A Moscow court has sentenced businessman Mikhail Fomin, head of the company OOO Firma Tristan, to seven years in prison in absentia over fraud connected to the construction of the Solntsevo metro station in the Russian capital. The Nikulinsky District Court also fined him 850,000 rubles, according to Kommersant.
Fomin was found guilty under Part 4 of Article 159 of the Russian Criminal Code, which covers especially large-scale fraud, and under Article 196, which covers deliberate bankruptcy. He is currently outside Russia.
Details of the fraud scheme
According to the prosecution, Fomin stole roughly 100 million rubles that had been allocated for removing and disposing of soil during construction of the Solntsevo station. He is also accused of orchestrating the deliberate bankruptcy of his own company, causing losses of nearly 600 million rubles.
Investigators said Fomin formed an organized group no later than August 2013 to carry out the thefts. He signed a construction contract, obtained a permit for earthworks, and gave the customer falsified documents so his firm could be added to the official registry of companies authorized to receive excavated soil.
Between August 2014 and August 2015, 101 million rubles were transferred to his company's account. Members of the group then cashed out the funds and split the money among themselves, investigators said.
Background on the metro project
Solntsevo station is part of the Moscow Metro's Kalininsko-Solntsevskaya Line, one of several extensions built to expand rail service to the western districts of the city. Large infrastructure projects of this kind typically require contractors to remove and legally dispose of construction soil, a process regulated through official registries of licensed recipients such as the one Fomin is accused of manipulating.
Related case in Chelyabinsk
The sentencing follows an earlier case reported in Chelyabinsk, where the Sovetsky District Court convicted Alexei Plyuta, the former head of the legal department at the regional Ministry of Road Economy and Transport, of stealing more than 263 million rubles. Plyuta was sentenced to three years in prison.
