The case of record "kickbacks on spoons" in the Ministry of Defense came to court

The case of record bribes in the Ministry of Defense was put on such a grand scale that the members of the organized criminal group had to develop a special computer program to make it easier to conduct shadow accounting.

According to Kommersant, for gigantic bribes in organizing state purchases, the military has multiplied the prices of spoons, ladles, scales and kitchens. In the interests of the alleged bribe-giver - St. Petersburg businessman Alexey Kalitin - the attackers deliberately terminated the contracts of the Ministry of Defense with his competitors in order to provide him with most favored nation treatment.

“According to the investigation, officials of the Ministry of Defense patronized the companies of businessman Kalitin in public procurement, having received bribes from him in the amount of 368 million rubles in three years”, - RBC notes.

The former head of the food department of the Ministry of Defense, Alexander Berezhny, is accused of accepting bribes on an especially large scale, unprecedented for the department, as well as exceeding official powers with causing grave consequences (part 6 of article 290 and part 3 of article 286 of the Criminal Code). Along with Berezhny, three of his high-ranking colleagues came under investigation. These are the former chief expert of the food department, Lieutenant Colonel Alexey Grinyuk, ex-head of the department for conducting competitive procedures for the state order of the department of public procurement of the Ministry of Defense Yuri Reshetnikov, as well as the former head of the technical support department of the food department of the Ministry of Defense, Colonel Alexander Vakulin.

According to the investigation, a former employee of the food department of the Ministry of Defense, Alexei Pozhidaev, and a current employee of the unit, Lieutenant Colonel Alexei Grinyuk, volunteered to help Kalitin with state purchases. For his services, Grinyuk asked for 20 million rubles, but when talking with the customer, Pozhidaev doubled this amount, taking this half for himself.

The investigation believes that Grinyuk was looking after the multimillion-dollar bribes so that the companies controlled by Kalitin received requests for upcoming purchases. In response to incoming inquiries, they prepared responses at greatly inflated prices. Having received these answers, Grinyuk formed, on their basis, applications for future orders for the needs of the Ministry of Defense.

According to the investigation, the head of the state order placement department of the state order placement department (DRGZ) of the Ministry of Defense, Alexander Boruvkov, and his deputy Reshetnikov, responsible for the bidding, took part in the scheme of long-term "support" for the winning bidder Kalitin, the investigation believes.

Thanks to this scheme, Kalitin's company received several government orders. For example, the order for the supply of car kitchens, bakery trailers and refrigerators amounted to 684 million rubles. In order to avoid delays in the payment of gigantic sums, the members of the organized criminal group decided to include two more officials of the Ministry of Defense - Berezhny, who had the right to sign decisions on payment, as well as his deputy Vakulin, among the accomplices.

The cost of his services for a year of "cooperation" Berezhnoy estimated at 30 million rubles, but the intermediary Pozhidaev, when talking with the customer, again multiplied this amount by two - up to 60 million rubles, in order to provide a solid income for himself.

Then, as the investigation believes, the accomplices expanded the scheme of work. They helped Kalitin's structures to "drop" orders for the supply of goods for the needs of the Ministry of Defense to the lowest possible prices in order to discourage interest in orders from other - bona fide competitors. At the same time, the participants themselves secured incomes thanks to gigantic volumes of supplies, which were accompanied by the conclusion of agreements on "additional purchases of goods." Thanks to these "additional purchases", the total amount of the contract increased by tens of millions of rubles.

In order to keep track of all multimillion-dollar contracts and conduct shadow accounting, Grinyuk developed a computer program. He gave the laptop with the installed program to Pozhidaev. Thanks to "help" from former and current employees of the Ministry of Defense, Kalitin received government contracts for 1.4 billion rubles, while the price of a number of goods in these purchases in 2015-16 was higher than the market price by 275.7 million rubles, and in the procurement plans for 2017 year appetite for overstating contracts increased to 327.6 million rubles.

The investigation believes that in just three years (from 2014 to 2017), the participants in the criminal scheme in the Ministry of Defense received bribes from Kalitin for 368.7 million rubles.

The first among the members of this group to appear before the court was the former deputy head of the Defense Ministry's Directorate for Competitive Procedures, Alexander Boruvkov. He pleaded guilty and made a deal with the investigation. As a result, in March of this year, the court found him guilty and sentenced him to 6.5 years of strict regime and a fine of 368 million rubles. In addition, the convicted person will have to compensate the damage in the amount of 650 million rubles, caused by the Ministry of Defense.

In the near future, the 235th garrison military court will consider a criminal case against Colonel Berezhny. The investigation of his case was carried out by the main military investigation department of the TFR. It is expected that the case of Colonel Berezhny will also be considered in a special order. During the investigation, at the suit of the prosecutor's office, an elite apartment with a parking space in the south-west of Moscow was confiscated from Berezhny. The curtains and plumbing alone in his "palace" cost 5 million rubles. In addition, BMW 520i and Audi A4 cars were arrested from the accused, the cost of which is estimated at 3.5 million rubles.