Atomic account

Evgeniy Adamov was charged with 3 billion

On April 28, the Prosecutor General's Office of Russia completed the investigation of the criminal case against the former head of the Ministry of Atomic Energy of the Russian Federation, Yevgeny Adamov, who has already served more than six months in a Swiss prison, and is now languishing in the capital's "Matrosskaya Tishina" pre-trial detention center. As it turned out, in his homeland he is accused of theft of 3 billion rubles, committed as part of an organized group, as well as abuse and exceeding official powers, leading to grave consequences. The American prosecutor's office, which also tried to get hold of the former Russian minister, accuses him of embezzling “only” $9 million. Together with Mr. Adamov, three other people are involved in his “Russian” case.

According to the Prosecutor General's Office, Mr. Adamov entered into a criminal conspiracy with the former director of the State Unitary Enterprise "State Scientific Center "Trinity Institute of Innovative and Thermonuclear Research" (TRINITI) Vyacheslav Pismenny and the former general director of the state company "Techsnabexport", which supplies nuclear materials to the world market, Revmir Freishtut, as well as the president of the Russian-American company Globe Nuclear Services & Supply (GNSS) Alexander Chernov. From the case materials it follows that from August 1998 to December 1999, Adamov, while serving as minister, gave his subordinates instructions to transfer ownership of the private American company TEXI - a long-time partner of TRINITY - 62% of the shares of GNSS, which traded uranium and metals and chemical products on the markets of other countries. As a result, according to the Prosecutor General's Office, the previous owners of this block of shares - Techsnabexport and the Priargunsky Industrial Mining and Chemical Association - lost their dividends totaling about $31 million. According to the investigation, this money was subsequently transferred abroad - - to Monaco and France, and one of the recipients of the stolen dividends was a company that was allegedly personally controlled by Mr. Pismenny. Later the stake was resold to another American company - TEKAI.

In addition, the investigation accuses Mr. Adamov of issuing a number of illegal orders to conclude an agreement, under the terms of which the GNSS company was forgiven a debt for previously supplied and unpaid nuclear materials worth $113 million, as a result of which the state again suffered damage.

Yevgeny Adamov was extradited to Russia on December 31 last year after an eight-month stay in a Swiss prison, where he initially ended up at the request of US authorities. The Pittsburgh prosecutor's office accused him and his American partner Mark Kaushansky of embezzling $9 million back in the early 90s. This money was allocated by American corporations to the Research and Design Institute of Energy Engineering (NIKIET), which at that time was headed by Mr. Adamov , for projects to ensure the safety of Russian nuclear facilities. However, American investigators believe that millions ended up in the accounts of companies controlled personally by the former minister. But just two weeks after the US authorities’ request to extradite Mr. Adamov, the Russian Prosecutor General’s Office sent similar documents, which unexpectedly also opened a criminal case. After much deliberation, the Swiss decided to return the former Russian minister to his homeland.

Today, of all the defendants in the “domestic” criminal case of Mr. Adamov, only he himself remains in custody. The hearing on the next complaint from his lawyers about changing his preventive measure, by the way, is scheduled in the Moscow City Court for May 15. The rest of the participants in this story are Messrs. Written and Fraishtut, as far as is known, are under recognizance not to leave. As for Mr. Chernov, he was put on the international wanted list because he did not appear when the investigator called.

It is noteworthy that Mr. Adamov has not yet been able to begin familiarizing himself with the materials of his case. As it turned out, his lawyers did not expect the investigation to be completed so quickly and are now on vacation. However, it is already known that since the case contains many documents classified as “Secret”, it will be considered behind closed doors.

Ekaterina KARACHEVA