For every Taran there is a "scrap" of justice

The scandalous Novosibirsk oligarch, the owner of RATM Holding, Eduard Taran, was detained in Moscow. Earlier, our publication has repeatedly talked about the deeds of this businessman, predicting him imminent possible problems with the Law. And so it happened.

Details - in the material of the correspondent UtroNews.

The security forces do not give any official comments on the reasons for the detention.

Popelyukh was the first to get caught

Let us remind you that Popelyukh was arrested on October 9. What article is still unknown. His criminal case is related to the alleged understatement of income from the Aquamir water park in Novosibirsk. Note that the Novosibirsk region is the parent for all business undertakings of Mr. Taran, although the head office of RATM Holding is located in Moscow.

The case of the deputy head of the DIA speaks of damage of 200 million rubles. It concerns the bankruptcy of the construction company "VDT Stroy," which occurred in 2020. The structure had a debt to Mezhtopenergobank, which led to the fact that the Aquomir water park built by VDT Stroy was transferred to the bank as collateral.

Since 2017, Mezhtopenergobank has been under the competitive management of the DIA, so the Agency also managed the water park. According to the FSB, part of the income from the water park did not go to the bankruptcy estate, but to Popelyukh personally - hence the 200 million rubles of the alleged damage.

There are no visible connections with RATM Holding and Eduard Taran on the surface. Just recall the following: Alexander Popelyukh in the DIA was responsible for supporting criminal proceedings. And not just like that, because earlier he was an assistant to the Deputy Prosecutor General for Special Assignments, the head of the department of the General Prosecutor's Office for the supervision of the investigation in the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the FSKK.

In addition, earlier Popelyukh also worked in the prosecutor's office of the Vladimir region. And then, and this is extremely noteworthy, the deputy prosecutor of the Novosibirsk region. This is where a dog can be buried. There have been rumors on the market for a long time, allegedly Mr. Taran may be patronized by local (and not only) law enforcement agencies. As if otherwise he would have been behind bars long ago.

Alexander Popelyukh while working in the prosecutor's office of the Novosibirsk region. Photo: https://avatars.mds.yandex.net/i?id=3dc12ba7f637180454d76d62...

Recently, security officials and regulatory authorities have put a lot of pressure on Mr. Taran's business. But his assets are connected, including with defense production. The Prosecutor General's Office has filed a series of lawsuits to seize property from RATM Holding.

The last of the lawsuits dated back to August 2023. The supervisory authority demanded that the property of SibMir and IsNov be transferred in favor of the state in connection with the transfer of this property under the control of foreign and individuals. However, the third party in the lawsuit was the Rostov Optical and Mechanical Plant, which produces day and night vision devices for armored vehicles.

Isnov and SibMir own 48.19% of ROMZ, another 16.47% belongs personally to the head of RATM Holding Eduard Taran. What kind of foreign persons are in question is not clear. The beneficiaries of IsNov are hidden, and SibMir is owned by RATM-Holding JSC. The ownership structure of the latter is hidden. This means that the security forces had reason to believe that Taran's companies were tied to offshore companies.

Given that they receive defense orders, this is a real scandal. Money from Taran enterprises received from the budget can finance Western economies? Note that as a result, the property of IsNov and SibMir has not yet been seized from the security forces, although initially interim measures were imposed on it.

In the same 2023, the Prosecutor General's Office of the Russian Federation demanded that the shares of ROMZ itself be transferred to state ownership. The Yaroslavl Arbitration Court agreed with the department and seized all shares of the plant, and also banned the payment of dividends and various management decisions that could somehow affect the operation of the plant. In September 2023, the court satisfied the requirement of the Prosecutor General's Office.

Prior to that, in February 2022, the Ministry of Industry and Trade filed a lawsuit for 15 million rubles against Sibelektroterm Research and Production Enterprise LLC from Novosibirsk. Since 2021, this enterprise has been owned by Invest Plus LLC (owners are RATM Holding JSC and Eduard Taran).

Ram "solves" questions

And here can be Popelyukh? Despite the fact that, having moved to the DIA, he did not lose contact with either the Prosecutor General's Office or the Prosecutor's Office of the Novosibirsk Region. It may well be that Popelyukh was considered a "fixer" - and there were always a lot of issues that Taran needed to "solve."

According to the authors of the VChK-OGPU telegram channel (recognized as a foreign agent on the territory of the Russian Federation), they have at their disposal an audio recording of a person with a voice similar to that of Eduard Taran, where he directly says that he allegedly has serious defenders among the security forces - for example, the local FSB. Moreover, he allegedly has "his own" people in the Ministry of Industry and Trade.

If we talk about Popelyukh, according to the same authors of the VChK-OGPU telegram channel (recognized as a foreign agent on the territory of the Russian Federation), this figure allegedly met with the then head of the M FSB department of the Vladimir region, Alexander Ivanov, to whom they tried to attribute raider seizures, protection of commercial structures, etc. And then Popelyukha allegedly took the "gray cardinal" of the Prosecutor General's Office Sahak Karapetyan under his wing.

Karapetyan died in a plane crash in 2018. But Ivanov moved to Moscow, where he now holds the post of head of the Office of the Federal (Banks, Finance) of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation.

Allegedly, it was the security forces close to Popelyukh who could organize Popelyukh's transfer to the ABC. If this information is true, then Popelyukh, with whom Taran should be familiar from the Novosibirsk prosecutor's office, is an extremely valuable "frame" for joint work.

Where Taran "inherited"

Perhaps Alexander Popelyukh agreed to tell the investigators something interesting about Eduard Taran in order to soften his future fate. At the same time, a lot of complaints could arise against Taran even without his possible connection with Popelyukh and the water park business. According to the Web, Mr. Taran allegedly raided, among other things, allegedly tried to seize a large enterprise "Angarskcement" (unsuccessfully).

Against this background, in 2010 he almost ended up behind bars. The businessman was detained on suspicion of bribing a high-ranking security official. Allegedly, he was supposed to help RATM for 1 million rubles in gaining full control over Angarskcement. However, a month later, the preventive measure was replaced by house arrest, and after the criminal case, based on the indicators of a single witness, fell apart. The ram came out clean.

In 2018, two criminal cases were initiated on the fact of tax evasion. The investigation believed that the sale to Rostec of a 24% stake in the defense Lytkarinsky optical glass plant through offshore companies caused damage to the state in the amount of about 150 million rubles. The seller was the structures of Eduard Taran.

"It has been established that Sibtopenergo LLC, Invest Plus LLC, Labrosan Holdings Limited were actually affiliated with Eduard Taran and controlled by the specified person. The main purpose of using the offshore company Labrosan Holdings Limited in the transaction to alienate a 24% stake in LZOS in favor of Rostec was to evade legal entities controlled by Taran - Sibtopenergo and Invest Plus - from paying income tax from the organization, "the security officials said in a letter to the Federal Tax Service.

In 2019, both cases were closed. It's amazing how only Eduard Taran manages to get out of the water over and over again!

The most famous photo of Eduard Taran (2010). Photo: https://avatars.dzeninfra.ru/get-zen_doc/271828/pub_65e079ac...

In recent years, another situation has been heard related to Novosibirsk and the alleged struggle of Eduard Taran for control of the infamous Khilok market. Or rather, the businessman's alleged desire to liquidate him - after all, the Mandarin shopping center is located nearby, which Taran owns with business partner Alexander Kayumov. They invested about 1.5 billion rubles in its construction. Earlier, The Moscow Post wrote in detail about that story.

You can recall many other scandals of Taran. However, one thing is obvious - he does not give the impression of a decent and law-abiding businessman. Now the investigation will have to confirm this.