Voentorg is inappropriate here

In the United States, Leonid Teif, who was in charge of food, bath and laundry services for the Russian military department, was arrested

On December 5, in the city of Raleigh, the capital of the American state of North Carolina, FBI agents raided a luxurious mansion of 1,500 square meters, stuffed with a collection of paintings worth several million dollars, with a golf course and spacious garages in which four Mercedes-Benz sedans languished, frightening a search warrant for governesses, gardeners and other servants.

For the FBI, it was no secret that since 2012 the mansion was owned by the Russians - the spouses Leonid and Tatyana Teif. At the time of the purchase of the mansion, Leonid Teif worked as deputy general director of Voentorg OJSC.

In the United States, 57-year-old Leonid Teif is suspected of withdrawing $150 million from Russia. According to investigators, from 2010 to 2012, Teif, holding the position of one of the key leaders of Voentorg, was responsible for concluding contracts with the Russian Ministry of Defense for bath and laundry services and meals for military personnel. The position allowed Teif to create a system in which the lion's share of contracts was received by firms controlled personally by him.

Suspicions about Teif and his wife did not surprise me in the least. The only strange thing is that the withdrawal of 150 million from Russia interested US law enforcement agencies, not Russia.

Although there were very serious grounds for a meticulous check of the work of Leonid Teif as deputy general director of Voentorg back in the fall of 2012.

Six years ago, in the investigation “The Defeat of Voentorg”, we wrote about how the liquidation of Voentorg OJSC, established by the Ministry of Defense, was being prepared, which resulted in the sale of 1,500 stores and food supply facilities and bath and laundry services.

In the course of the investigation, we drew attention to Leonid Teif, who took the post of deputy director of Voentorg, having moved from St. Petersburg to Moscow.

Teif's most important asset was considered to be a trusting relationship with Yevgeny Prigozhin, the owner of Concord-Catering. It was Teif who provided Prigozhin's company with the first outsourcing contracts for providing food to army units. And soon the firms controlled by him became the largest counterparty of the Russian military department, and the amounts of these contracts amounted to billions of rubles.

In November 2012, the Russian Ministry of Defense was headed by Sergei Shoigu, and in the spring of 2013, Teif left Voentorg and disappeared from sight for a long time. And now it has surfaced. IN THE USA.

In the US, Teif faces up to 20 years in prison. It is possible that he can make a deal with the investigation. Obviously, American justice is much more interested not in Teif, but in Prigozhin, whose structures in the United States are accused of interfering in American elections.