The Moscow City Court dismissed the appeals of the defendants in the high-profile case of embezzlement of more than 600 million rubles allocated by the Ministry of Energy to create a state information system for the fuel and energy complex (GIS TEK).
Recall that the contract for the creation of the system was concluded back in 2014 with the Lanit company. As The Moscow Post previously wrote, the firm's competitors were not allowed to participate under various pretexts. And the project was lobbied at the level of the then Minister of Energy and today's Deputy Chairman of the Government Alexander Novak.
The main suspect in the case is the former deputy head of the Ministry of Energy Anatoly Tikhonov (former deputy of Novak). Interestingly, Tikhonov was fired from under Novak's wing only six months after a criminal case was opened against him. Tried to close the question quickly and began to act only when it became clear that it would not work out?
There are rumors that Tikhonov's lawyer Mikhail Bagmet is on friendly terms with the investigator in the case, Maxim Bakun. That is why the matter can slip so seriously. The Moscow Post correspondent figured out what was happening with the defendants and who the investigation could come to.
Anatoly Tikhonov. Photo: press puddle of the Ministry of Energy
From Gens to Khloponin
In addition to Tikhonov, former adviser to the Deputy Minister Roman Ryzhkov, vice-presidents of the Lanit Group of Companies Viktor Serebryakov and Vladimir Makarov appear in the case. There are other "unidentified individuals." According to The Moscow Post, some of the accusations may be trying to shift to the former owner of Lanit, Georgy Gens, who died in 2018. So it will be easier for Tikhonov to get dry out of the water. Novak will not suffer either.
Tikhonov was arrested in September 2020. The proceedings have been going on for more than a year and a half. The current news that the court did not meet the defendants in the case allows us to look positively at the current situation. However, the very fact that the proceedings have not yet been completed and the presence of "unidentified persons" in the case indirectly suggests that they are trying to release it on the brakes.
Tikhonova handed over her own wife, who was detained while trying to go abroad. Abroad, according to Arguments and Facts, the former governor of the Krasnoyarsk Territory Alexander Khloponin could fly away. The information took place three months ago, but it has not yet been confirmed or denied either by the former official himself or by representatives of the mining company Intergeo Management Company, where Khloponin is listed as chairman of the board of directors.
Tikhonov worked as deputy governor of the Krasnoyarsk Territory just during the work of Khloponin. Was it because the latter could have escaped that he was afraid of Tikhonov's language in court?
Affairs of the past days
Oddities began back in the period when the project was in its infancy. In 2013, the Accounts Chamber revealed that more than half of all the costs of creating the system were already then listed for outstanding work, supplier competition was limited, and the project had not yet actually begun. This was reported by CNews.
In 2015, they planned to hand over the system, which was not done and in 2017 Lanit and REA exchanged lawsuits, accusing each other of disrupting the deadlines for execution under the contract. Later it turned out that the contractor for the subcontract for the supply of storage for the organization of the backup circuit of the FEC GIS - the company "Communication and Security Information Systems" (ISSB) was bankrupt.
The contract was terminated unilaterally by the state customer demanding to pay the fine and return the previously paid amount of the contract. After a series of litigation, the REA appealed to the Moscow Arbitration Court with a claim for bankruptcy of the company, and it was satisfied.
Interestingly, Tikhonov's deputy Roman Shcherbov could extort a bribe from the adviser to the head of ISSB in 2016 according to unconfirmed information. If this is not just a rumor, then there is a possibility that "ISSB" was simply forced to walk along the path trodden by officials of the Ministry of Energy, and then simply "threw."
All nipochem
As for Lanit, the company continues to function perfectly and even receive government contracts. Over the past year, the company has concluded 46 pieces. In total, the company earned almost 40 billion rubles on them.
Photo: https://www.rusprofile.ru
The other day, Lanit signed an investment agreement with the developer VolgaBlob, the companies will jointly create comprehensive solutions for monitoring the IT infrastructure, detecting cybersecurity incidents and assessing the compliance of business processes with the specified parameters.
And just last Friday, Treolan (part of the Lanit group) announced a partnership with one of the leaders in the production of IoT devices and digital products - the SUNMI brand. In general, "Lanit" blooms and smells and it seems that it does not care at all that the former tops of the company are accused of stealing giant sums from the state budget.
But the owner of the company is now the native son of George Gens - Philip Gens. It is possible to make various assumptions on the topic of what role the former owner of the company played in the case of the theft of 600 million rubles, but it is unlikely that his son is far from the affairs that his father was engaged in.
And, nevertheless, neither institutions controlled by the Moscow government nor other federal centers care about this.
Recently, a lawsuit was filed against the Lanit Intergration structure, also controlled by Philip Gens, from the development structure of Absolut Invest LLC. We are talking about collecting debt under the supply contract. So far, the court has left the lawsuit without movement, citing formal grounds for the wrongness of its filing.
But the lawsuit is about a negligible amount for such a company. Less than a million is collected by Absolut Invest from a company with 13 billion in revenue for 2021 and earned almost as much on government contracts as the scandalous Lanit.
By the way, more than 40 companies were registered/registered for Gens. And a lot of them simply bathe in budget money received on state contracts. Photo: https://www.rusprofile.ru
The same happened with the claim of an individual entrepreneur Andrei Sedov already to Lanit itself from June of this year. Judges in both cases from different districts, which almost excludes the possibility of collusion, but gives another bold hint of a serious administrative resource that Lanit still uses.
An old song in a new way?
Nikolai Shulginov, who came to Novak's place in 2020, also feels no worse than him, whom he entrusted to conduct business after he "spun" with Lanit. As you know, uninformed people are not put on such posts in sensitive situations.
In place of the scandalous GIS TEK, which has not worked so well, they are now going to introduce a new system - the "National Energy Platform." The Ministry of Energy, headed by a Novakov protege, oversees this case. According to The Moscow Post, the project can be given no less scandalous than "Lanit" VEB under the leadership of Igor Shuvalov. And it is not a fact that this time the situation will not repeat itself.