Court in Stockholm of a Russian citizen of the Bombardier company. The semaphore of the "friend or foe" system. … and their closest relatives

The original of this material
© Novaya Gazeta, 03/22/2017, Semaphore of the "friend or foe" system, Photo: KP, Illustrations: via Novaya Gazeta

Olesya Shmagun

The Swedish police are investigating a criminal case against the Swedish "daughter" of the global transport giant - Bombardier Transportation. This investigation began after the publication by Novaya Gazeta of documents from the Panama Papers about offshore empire of Alexei Krapivin, the son of a former adviser and a good friend of the ex-president of Russian Railways Vladimir Yakunin. One employee of Bombardier Transportation, a Russian citizen Yevgeny Pavlov, was arrested, and three more members of the board of directors are in the status of suspects in a bribe case. Novaya Gazeta, together with journalists from OCCRP, the Swedish public television SVT, the news agency TT-news and Radio Canada, received materials from the criminal case. The documents show that the world giant Bombardier used the connections of close acquaintances of Vladimir Yakunin to conquer the markets of the CIS countries.

Close associates of the former head of Russian Railways received tens of millions of dollars in offshore accounts, shares in general enterprises with Bombardier, and the leadership of the transport giant asked the Canadian authorities not to include Vladimir Yakunin in the sanctions lists (due to events in Ukraine) for his contribution to the development joint business.

"Partners are asked to keep the negotiations secret"

A year ago, during the investigation of the Panama Archive, the largest leak of documents by the Panamanian registrar Mossack Fonseka, Novaya Gazeta wrote about the offshore empire of Alexei Krapivin, the son of a close associate of Vladimir Yakunin. Through offshore firms, Krapivin controlled the largest contractors of the Russian Railways' billion-dollar project for the reconstruction of the Baikal-Amur Mainline. In addition, offshore companies associated with Krapivin supplied Bombardier Transportation equipment for Russian Railways government projects. A year after the publication, the Swedish police began their investigation.

At the moment, the police are interested in one deal: the reconstruction of the railway in Azerbaijan, from Baku to the Georgian border.

In 2013, the Azerbaijani Railways held an international competition, the winner was a consortium of companies led by the Russian Bombardier Transportation (Signal) - a joint subsidiary of Russian Railways and the Swedish Bombardier. The consortium was to replace obsolete signaling equipment with railways oh and equip them with the Swedish development Ebilock-950 - total cost The consortium estimated the works at $340 million. Most of the money for the project came in the form of a loan from the World Bank to the government of Azerbaijan.

Submitted their proposals to the competition largest companies from Italy, Turkey, China, Korea and the Czech Republic. The price offered by Bombardier was not the lowest, but several bidders were withdrawn from the competition because they did not meet the other parameters of the tender.

According to the Swedish police, Bombardier was directly involved in writing the tender documentation. This version is confirmed by the documents that Novaya Gazeta has at its disposal.

“I had several informal meetings with the leadership of the Azerbaijan Railways and local representatives of the World Bank,” writes in November 2012, six months before the official tender, Bombardier employee Yevgeny Pavlov, who is currently under arrest, writes to his colleagues. - They are ready to draw up tender documents so that the "Bombardier" is suitable for all conditions. Our partners ask us to keep our negotiations secret, so we need to keep this secret inside the company. In order to help Azerbaijan Railways staff prepare the “correct” tender documents, I propose to create a group of employees whom we can trust…”

"A small group of powerful people"

Bombardier is one of the world's largest rail and aircraft companies, but in recent years the company has experienced better times. In October 2016, the main office announced that it would cut 7,500 jobs.

The CIS countries are a promising market for the development of the company: the railways here are long, but the equipment is often outdated, requiring modernization. However, the market is quite competitive: for example, in 2009, Bombardier was unable to agree with Russian Railways on the production of trains for the Olympic Sochi, the contract went to the German Siemens.

But in the market of railway automation, Bombardier is a long-standing leader in the post-Soviet space. Since the late 1990s, the company has equipped 180 stations in Russia with its Ebilock-950 systems, as well as stations in Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Azerbaijan.

In 2010, Bombardier announced that it was starting to localize the production of Ebilock-950 in Russia. To do this, in 2011, the company acquired from Russian Railways a stake in the Russian company Elteza, which owns seven factories for the production of railway automation. But, as Novaya Gazeta found out, Bombardier was the owner of 50% -1 share of Elteza for a short time. The privatization deal was a little more complicated than announced by Russian Railways and Bombardier itself.

At the moment, behind the Russian factories are businessmen from Russia, close to Vladimir Yakunin. Judging by the documents that Novaya Gazeta has at its disposal, they also helped Bombardier get lucrative contracts in the post-Soviet space.

In the documents sent by the Swedish police to the court, there is an internal correspondence of Bombardier Transportation employees who mention the names of Yuri Obodovsky and Alexei Krapivin.

"They are part of a small group of powerful people who have direct access to Vladimir Yakunin, and through him to virtually all the heads of the railways in the former Soviet republics."

These words from the company's internal correspondence once again confirm what Novaya Gazeta and other publications have repeatedly written about in their investigations.

Andrei Krapivin and Yuri Obodovsky are well known in Russia, they run a business empire built on government orders from Russian Railways, and for the past 10 years their companies have received billions of rubles from a state-owned company.

Thomas Fosberg, the Swedish police officer who is investigating, declined to say whether the police are interested in Bombardier's Russian partners: “It is difficult for me at this stage to make any statements, we do not yet know exactly how we will use this information. But, no doubt, we will try to trace the movement of money. We see that Bombardier edited the tender documentation for the Azerbaijani project for themselves. This kind of assistance on the part of the customer, of course, cannot be free. So we suspect a bribe. But who exactly got the money, we can’t say for sure yet.”

The movement of money towards Yakunin's acquaintances

Novaya Gazeta has four contracts in its possession, which we believe relate to one deal for the supply of equipment to Azerbaijan. In the deal, the Swedish branch of Bombardier sells equipment to its Russian subsidiary through a fictitious British company, on whose accounts significant funds are deposited, and from there the money is transferred to offshore jurisdictions under contracts that several experts called “fictitious”. The cost of equipment for Azerbaijan thus increases by 5 times.

Life hack. How to increase the cost of goods by 5 times

Stage 1. An intermediary appears in the transaction

Bombardier Sweden is selling an Ebilock-950 to a fictitious British company, Multiserv Overseas Ltd, for 126 million crowns (about $19 million). Multiserv Overseas Ltd has neither an office nor employees, its owners are offshore. But Yury Obodovsky registered the company in 2010.

At the same time, Bombardier's internal documents show that the equipment went directly from Sweden to Azerbaijan, without any involvement of the British company, and only the money went along a broken path.

“We believe that the money deposited in the accounts of Multiserv Overseas Ltd was subsequently used, among other things, as a bribe to “thank” those who helped Bombardier win the competition in Azerbaijan,” says prosecutor Thomas Fosberg.

Multiserv Overseas Ltd enters into contracts that several experts have described as "bogus" in order to divert money further into offshore accounts. The money goes to the company, where Krapivin acts as the ultimate owner.

“Apparently, these contracts are needed only so that the money does not remain in the accounts of the British company, but goes further to offshore jurisdictions where there are virtually zero taxes,” said Carl Pelletier, a financial consultant and certified fraud detection specialist from Montreal.

“This whole scheme was created in order to divert money and distribute it among interested people. These are bribes,” agrees the auditor, member of the board of Transparency International in Sweden, Louise Brown.

Stage 4. The equipment is acquired by the final owner, taxpayers pay for everything

The money was withdrawn to offshore accounts, and the equipment from Bombardier (Signal) is purchased by the state company Azerbaijan Railways at full cost.

The deal in Azerbaijan is only part of the overall picture. According to the customs data, the signaling equipment is delivered to Russia for the needs of the Russian Railways via exactly the same route. Since 2011, Multiserv Overseas Ltd has supplied equipment worth $150 million to Russia. However, now Novaya Gazeta does not have documents that could show what part of the money is deposited on the accounts of Multiserv Overseas Ltd on Russian transactions.

Novaya Gazeta has documents at its disposal confirming that when supplying the same equipment to Mongolia, Bombardier also used intermediary companies associated with Obodovsky and Krapivin.

Prosecutor Thomas Fosberg said that at the moment the Swedish police are investigating only the deal in Azerbaijan. “It is too early to say whether we will deal with episodes with Russia or other countries. But in general, this is standard practice, we have good connections with law enforcement other countries, and if I need any help in the future, I think I will get it.”

However, the degree of involvement of Krapivin and his partners in the Bombardier business in Russia is not limited to mediation in the supply of Ebilock-950. As Novaya Gazeta found out, he is also one of the co-owners of the Elteza company, which was privatized in 2010 through a holding company in the Netherlands. Until now, it was believed that "Elteza" "50 to 50" is owned by "Russian Railways" and "Bombardier".

Not only money

"Elteza" appeared in the structure of Russian Railways in 2005, then in one joint stock company united 8 factories that produced signaling equipment for railways (in fact, the factories produced the Russian analogue of the Swedish Ebilock, only many technologies at Russian factories were outdated). The main consumer of Elteza products is Russian Railways.

The holding company in the Netherlands was registered six months before the transaction, and at first, indeed, it was 100% owned by Bombardier. But a week later, the ownership structure of the company changed. Using open sources, it is impossible to track all stages of the resale of the asset, but at least since the end of 2012, Alexey Krapivin has appeared in the ownership structure - from 2012 to the present, he owns 36% of the Dutch company. That is, Krapivin's effective share in Elteza is almost 20%.

“It's hard to talk about something confidently here, because we don't see the structure of the deal, we don't know how much Krapivin paid for a stake in the company,” says Ilya Shumanov, deputy director of Transparency International - Russia. But, of course, all this looks suspicious: a major international player wins the privatization tender, and after a short time, a stake in a state-owned company ends up in the hands of structures close to the head of Russian Railways, that is, the seller. It can be assumed that there is a corruption component here, that the share in the business was a form of reward from Bombardier for winning the competition.

It is worth mentioning another service provided by the Canadian company to the head of the Russian Railways. As the largest Canadian newspaper Globe and Mail reported in 2014, when the issue of imposing sanctions on Russian citizens due to the events in Ukraine was discussed in Canada,

Bombardier lobbied for Yakunin's removal from the sanctions list. Now sanctions against the ex-head of the Russian state-owned company have been introduced in the United States, but not in Canada.

“We have informed the authorities of the country about our investments in Russia and how our business interests may be affected by the imposition of sanctions,” Bombardier said in a statement to the Globe and Mail.

In a written commentary for Novaya Gazeta, Yakunin's spokesman Grigory Levchenko once again confirmed that the former head of Russian Railways, Vladimir Yakunin, did indeed know Krapivin. “At the same time, they never had a joint business,” Levchenko added. - I also have no reason to believe the documents that are submitted to the Stockholm court. Yakunin never met Yuri Obodovsky, so the words that he had direct access to Yakunin are incorrect. In addition, the assumption that any person could have access to "everyone" and manipulate the results international competitions It seems to me an implausible fairy tale, ”said Yakunin’s representative.

Novaya Gazeta repeatedly tried to contact Alexei Krapivin, Yuri Obodovsky, the Swedish branch of Bombardier and the company's head office in Canada. No one responded to requests from Novaya Gazeta and media partners.

Bombardier's head office issued a press release last week noting that the company is assisting the Swedish police in the investigation and is conducting its own internal review of the deal. “So far, we have no evidence that the company’s employees violated the law in any way.”

Russian citizen Yevgeny Pavlov, an employee of the Swedish branch of Bombardier, was arrested in Sweden in the case of corruption deals with the Azerbaijani authorities

Photo: AftonbladetIBL via ZUMA Wire / TASS

In Sweden, a Russian citizen, an employee, was taken into custody local branch Canadian engineering company Bombardier. This was announced by prosecutor Thomas Forsberg, reports Associated Press.

He explained that the Russian Evgeny Pavlov, who lives in Stockholm, was one of several Bombardier employees who were suspected of corrupt deals with the Azerbaijani authorities. Pavlov was detained for two weeks because the Swedish authorities feared that he might leave the country or try to put pressure on witnesses, the prosecutor added.

According to Forsberg, the case was based on emails seized from Bombardier's Swedish office during raids in October last year. According to investigators, Azerbaijani officials received bribes from the Swedish branch of a machine-building company in exchange for contracts.

According to Sveriges Radio, the amount of these bribes could be 700 million Swedish kronor ($77 million).

Bombardier spokeswoman Barbara Grimm confirmed that one of the employees had been arrested and assured that the company was ready to cooperate with the investigation.

Bombardier Inc. Bombardier Transportation is the world's largest manufacturer of railway equipment. The division of Bombardier Aerospace is engaged in the production of aircraft and space technology.

Novaya Gazeta links the arrest of the Russian with an investigation related to the Panama Papers, which was published by the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung in April last year. Then, in particular, the Center for the Study of Corruption and Organized Crime (OCCRP) reported that the joint venture of Russian Railways and Bombardier Transportation, Bombardier Transportation (Signal), enters into dubious deals with offshore companies associated with the son of a close associate of the former head of Russian Railways, Vladimir Yakunin Alexey Krapivin. OCCRP pointed out that the Swedish branch of Bombardier, which is the main developer of the Ebilock-950 microprocessor centralization systems for arrows and signals, acted as the real founder of the joint venture on the part of a foreign partner.

As noted in OCCRP, the Russian-Swedish company equipped railway stations in Russia and other post-Soviet countries, including Azerbaijan, with these systems. In 2013, the Azerbaijani government held a tender for the supply of Ebilock equipment, which was won by a consortium led by Bombardier Transportation.

The media found out the name of an employee of the Bombardier company arrested in Sweden. It turned out to be Evgeny Pavlov, deputy CEO Business Development Bombardier Transportation (Signal). This information is confirmed by several publications at once, including Novaya Gazeta and the Associated Press.

As previously reported, the Stockholm District Court arrested a Russian citizen, an employee of the Swedish Bombardier, on suspicion of bribery the day before. Several company managers, including one member of the board of directors, were questioned by the police.

The Russian is suspected of giving large bribes to the former leadership of the Azerbaijan Railways, thanks to which the Bombardier company won a multi-million dollar contract to upgrade the railway system in Azerbaijan.

In 2013, the company won a major tender for the supply of equipment to Azerbaijan Railways (AR). It was about updating the automation and signaling systems on the Baku-Boyuk Kyasik railway. The contract amount was $288 million.

The fact is that Bombardier offered less favorable terms in an open tender. Despite the fact that the offer of the company was only the fifth in terms of profitability, it was she who won the tender.

The events described took place in the relatively distant 2013, when the Azerbaijani Railways was headed by Arif Askerov, and the entire transport system supervised by Minister Ziya Mammadov. So why did the corruption scandal erupt four years later?

According to Swedish media, the investigation in which Yevgeny Pavlov was arrested was initiated by the Swedish police after the publication of the Organized Crime and Corruption Research Center (OCCRP) as part of the so-called "Panama Dossier".

In April 2016, based on documents from the "Panama Archive" - ​​a massive data leak of the internal database of the offshore Mossack Fonseca, the Russian "Novaya Gazeta" told how the Swedish "daughter" of "Bombardier" supplies Ebilock-950 equipment to Russia and Azerbaijan through the company Multiserv Ovearseas registered in London.

At the same time, Multiserv Ovearseas did not have an office or employees, it actually existed only on paper. And the first director of this company was Yuri Obodovsky, one of the key partners of Alexei Krapivin, the son of the former adviser Vladimir Yakunin (previously headed the Russian Railways website).

The equipment was purchased by the Russian company Bombardier Transportation (Signal), 36% owned by the state-owned Russian Railways PJSC.

Thus, we can conclude that the investigation of corruption ties between Bombardier and officials of the Ministry of Transport of Azerbaijan did not arise out of nowhere. Minister Ziya Mammadov and his staff are the first Azerbaijani officials who became victims of the so-called. "Panama Papers". The investigation into this case has just begun, but even now we can say with confidence that new details of this high-profile corruption scandal will become known in the near future.

Bombardier employee from Russia arrested in Sweden in bribery case

Russian citizen Yevgeny Pavlov, an employee of the Swedish branch of Bombardier, was arrested in Sweden in the case of corruption deals with the Azerbaijani authorities

In Sweden, a Russian citizen, an employee of the local branch of the Canadian engineering company Bombardier, was taken into custody. This was announced by prosecutor Thomas Forsberg, reports Associated Press.

He explained that the Russian Evgeny Pavlov, who lives in Stockholm, was one of several Bombardier employees who were suspected of corrupt deals with the Azerbaijani authorities. Pavlov was detained for two weeks because the Swedish authorities feared that he might leave the country or try to put pressure on witnesses, the prosecutor added.

According to Forsberg, the case was based on emails seized from Bombardier's Swedish office during raids in October last year. According to investigators, Azerbaijani officials received bribes from the Swedish branch of a machine-building company in exchange for contracts.

According to Sveriges Radio, the amount of these bribes could be 700 million Swedish kronor ($77 million).

Bombardier spokeswoman Barbara Grimm confirmed that one of the employees had been arrested and assured that the company was ready to cooperate with the investigation.

Novaya Gazeta links the arrest of the Russian with an investigation related to the Panama Papers, which was published by the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung in April last year. Then, in particular, the Center for the Study of Corruption and Organized Crime (OCCRP) reported that the joint venture of Russian Railways and Bombardier Transportation, Bombardier Transportation (Signal), enters into dubious deals with offshore companies associated with the son of a close associate of the former head of Russian Railways, Vladimir Yakunin, Alexei Krapivin. OCCRP pointed out that the Swedish branch of Bombardier, which is the main developer of the Ebilock-950 microprocessor centralization systems for arrows and signals, acted as the real founder of the joint venture on the part of a foreign partner.

As noted in OCCRP, the Russian-Swedish company equipped railway stations in Russia and other post-Soviet countries, including Azerbaijan, with these systems. In 2013, the Azerbaijani government held a tender for the supply of Ebilock equipment, which was won by a consortium led by Bombardier Transportation.

Bombardier Inc. Bombardier Transportation is the world's largest manufacturer of railway equipment. The division of Bombardier Aerospace is engaged in the production of aircraft and space technology.

The Swedish police opened a criminal case against the "daughter" of the Canadian transport company bombardier-Bombardier Transportation, which was suspected of illegal transactions involving people from the entourage of the ex-president of Russian Railways Vladimir Yakunin, Novaya Gazeta reports.

Suspicions arose after the publication of the "Panama Archive" (see). Then it became known about the offshore companies of Alexei Krapivin, the son of an old acquaintance of Yakunin, Oleg Krapivin. Documents from the criminal case cited by Novaya Gazeta show that close acquaintances of Yakunin helped Bombardier conquer the CIS market, for which tens of millions of dollars were transferred to their offshore accounts.

Now the Swedish police are interested in the details of the deal between Russian Railways and the transport company for the reconstruction of the Azerbaijani railway from Baku to the border with Georgia. The tender for $340 million was then won by a consortium of companies led by Bombardier Transportation (Signal), a subsidiary of Russian Railways and Bombardier. The documents of the criminal case confirm the information that the company was directly involved in writing the tender documentation.

"We see that Bombardier edited the tender documentation for the Azerbaijani project for themselves. This kind of assistance from the customer, of course, cannot be free. So we suspect a bribe," Novaya Gazeta reports the words of Swedish police officer Thomas Fosberg .

The documents sent by the Swedish police to the court contain internal correspondence from Bombardier Transportation employees who mention the names of Yuri Obodovsky and Alexei Krapivin. They, according to the case file, allegedly "are part of a small group of influential people who have access to Vladimir Yakunin, and through him to virtually all the heads of railways in the former Soviet republics." The Swedish police believe that fictitious contracts were used in the course of the deal, and the cost of equipment for Azerbaijan increased fivefold as a result.

However, these are not the only frauds that Bombardier carried out in the supply of equipment, law enforcement officers believe. The publication reports that intermediaries associated with Obodovsky and Krapivin were also used in deliveries to Mongolia.

Bombardier's head office has not responded to inquiries, but the company issued a press release last week saying the firm is assisting the Swedish police and conducting its own investigations. A spokesman for Yakunin confirmed that the ex-head of Russian Railways knew Krapivin, but noted that they never had a joint business.