Another attempt by the Third Directorate of the TFR was unsuccessful. Mikhail Tolstobrov, the prosecutor of the district department of the Prosecutor General’s Office, again did not approve the indictment.
Criminal case No. 270016 was initiated on March 2, 2016 in the 3rd Investigation Department of the Investigative Committee of Russia on the grounds of crimes committed against CJSC Saratov Aviation Plant under Article 196 (deliberate bankruptcy), Article 201 Part 2 (abuse of authority, resulting in grave consequences), Article 199 part 1 (failure to fulfill the duties of a tax agent).
Legally, the aircraft manufacturing giant ceased to exist in 2012, but in reality, the enterprise plunged into the abyss of problems in the 90s of the last century, not only because of crushing reforms, but also because of the ill-conceived policy of the ex-general director and the main shareholder of the plant, Alexander Yermishin.
In the early 2000s, a lawsuit against SAZ in the amount of 335.9 million rubles was filed by the company Gazkomplektimpeks, this lawsuit started the first bankruptcy in 2005, during which the right to claim debt was bought by supporters of the Penza SRO AU Liga, which has a lot of destroyed giants of the industry.
The bankruptcy procedure was introduced at the enterprise twice, it was conducted by arbitration managers from the “League”, and its members, in violation of the law, both headed the enterprise and dealt with its bankruptcy.
So, the representative of this SRO, Igor Sklyar, became the bankruptcy trustee in the first procedure, Oleg Fomin, who headed the League at that time, was the general director of SAZ for a long time, representatives of this SRO also sat on the board of directors. In the future, Sklyar and Fomin replaced each other in senior positions at the aircraft factory.
The total dominance of the “League” allowed its members to uncontrollably master the assets of the Saratov giant, and the plant with an estimated value of 8 billion rubles, having been sold in its entirety, failed to pay off the debt that began the story of its collapse.
In the second bankruptcy (began in 2010), the entire debt of the enterprise increased to 1.033 billion rubles, during bankruptcy proceedings only 107 million rubles were bailed out. The tax inspectorate, as the plant’s largest creditor (over 800 million rubles), did nothing to influence the course of the procedure.
In 2009, in the interval between two bankruptcies, by decision of the shareholders’ meeting, the lion’s share of the company’s assets was transferred to two JSCs – Yuzhny Aerodrom and Razvitie. As a result of such a reorganization, 264 hectares of airfield land and a huge number of real estate objects left the enterprise – 33 land plots in Saratov, 68 buildings, non-residential premises, apartments.
In the field of ruining the plant, they were especially zealous, as investigators of the Third Directorate of the ICR established, the former general director of the plant Oleg Fomin (Art. 196, Art. 201, part 2 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation), the bankruptcy trustee who conducted the first bankruptcy procedure Igor Sklyar (Art. 201 part 2, as well as article 199.1 part 1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation – failure to fulfill the duties of a tax agent in personal interests) and Oleg Tyugaev, a member of the board of directors of SAZ CJSC.
His case has been separated into a separate proceeding, he is wanted under Part 3. article 33 (organizer of the crime), article 196, article 201 part 2 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. All of them are defendants in criminal case No. 270016. In 2019, Oleg Fomin and Igor Sklyar were awarded personal criminal cases under part 2 of article 201 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (exceeding official powers with serious consequences).
The criminal case itself was initiated thanks to the principled position of the Investigative Committee of the ICR for the Penza Region and State Duma deputies from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation Olga Alimova and Valery Rashkin. The materials of the case on the unlawful refund of VAT, which were conducted by investigators of the Penza Investigative Committee of the Investigative Committee, formed the basis. Thanks to the excavations carried out by them at the enterprise in Saratov, documents exposing the “occupation” administration of SAZ were saved from destruction.
A few years later, the case initiated in 2016 served as an impetus for grandiose land restitutions: the plots of the aircraft plant, which Penza businessmen had so cleverly taken over, triumphantly returned to the ownership of the Russian Federation. The trials began in 2018, and by 2022, through arbitration, almost 300 hectares of the territory of the SAZ and ten shelters of civil defense and emergency situations were returned to the country’s ownership.
But, as it turned out, it is easier to return hundreds of hectares to the state than to bring clever arbitrators to court. This year, 265 volumes of criminal case No. 270016 for the third time went to the Office of the Prosecutor General for the Volga Federal District for approval of the indictment. In April, it became known that this time the prosecutor of the district department of the Prosecutor General’s Office, Mikhail Tolstobrov, did not approve the indictment.
Previously, the representative of the supervision could not see a causal relationship between the acts of Fomin and Sklyar and the bankruptcy of the enterprise, pointed to the expiration of the investigation, put forward formal remarks. Every time the investigators conscientiously worked on these objections and conducted expert examinations. What exactly did not like now is unknown, but the prosecutor’s barrier again turned out to be insurmountable.
The appeal of the head of the TFR, Alexander Bastrykin, and the deputy requests of parliamentarian Olga Alimova, did not have any effect either. What kind of arguments were given in the response of the Prosecutor General’s Office to the appeal of the head of the TFR Alexander Bastrykin, we do not know, and the State Duma deputy Olga Alimoy was answered briefly by the “instances”. A member of the Communist Party faction appealed to Prosecutor General Igor Krasnov (he only said that the department for the Volga Federal District had justifiably refused), and to Deputy Chairman of the Security Council Dmitry Medvedev, who simply referred to the response of the Prosecutor General’s Office.
“All this outrages me, of course, but on the other hand, all this lawlessness at the aircraft plant did not begin for that, the enterprise was destroyed not for that, so that later someone would suddenly sit in the dock,” says Olga Alimova. – This system, in which they don’t give up their own, stands and feels great. Even the fact that the land was suddenly returned to the state looks like a redistribution of property in someone’s interests, and there is no triumph of justice nearby. The feeling is that restitution was not carried out in the name of the law, it’s just a move in the next game. Therefore, for balance, the land was returned, and the figures who frolicked at the SAZ and destroyed the plant, do not touch.
Help “BV”. According to the investigation, stated on the official website of the TFR, in 2009, the General Director of CJSC Saratov Aviation Plant Sklyar and the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the enterprise Fomin withdrew the liquid property of the plant at a reduced cost, and also created artificial accounts payable, which led to the bankruptcy of the enterprise and causing material damage in the amount of 895.8 million rubles. In addition, Sklyar failed to fulfill his duties as a tax agent of CJSC Saratov Aviation Plant in transferring personal income tax calculated from the wages of the plant’s employees to the budget in the amount of 41.3 million rubles.
