"Going on vacation with family"

On the morning of June 10, news agencies reported that Oleg Mitvol, former deputy head of Rosprirodnadzor and prefect of the Northern District of Moscow, was detained at Vnukovo Airport while trying to fly abroad.

It was noted that the ex-official is suspected of major fraud. 

“He communicates with employees behind closed doors, there is no talk of any detention, indictment, let alone arrest.

What is the matter - we will soon find out.

Perhaps it’s just a problem with the documents, ”Mitvol’s assistant Inga Shelenskaya commented to RT on the messages that appeared on the news agency tapes.

She asked me to call back a little later.

Soon Shelenskaya confirmed to RT the information about the detention of Mitvol.

She denied initial media reports about the ex-official's attempt to fly to Dubai and stated that he was going to Turkey.

“He was detained at the Vnukovo airport by the Krasnoyarsk FSB when he was going on a planned vacation with his family to Turkey.

Law enforcement agencies are checking on the fact that the design work of KrasnoyarskTISIZ JSC was carried out within the framework of the concluded state contract.

Oleg Lvovich is in interaction with the authorities, the chosen preventive measure has been established by the Krasnoyarsk court and is being appealed in the manner prescribed by law, ”RT Shelenskaya said. 

  • A distillation tunnel in the mine working of the future Ulitsa Kopylova deep station (depth 54 meters) of the subway under construction in Krasnoyarsk.

    Construction began in 1995 and was carried out with varying degrees of intensity until 2009, and then was mothballed.

    08/19/2021

  • RIA News

  • © Ilya Naimushin

Meanwhile, as RT found out, on Friday Mitvol was already in Krasnoyarsk and attended a meeting of the Central District Court, which sent him under arrest.

Being the chairman of the board of directors of KrasnoyarskTISIZ JSC, Mitvol is suspected of committing a crime under Part 4 of Art.

159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (fraud on an especially large scale).

It was noted that, in particular, we are talking about a case related to the design of the metro in Krasnoyarsk - the work was carried out by a company headed by Mitvol.

The press service of the Central District Court of Krasnoyarsk told RT that, at the request of the investigation, Mitvol was arrested until July 24.

Mitvol's wife Lyudmila, who flew with him to Turkey, told RT about the circumstances of the businessman's detention, which took place on June 8.

“On that day, we flew to Turkey with a child, flew on a planned vacation for two weeks.

At the end of May, our dog died, which was 15 years old and I fell into depression, was on large doses of pills.

Oleg decided that we needed to leave, get distracted, and my friend is resting there, so we decided to go there, ”she told RT.

- No one tried to escape anywhere, this is not even discussed.

It's funny what's on the news.

At the airport, they approached him and told him to go through to clarify his identity.

Then he called and said: “I have been detained for the time being.”

As for cases with the trust (we are talking about KrasnoyarskTISIZ JSC. -

RT

) I don’t know anything, I don’t understand what is happening there.

If there was something, I would, I think, at least hear it out of the corner of my ear.

Lawyers are working, the process is underway, although I personally think that this is all untrue.

We will try to change the measure of restraint."

"It's not easy for me to write these lines"

At the Krasnoyarsk Trust for Engineering and Construction Surveys (TISIZ), where Oleg Mitvol serves as chairman of the board of directors, RT could not comment on the firm's participation in the development of the Krasnoyarsk metro project.

“The organization is not authorized to comment on this,” the trust explained.

Meanwhile, on Friday afternoon, the chairman of the State Duma Committee on Information Policy, Information Technology and Communications, Alexander Khinshtein, said that Oleg Mitvol had made a deal with the investigation.

“It is not very easy for me to write these lines.

We have long-term friendly relations with Oleg Mitvol.

I do not want to believe in the plot of the accusation (falsification of project documentation for the construction of the Krasnoyarsk metro), but it is also impossible not to believe.

Today Oleg himself made a deal with justice (pre-trial agreement).

This means that he admits his guilt and intends to expose other people involved in the commission of crimes.

Under such circumstances, I consider Mitvol’s decision to be the only correct one: to remove the sin from the soul, frankly confess everything and start actively cooperating with the investigation, ”Khinshtein wrote in his Telegram channel.

Litigation

Details of the criminal case, in which Mitvol is a suspect, are not yet available.

According to NGS24, Mitvol is suspected of embezzling funds in the amount of more than 900 million rubles.

In September 2019, JSC KrasnoyarskTISIZ, headed by Mitvol, won a contract to update design estimates for the construction of a metro in Krasnoyarsk.

The amount of the tender announced by the Regional Transport Administration amounted to 954 million rubles.

However, in the future, problems arose with the implementation of the contract.

As previously reported by NGS24, the customer did not accept part of the documentation from the contractor and, accordingly, refused to fully pay for the work.

As Mitvol said in February 2021, the company performed some additional work related to soil research at its own expense.

In total, the customer, according to Mitvol, did not pay 230 million rubles in total.

As a result, KrasnoyarskTISIZ JSC filed a lawsuit against the regional transport department in February 2021.

While the case was being considered, the region paid the designers 206 million, as a result of which the amount of claims was reduced to 48 million rubles.

As a result, in February 2022, the Arbitration Court ordered the regional authorities to pay another 47.75 million rubles to the company, satisfying almost all of its financial requirements.

Subway completion

The construction of the Krasnoyarsk metro began in 1995, but was never put into operation due to lack of funding.

The unfinished object was mothballed in 2013.

The topic of the metro in Krasnoyarsk revived in 2018, when Russian President Vladimir Putin learned about the situation with the long-term construction.

“Since the 90s, we have stopped the construction of the metro, 12 billion have been invested in it.

And here is a preliminary calculation: in the first place, and for Krasnoyarsk it would be very effective, as soon as the city is stretched along the Yenisei, ”Alexander Uss told the head of state in early 2018.

Uss then explained that since the issue requires considerable effort, the city will be able to deal with it more closely after the Universiade in 2019.

In March 2019, Alexander Uss announced the allocation of 1 billion rubles from the federal budget for the development of the metro.

This money was then used to adjust the project of the first metro line - which, in the end, was what Mitvol's company did.

In December 2019, he announced that the design and estimate documentation had been submitted to the Glavgosexpertiza.

The cost of building the first stage of the subway was then estimated at 64 billion rubles.

After that, it was reported that the project was returned for revision.

  • globallookpress.com

  • © Anton Belitsky

In July 2021, Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation Marat Khusnullin, following a meeting with Uss, announced that the Krasnoyarsk metro could be built no later than 2025.

In March, amid sanctions announced by Western countries, Mitvol told the TASS news agency that the restrictions should not affect plans to build a subway.

The works are designed for Russian technology, he explained.

The only concern that Mitvol expressed then was the rise in prices for building materials.