In the special flight squad “Russia”, which also serves the country’s top officials, fraud was discovered, the damage from which is estimated at 48 million rubles, writes Kommersant. Among those detained is the head of the procurement service

VIP-class airliner TU-204-300 from the special flight squad “Russia” (Photo: RIA Novosti)

Three people were arrested on charges of particularly large-scale fraud as part of a criminal case involving fraud in procurement at the federal state budgetary institution, the special flight detachment "Russia". newspaper wrote about this on Tuesday The Kommersant .

According to the publication, among the defendants in the case are the head of the procurement service of “Russia” Igor Kovalenko, a member of the competition commission of the same FBGU Dmitry Pozdnyakov and one of the managers of Pribor-Service CJSC Alexey Menitsky. All of them are accused of especially large-scale fraud (Part 4 of Article 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation).

According to the publication, a criminal case was opened on March 10 of this year. On March 11, all three defendants were arrested by decision of the Basmanny Court. On Monday, April 11, the Moscow City Court rejected the appeal of their lawyers and left all the defendants in custody.

According to the newspaper's sources, the criminal case concerns a contract for the supply and maintenance of air conditioning systems for aircraft of the Rossiya flight squad. The essence of the investigation's claims, according to some sources, comes down to inflated prices at auctions and lobbying for the interests of Pribor-Service. At the same time, the company offered a higher price than other potential suppliers; it did not produce the equipment itself, but was only an intermediary. The case materials include damage estimated at 48 million rubles.

In March of this year, searches were reported in Rossiya. It was also reported that four squad members were among the suspects. However, not everyone was taken into custody, the publication clarifies.

Million-dollar procurement fraud was discovered in the Rossiya flight squad