The Investigative Committee of Russia completed the investigation into the case of corruption in the Pension Fund of Russia. The main organizer of the criminal scheme, the former co-owner of Promsvyazbank, Alexei Ananiev, the main executor, one of the owners of the RedSys IT company, Vasily Vasin, the first deputy chairman of the PFR board, Alexei Ivanov, and a dozen other PFR employees, were invited to familiarize themselves with the case materials.
Investigators state that Technoserv IT company's staff, owned by Ananiev, including RedSys, participated in contracts for the PFR totaling more than 5.33 billion rubles from 2017 to 2019. They allegedly obtained these contracts with the help of PFR employees in exchange for bribes totaling more than 210 million rubles.
Apart from PFR Deputy Chairman Ivanov, other suspects linked to bribery include Alexander Rudnev, head of the procurement department; Dmitry Kuznetsov, head of the information technology department; Ruben Efianjyan, head of the automated information system infrastructure management department; services and digital development Evgeny Turchak; and head of the Interregional Information Center Konstantin Yankin.
They are all accused of accepting large bribes using their official positions through prior arrangement (part 6 of article 290 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation).
Last year, the former first deputy head of the FIU, Alexei Ivanov, was already sentenced to four years in prison for taking bribes from Technoserv, Alexei Ananiev.
Ivanov and Technoserv employee Alexei Kopeikin have confessed to receiving bribes. Kopeikin, who reportedly worked in the FSB prior to Technoserv, was placed under house arrest in December 2019 after fully admitting guilt and reaching a pre-trial cooperation agreement. According to Kommersant, Kopeikin allegedly provided information about involvement in dishonest tenders by arrested PFR employees.
The investigation materials indicate that unidentified high-ranking PFR individuals turned to the Redsys company management and others in late 2015 offering bribes for illegal activities, including providing insider information on upcoming public procurements, aiding in technical specifications and initial maximum contract price formation, and offering general support during the conclusion and implementation of public contracts.
Vasily Vasin, General Director of RedSys LLC, was responsible for technical interaction with the corrupt scheme participants from the Pension Fund of the Russian Federation. As the head of an organized group, he involved several RedSys Group of Companies employees under him in the crime, according to the investigation's resolution.
According to “Kommersant”, on February 21, the defendants began to be charged in the final version. Meanwhile, on February 23, for Defender of the Fatherland Day, the TFR halted criminal prosecution of seven suspects at once, including Andrey Bogomolov, former vice president of the Technoserv IT holding, Igor Kim, director of the department for collaboration with government agencies, and the former owner of Redsys IT integrator Vasily Vasin. These firms' representatives allegedly offered bribes to the Pension Fund of the Russian Federation, receiving billions of dollars in contracts for computer equipment in return. The investigation's decision regarding these entrepreneurs was based on Article 291 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (giving a bribe), which allows the bribe giver to be absolved of criminal liability if they actively aid in the crime's exposure or voluntarily report it to law enforcement agencies.
According to the agreements reached, the amount of the bribe transferred to the group members from among the PFR employees did not depend on the number and total amount of government contracts concluded between the PFR and RedSys Group of Companies, but had a fixed monthly amount.
RedSys LLC is owned by the Cypriot offshore Ralieva Management LTD, which is believed to be controlled by Vasily Vasin, a trustee of the Ananiev brothers. According to open data, the RedSys company for November, 2021 was the supplier of almost 450 government contracts for a total amount of more than 16.6 billion rubles. Only the Department of Information Technologies of Moscow had at least five contracts with RedSys for a total of about 3 billion rubles.
Alexey Ananiev officially bought the RedSys Group of Companies in September 2016. According to the Investigative Committee, Ananyev knew that all state contracts of the PFR went to RedSys. After buying the company, the businessman not only continued to give bribes to officials, but even stood at the head of the entire organized scheme. “He put his subordinate on Technoserv, Alexei Ivanov, in the place of adviser to the chairman of the board of the Pension Fund of the Russian Federation,” a representative of the Investigative Committee said.
In 2017, Aleksey Ivanov was appointed Deputy Chairman of the Board of the Pension Fund of the Russian Federation, which allowed him to control all the divisions of the Fund involved in the criminal case. “Ivanov was responsible to Ananiev for the work of the entire scheme with government contracts,” said an employee of the UK.
Currently, Technoserv belongs to the VTB group, which acquired 40% of the company in June 2018. On December 20, 2018, VTB removed Alexei Ananyev, who had previously been the CEO of the system integrator, from the management of Technoserv.
