei Krokhin was twice under investigation
Company “Lan-project” Sergei Krokhin within the framework of the state order, it supplied to the Ministry of Internal Affairs devices for hacking iPhone and Android mobile devices, the capabilities of which differed from the requirements specified in the contract, the Investigative Committee believes. Krokhin is suspected of embezzling 25 million rubles, and this is not the first such accusation against him. He is suspected of particularly large-scale fraud, which can lead to 10 years in prison. His company has been supplying complexes for extracting information from mobile phones to the Ministry of Internal Affairs for at least the past five years.
Stole from the Ministry of Internal Affairs – attracted the attention of the TFR
The Investigative Committee of Russia opened a criminal case against the 61-year-old founder and CEO of Lan-project LLC Sergey Krokhin. As Kommersant writes, the persecution of the businessman is connected with a state contract for the supply of hardware for hacking Android smartphones, as well as Apple iOS.
The state order came from the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs. According to the publication, the contract with Lan-project was concluded at the end of April 2021. The investigation believes that, as part of the fulfillment of the terms of the contract, Sergey Krokhin stole over 25 million rubles.
The CNews editors found several more tenders on the public procurement website for the supply of mobile phone hacking devices to the Ministry of Internal Affairs for a total of several tens of millions of rubles, dated 2021-2022. In all of them, the only bidder was Krokhin’s company, which eventually received the contract. Krokhin has carried out similar deliveries over the past few years. About one of them CNews wrote March 2018
Nothing to hack iPhone
As part of the agreements with the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Lan-project company was supposed to ship several so-called “hardware and software systems for the removal, research and analysis of mobile device data” to the department. The investigation believes that Sergey Krokhin himself, and the head of the department of technology and special software systems Anton Evgraschenkov (the second suspect in the case) – “knowingly knew” that they would not be able to ensure the supply of equipment in the required configuration.
A new case against Krokhin and Evgraschenkov was initiated by the decision of the Meshchansky Interdistrict Investigation Department of the Main Investigative Committee of the ICR in Moscow. A tangle of details related to the Lan-project and devices for hacking mobile phones has been unraveled by the specialists of the Office since the summer of 2022.
Same design, different fillings
According to investigators, Krokhin and Yevgrashchenkov were guided by “selfish interests” and as a result “formed a criminal intent to steal money from the Ministry of Internal Affairs” by supplying him with “less valuable goods.” What exactly are the differences between the devices, at the time of publication of the material was not known.
Initially established in the contract, the terms for the shipment of goods (four months) were disrupted by the businessmen.
In the course of implementing their plan, the businessmen, according to the investigation, in September 2021 summoned an employee of the Ministry of Internal Affairs responsible for the implementation of the state contract with Lan-project to their office. They gave him a presentation of the software packages that would be sent to the ministry, but deliberately provided him with incorrect data about the capabilities of the devices and their hardware specifications.
The information was heavily embellished. As a result, the contract was fulfilled – Lan-project supplied the devices shown, which were later distributed to 17 departments of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
The Ministry transferred money to Krokhin’s company at the end of October 2021. The amount of the transfer amounted to 25.896 million rubles. minus a penalty in the amount of 134 thousand rubles. for delays in delivery.
One thing is never enough
This criminal case was the second in relation to Krokhin, in which state contracts of the Ministry of Internal Affairs appear. There was no need to look for a businessman, like Anton Evgraschenkov – by decision of the same department of the ICR, they were detained in the summer of 2022 and are currently under house arrest.
They were arrested in a similar case – they are accused of fraud on an especially large scale (part 4 of article 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, up to 10 years in prison), and the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs again acts as the injured party, this time its North Caucasian Department of Materials technical support.
61-year-old Sergei Krokhin was especially successful in this. His defense at the trials claims that the investigation has no evidence of the client’s involvement in the theft, “except for an expert opinion and the testimony of two witnesses who did not even give his last name,” and the petition for an extension of the arrest is every time “satisfied by the district court formally.” According to the representative of Mr. Krokhin, even if he remains at large, he will not hide or put pressure on witnesses, if only because he suffers from an oncological disease in the third stage and needs an operation first of all. “The ban on walks imposed by the court causes irreparable harm to his health, and the coordination with the investigator of each trip to the hospital has become an even more serious problem,” the lawyer notes.
Close connection with the “Lan-project”
It should be noted that the Ministry of Internal Affairs and other departments, as well as banks with state participation, have been regularly purchasing devices and software designed to remove protection from mobile devices based on Google Android and Apple iOS in recent years. And the name of Sergey Krokhin’s company appears regularly in tenders.
For example, in 2018, the department of the Investigative Committee for the Volgograd Region purchased for 800 thousand rubles. portable hardware complex UFED Touch2 Ultimate Ruggedized manufactured by the Israeli company Cellebrite. The delivery was organized by Lan-Project. In 2017, the Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs for the Khabarovsk Territory updated the UFED Touch software to the UFED Touch2 Ultimate version, purchasing the relevant services for 1.26 million rubles. from the same company. Through it, UFED Touch2 was also purchased by Sberbank, which paid 4.1 million rubles. for 11 devices.
In November 2019, the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Novosibirsk Region announced a tender for the purchase of a license extension for the Mobile Criminalist software for 299 thousand rubles. The program allows you to extract data from smartphones, including viewing contacts, correspondence and data on user calls.
February 16, 2021 Northwestern District Logistics Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs launched public procurement 11 foreign devices for hacking smartphones for 16.8 million rubles. An even larger tender for the purchase of 16 complexes was announced on February 20, 2021 by the Volga District Logistics Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The starting price of the lot was 24.4 million rubles.
What is known about the supplier
Sergey Krokhin founded Lan-Project in July 2000 in Moscow. The authorized capital of the company is 250 thousand rubles, Krohig is its sole owner (data from the Unified State Register of Legal Entities).
The main activity of the company is “development of computer software” (OKVED code 62.01). Additional activities – 20, including “production of other construction and installation works” (43.29).
In less than 23 years of existence, Krokhin’s company took part in almost 900 state tenders. In 740 of them for a total of 1.6 billion rubles. she came out the winner (data from “Kontur.focus”). Among the customers, according to Kommersant: the Moscow Main Directorate of the Ministry of Emergency Situations (installation of a fire safety system) and the FSB Center for Licensing, Certification and Protection of State Secrets (development of encryption tools and information systems).
At the end of 2021, Lan-project’s revenue amounted to 1.7 billion rubles. Net profit – 79.4 million. The company’s staff – 129 people, open vacancies – 129.
As lawyer Valery Panasyuk, representing the interests of the Lan-Project company, told RBC, the company does not have information about the inspection, law enforcement agencies did not request any information on the specified contract. The lawyer also noted that on January 18, the Khoroshevsky District Court refused to extend the house arrest of Sergey Krokhin, General Director of Lan-Project LLC.