In Samara, a trial will soon begin on the case of contamination of the Druzhba oil pipeline with organochlorine compounds. The defendants are Svetlana Balabay, director of Nefteperevalka LLC, Rustam Khusnutdinov, deputy general director of Nefteperevalka LLC, Vladimir Zhogolev, general director of Petroneft Aktiv LLC, and Sergey Balandin, deputy director of Magistral LLC. They are charged with a number of articles of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, including “Organized criminal community”.
The Volzhsky Court of Samara received a criminal case on contamination of the Druzhba oil pipeline with organochlorine compounds at the end of January this year. The preliminary hearing has been postponed twice, now scheduled for March 21.
The incident at the Druzhba oil pipeline occurred in April 2019. First, the Belarusian “Belneftekhim” reported a sharp deterioration in the quality of oil from Russia, supplied through the pipeline, and then suspended the transit of Russian raw materials to Europe. Then Transneft stated that the exported oil was deliberately contaminated with organochlorine compounds. Later, the Investigative Committee of Russia (TFR) reported that low-quality oil entered the pipeline through an oil discharge unit located near the village of Nikolaevka, Volzhsky District, Samara Region.
The department of the TFR in the Samara region took up the investigation of the criminal case. According to the initial version of the investigation, the defendants - General Director of Nefteperevalka LLC Svetlana Balabay, Deputy General Director of Nefteperevalka LLC Rustam Khusnutdinov, General Director of Petroneft Aktiv LLC Vladimir Zhogolev and Deputy Director of Magistral LLC Sergey Balandin - in the period from August 2018 to April 2019, as part of a criminal community, they repeatedly stole oil in the amount of at least 1 million rubles. Later it became known about other suspects, among them was the head of the acceptance point “Lopatino” (PSP) Roman Gladkov, who, according to investigators, received funds from the head of Soyuz-Neft LLC for help with receiving a mixture of oil and refined products from Nefteperevalka. In addition, according to the investigation, Roman Gladkov, as well as Sergey Balandin, transferred illegal remuneration for inaction to another defendant in the case - Dmitry Nikishov, deputy head of the Kuibyshev district department of Transneft-Druzhba for commodity and transport operations.
Svetlana Balabay is charged with four articles of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation: art. Art. 167 (intentional destruction or damage to property), 159 (fraud), 215.3 (unauthorized connection to oil pipelines), 210 (participation in a criminal community). Rustam Khusnutdinov was charged under Art. Art. 167 and 215.3 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. Roman Gladkov is charged under several articles of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation - 167th, 210th, 204th (commercial bribery), art. Art. 215.3 and 159. Vladimir Zhogolev is charged with Art. Articles 167, 159, 215.3, 210. At the beginning of 2020, Svetlana Balabay, Rustam Khusnutdinov and Vladimir Zhogolev had their preventive measure reduced to a ban on certain actions. The court extended the period of house arrest for Roman Gladkov.
