The semaphore of the "friend or foe" system. Semaphore of the "friend or foe" system Court in Stockholm of a Russian citizen Bombardier company

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 of documents from the Panama Archives about the offshore empire of Alexei Krapivin, the son of a former adviser and 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.

Approximate former head 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 of a joint business.

"Partners are asked to keep the negotiations secret"

A year ago, during the investigation of the Panama Archives, the largest leak of documents from the Panamanian registrar Mossack Fonseka, Novaya Gazeta wrote about an offshore empire Alexey Krapivin- the son of a close associate of Vladimir Yakunin. Through offshore firms, Krapivin controlled the largest contractors of the Russian Railways' billion-dollar reconstruction project. 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.

IN currently police are interested in one deal: reconstruction 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 The consortium was supposed to replace outdated signaling equipment on the railways and equip them with the Swedish development Ebilock-950 - the consortium estimated the total cost of work at $ 340 million.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 documents that are at the disposal of the editors.

“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, an employee of Bombardier 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 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 a share in Russian company Elteza, which owns seven factories for the production of railway automation. But, as the newspaper 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 the newspaper 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 the newspaper and other publications have repeatedly written about in their investigations.

Internal correspondence of employees of the Swedish office of "Bombardier" with a dossier on Yuri Obodovsky

Andrey Krapivin and Yuri Obodovsky well-known in Russia, they manage a business empire built on state orders from Russian Railways, for the last 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 the Russian partners of Bombardier: “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

The newspaper has four contracts at its disposal, 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.

Stage 2. The intermediary receives 400% of the transaction

Multiserv Overseas Ltd sells the same equipment in the same quantities to its Russian subsidiary, Bombardier Transportation, but for $85 million more. Thus, 400% of the total amount of the transaction settles on the accounts of the London company.

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 later used, among other things, as a bribe to “thank” those who helped Bombardier win the competition in Azerbaijan,” says prosecutor Thomas Forsberg.

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 taxes are virtually zero,” said Carl Pelletier, a financial consultant and certified fraud detective 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 a part 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 the newspaper does not have documents that could show what part of the money is deposited on the accounts of Multiserv Overseas Ltd on Russian transactions.

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

Prosecutor Thomas Forsberg 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 the newspaper found out, he is also one of the co-owners of the Elteza company, which was privatized in 2010 through holding company V 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, Yakunin's representative, 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.

The newspaper repeatedly tried to contact Alexei Krapivin, Yuri Obodovsky, the Swedish branch of Bombardier and the company's headquarters in Canada. Nobody responded to inquiries from the newspaper 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.”

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.

Policy

The US and Canadian sanctions lists differ by one last name - Vladimir Yakunin. How did this happen, what does the “Panama Dossier” and the Russian Railways business with Bombardier have to do with it

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 Archive about the offshore empire of Alexei Krapivin, the son of a former adviser and 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 joint ventures 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 of a joint business .

“Partners ask 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.

The largest companies from Italy, Turkey, China, Korea and the Czech Republic presented their proposals for the competition. 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 are at the disposal of " Novaya Gazeta».

2015, meeting of the Bombardier delegation (pictured) with the Azerbaijani side in Baku. Yevgeny Pavlov (second from right) will be arrested a year and a half later. And his neighbor Thomas Biner (third from right) is interrogated in a bribery case. Photo: 1news.az

March 2017. Evgeny Pavlov, an employee of Bombardier Transportation, was arrested by the Stockholm Court. Photo: Soren Andersson, TT

"A small group of powerful people"

Bombardier is one of the world's largest rail and aircraft companies, but the company has fallen on hard times in recent years. 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.

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.

Internal correspondence of employees of the Swedish office of "Bombardier" with a dossier on Yuri Obodovsky. Source: court documents.

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.

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 THE GOODS 5 TIMES

Stage 1. An intermediary appears in the transaction

Stage 2. The intermediary receives 400% of the transaction

“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.

Stage 3. Funds go further to Krapivin's offshore accounts

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.

Construction of the Baku-Boyuk-Kesik railway section. Photo: Trend agency (Azerbaijan)

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 agencies in 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, when 8 factories that produced signaling equipment for railways were united in one joint-stock company (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.

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.

Vladimir Yakunin. Photo: RIA Novosti

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 of international competitions seems to me an implausible fairy tale,” Yakunin’s representative believes.

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.

Contributors: Miranda Patrucic (OCCRP), Joachim Devermark (SVT), Ola Westerberg (TT-news), Gino Harel, Luc Tremblay (Radio Canada).

Swedish police are investigating the international transport giant Bombardier Transportation following the publication of Novaya Gazeta and the Organized Crime and Corruption Research Center (OCCRP) as part of the so-called Panama Papers. The case is related to transactions for the supply of railway equipment to Azerbaijan. Russian Evgeny Pavlov from Bombardier Transportation (Signal) was arrested in Sweden.

In April 2016, based on documents from the Panama Archive - a massive leak of data from the internal database of the offshore Mossack Fonseca - Novaya Gazeta, as the Swedish subsidiary of Bombardier, supplies Ebilock-950 equipment to Russia and Azerbaijan through 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 former adviser Vladimir Yakunin.

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

Until recently, Novaya Gazeta did not know how much money was deposited in the accounts of Multiserv Ovearseas - neither the Russian nor the Swedish representative office of Bombardier responded to the newspaper's inquiries.

Now Novaya already has a complete set of documents at its disposal for one of the transactions between the Swedish manufacturer Ebilock, the Russian buyer Bombardier Transportation (Signal) and the English intermediary Multiserv Ovearseas. The documents were provided to Novaya Gazeta by colleagues from the Swedish public television SVT and the news agency TT-news.

Deal

In 2013, the Azerbaijani government held a tender for the renewal of automation systems on the section of the railway leading from Baku to the Georgian border. The contract for a total of $288 million was won by a consortium led by Bombardier Transportation. Work on the site was carried out by the Russian Bombardier Transportation (Signal) using Swedish equipment.

Novaya Gazeta has two contracts at its disposal, which show how the deal went.

Here is the first one.

Multiserv Overseas buys equipment for 126 million SEK (equivalent to $19 million).

According to the first contract, on June 16, 2014, the Swedish branch of Bombardier sells signaling equipment for 46 stations to the British company Multiserv Ovearseas for 126 million crowns (about $19 million). The contract on the part of Multiserv is signed by Anton Belyakov, an employee of several companies associated with Alexei Krapivin.

Here is the second contract.

Page 1

Page 4. The price of the contract is almost 105 million dollars

Under the second contract, Multiserv Overseas sells the same equipment in the same quantity to the Russian company Bombardier Transportation (Signal) for $104 million. The two contracts are identical in every way except for the price.

Thus, more than 80 million dollars appeared on the accounts of Multiserv Overseas.

The Russian state company RZD, which owns 36% in Bombardier Transportation (Signal), could also lose from this deal.

Investigation

Today, the Stockholm District Court arrested Russian citizen Yevgeny Pavlov, an employee of the Swedish Bombardier, on suspicion of bribery. Several company managers, including one member of the board of directors, were questioned by the police.

Novaya Gazeta is working on an investigative report with OCCRP, Swedish public television SVT, TT-news news agency and Radio Canada. The investigation will be published at the end of March.

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 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 the Swedish office of Bombardier during searches 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 joint venture 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.