Media: a criminal case has been opened regarding the theft of 350 million rubles by the former management of Transaero

Investigators opened a criminal case under the article “fraud in the field of lending on an especially large scale” against officials of the bankrupt airline Transaero. The managers are accused of embezzling 350 million rubles, reports , citing sources in law enforcement agencies. Kommersant

As the investigation found, in September 2009, Transaero took out a loan from Alfa Bank in the amount of 665 million rubles until the end of June 2015. By the end of the term, the air carrier was able to pay only 318 million. The rest of the money, according to the publication’s sources, was used by unnamed Transaero managers “at their own discretion.”

Kommersant notes that the investigation into the case was initially stopped in July 2016 as having no basis and related to statements by the former management of Transaero about deliberate bankruptcy. A few months later, the Tverskoy Court of Moscow overturned this decision on the complaint of Alfa Bank.

To a request from Kommersant, Alfa Bank responded that they consider any comments related to the criminal case to be incorrect and related to the scope of activity of law enforcement agencies.

The decision to bankrupt Russia’s second largest air carrier “according to the most severe option” was made by the federal government in October 2015. Within a week after this, Transaero stopped all foreign flights, and a week later - domestic flights. The airline's new owners later presented a "viable and functional" plan to create a new carrier.

A month before Transaero declared bankruptcy, the state airline Aeroflot offered to buy 75%+1 share of the troubled carrier with a turnover of 67.5 billion rubles for 1 ruble. Six months later, Aeroflot’s share in Russian air transportation amounted to more than 54%, reaching the highest figures since the times of the USSR.

Aeroflot CEO Vitaly Savelyev noted in a conversation with the Russian president in January 2016 that the departure of Transaero did not introduce “significant imbalances” into the Russian aviation market, and the state carrier “did not become a monopolist, despite significant figures.”