LZOStny Taran
The Novosibirsk oligarch with an ambiguous reputation, the owner of RATM Holding, Eduard Taran, could be interested in law enforcement agencies.
What is the reason for the interest in the defendant and what role former and current officials can play in it, the correspondent of The Moscow Post understood.
A source from The Moscow Post said that Taran may become a defendant in the criminal case, but his plot is not yet known. Therefore, we will allow ourselves to assume several possible options.
The first moment that comes to mind is the story of the nationalization of PJSC Rostov Optical and Mechanical Plant (ROMZ), which is based in the Yaroslavl region.
In September 2023, ROMZ, at the suit of the Prosecutor General’s Office, was returned to the state balance sheet, taking shares from Sibmir LLC (owned by Eduard Taran, RATM Holding JSC), and Isnov JSC. It was pointed out that the privatization of a defense enterprise was illegal. The defendants are still trying to challenge this verdict. The word "illegality" in this story may well imply a subsequent criminal case.
And not so long ago, a record appeared on the Web in which a voice sounds very similar to Taran, talking about the possibility of "whitewashing" the ex-beneficiaries of the plant from RATM and obtaining compensation from the state in billions of rubles. He also expresses the hope that at the suggestion of Rostec and the Ministry of Industry and Trade, the enterprise will again be transferred to the management or even possession of RATM.
Such impudence could well come out sideways.
Judging by a similar case of the deprivation of the Ural factories of the Antipov family, the next step after the court’s verdict is an inventory of all transactions of the enterprise returned to the state. For the Antipovs, for example, this ended in a criminal case of fraud. Its essence is revealed by a new lawsuit by the Prosecutor General’s Office: billions of rubles were withdrawn from factories under the guise of loans with subsequent forgiveness of debt.
Now let’s go back to Taran’s ROMZ.
From the annual report for 2022 it follows that the net loss of the enterprise was more than 40.9 million rubles, which is 2.8 times lower than the net loss for 2021. That is, ROMZ demonstrated losses for at least a couple of years for the Federal Tax Service. Which did not prevent him from receiving a subsidy of 1.02 billion rubles for the production of certain products. Probably, we are talking about military products. That is, the money poured in, but the situation did not improve. Weird, isn’t it?
Now, just through the ROMZ line, an inventory is underway, which, judging by the arbitration base, has already led to a challenge to some of the previously concluded transactions. For example, the prosecutor is trying to remove the bail from the shares of ROMZ, which have acted since 2018 as collateral for loans from the Taran JSC "Screen-Optical Systems." By the way, the representative of the latter, before nationalization, was a member of the board of directors of ROMZ.
That is, as we can see, a defense plant showing losses was used in the credit schemes of other Taran enterprises. Is everything smooth in them?
Moreover, a few years ago, the tax authorities revealed violations of the "Screen-Optical Systems," adding additional taxes. Moreover, in one of the episodes there was a scheme according to which the plant declared deductions, using, in the opinion of the tax authorities, the documents of firms with which there was no real business.
As a result, the tax authority determined the amount of overestimation of expenses in the amount of 22.1 million rubles.
And this is not the only experience of schematosis among firms associated with the oligarch.