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 Its essence is revealed by a new lawsuit by the Prosecutor General’s Office: billions of rubles were withdrawn from factories under the guise of loans with subsequent forgiveness of debt.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.
"Spoons" were found, and "sediment" remained In 2018, the Main Investigation Department of the TFR in Moscow has already initiated two cases at once on the fact of non-payment of taxes on a large scale. Both are related, but the first was brought against the "unidentified leaders" of Sibtopenergo LLC, and the second — against the management of Invest Plus LLC.
The case was based on a double deal to sell 24% of the shares of the Lytkarinsky Optical Glass Plant (LZOS), which produced products for the Ministry of Defense. First, in 2013, Sibtopenergo and Invest Plus sold shares for about 180 million rubles to a certain Cypriot Labrosan Holdings LTD, and then, two months later, it resold them, but already five times more expensive — for 862.6 million rubles of the state corporation Rostec.
Investigators saw this scheme as an attempt to evade tax. The investigation claimed that both seller firms and the offshore were related to Taran.
Many were surprised when in 2019 the Novosibirsk Sledkom first merged two cases into one, and then covered it up for lack of a crime event. At the same time, the presence of this event was seen at one time by Moscow investigators, who in their letter asked the tax authorities to inform the TFR that the Federal Tax Service had information about violations of Sibtopenergo LLC. And Novosibirsk investigators suddenly did not see the events. Weird, isn’t it?
And interestingly, when in 2021 the head of the Novosibirsk Investigative Committee Andrei Leleko left, it was rumored that he was sent to retire against the background of a number of high-profile stories, which was "investigated" by his department, including the "Taran case." Now Leleko occupies the warm chair of the head of the Office of the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation in Crimea, where, by the way, his interests again came together with Taran.
And what is interesting: if Labrosan Holdings LTD flooded back in 2015, then Sibtopenergo and Invest Plus, through which they turned the deal with LZOS, are quite alive and continue to work, being an asset, the first — Ratm Holding, the second — also personally Taran.
And you know what is interesting: the ROMZ audit commission in 2022 just included an employee of Invest Plus — a certain Arkady Tarabrin, he was also the director of RATM-Development LLC, which was liquidated in 2023. The latter belonged personally to Taran. The fact that Tarabrin is a very confidant of the oligarch also says that he participated in many stories, including in the corporate conflict over the assets of Iskitimcement and the story with the bills of Altraks software.
What else will the inventory of ROMZ transactions reveal, time will tell. But no matter how everything ends for Taran as well as for Antipov.
Although he himself, apparently, believes in the best. For example, at the end of February 2024, Taran established a new company — Ratm-Invest LLC. Isn’t the procurement for managing the ROMZ transferred back to him? So Natalia Savinova, the director of Sibmir, who was a shareholder of ROMZ, heads the new asset.
Rescue service for Taran The reason for the unsinkability of Taran, whose name flashed next to stories of raiding, tax evasion and other scandals, many call his high connections. This businessman likes to pull up former officials into his division, who, as you know, are not former. Connections remain.
For example, among his advisers, as well as as a member of the board of directors of the Ekran plant, ex-governor Viktor Tolokonsky appeared at one time.
In Taran’s inner circle, there is the ex-deputy head of the regional administration, the ex-head of the Novosibirsk department of property and land relations Dmitry Verkhovod, and through Isnov, which was a shareholder of ROMZ, he is completely connected with the ex-deputy of the Novosibirsk interdistrict environmental prosecutor Alexei Zgursky. The former Krasnoyarsk, Moscow Region official Sergei Gurov also noted next to Taran that at one time he held the chair of the deputy head of the administration, Sergiev Posad.
By the way, the name of the millionaire flashed and next to the resonant case of bribes to the ex-prosecutor of the Novosibirsk region Vladimir Falileev and his ex-deputy Andrei Turbin.
So maybe he not only attracts former officials, but also actively interacts with those acting? After all, it was not for nothing that his business felt so freely in Novosibirsk, especially under the mayor of Anatoly Lokt. Being the mayor, he will thank him for the development of chess at a round table, then he will perform from the stage at a concert in honor of the 60th anniversary of the Ekran Taran plant. Could this close interaction interest Sledk? Let’s live — we’ll see.