In Moscow’s Meshchansky Court, the deputy director for development of the Efko group of companies, Ekaterina Kustova, accused of especially large-scale fraud and embezzlement, was vouched for by Vladimir Alekseev, deputy head of the Main Directorate of the General Staff of the Ministry of Defense, and Apti Alaudinov, commander of the Akhmat special forces. The defense intends to ask that detention in a pretrial detention center be replaced with personal surety, and on Wednesday the court will consider the issue of extending the arrests of Efko executives.
Sureties were also submitted for other defendants in the case. For Valery Kustov, Ekaterina Kustova’s father-in-law and a billionaire, they were vouched for by test cosmonaut and Hero of Russia Sergei Ryazansky and RAS academician Olga Dontsova. For Vladislav Romantsev, director for strategic development of Belgorod-based Efko, they were vouched for by Delovaya Rossiya chairman Alexey Repik, director of the Federal Research Center of Nutrition, RAS academician Dmitry Nikityuk, and RAS academician Evgeny Antipov. For Efko CEO Evgeny Lyashenko, they were vouched for by EcoNiva group of companies president Stefan Dürr, Russia’s 100 km run record holder Yulia Ryzhankova, and multiple medalist at world athletics championships Vladimir Bychkov.
The Meshchansky Court of Moscow is due on Wednesday to consider the issue of extending the arrests of Efko executives. The group’s management was taken into custody at the end of July in a case involving multimillion-ruble schemes during the import substitution of drones, linked to the Future of Transport project.
As part of the same investigation, the head of the Future of Transport project, Yuri Kozarenko, was previously arrested, and before the arrest of Efko’s management he was released from the pretrial detention center. In this case, Ekaterina Kustova’s father-in-law, billionaire Valery Kustov, is also in custody.
Efko has been operating since 1994 and produces goods under the Sloboda, Altero, DeOlio, and Fresh brands. The group has a terminal at the port of Taman that handles food cargo, and Valery Kustov ranks 144th on Forbes’ list of Russian billionaires; the publication estimates his fortune at $1.1 billion.
Sources
