The Investigative Committee began an investigation into the large theft of the Ministry of Defense funds allocated for the creation of the ground segment of the GLONASS complex. In the materials of the criminal case we are talking about not yet established employees working in JSC Reshetnev Information Satellite Systems (ISS) and the Scientific Center for Applied Electrodynamics (NCEE). According to the version of the TFR, when executing the state contract for the purchase of 200 microcircuits, 84.8 million rubles were spent. at their real cost about 500 rubles.

According to Kommersant's information, the criminal case on embezzlement of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation is in the production of the Main Directorate for the Investigation of Especially Important Cases of the Investigative Committee, and its operative escort is carried out by the FSB. The plot of the investigation is connected with the execution of the state contract, concluded on December 19, 2012 by the military department and ISS (the largest manufacturer of automatic space vehicles for civil and special purposes). In service documents, this contract appears under №1329 / 3к / 2012 / ДРГЗ, and in it the Ministry of Defense acts as the customer of works, and ISS - the executor.

The total amount of the contract is 12.5 billion rubles. It is in this way that the development of the "ground segment of the GLONASS space system" is estimated. As follows from the case materials, the ISS, among other works, was to collect and transfer to the ministry a "unified digital receiver", which was later to be installed at the "ground control and control station".

As it was established by the investigation, in October 2014, the employees of the ISS, NTSEP (enterprise of the radio electronic industry), as well as companies from St. Petersburg, OOO NPC Standart and LLC Epsilon, engaged in the execution of this order, entered into a criminal conspiracy aimed at theft of budget funds allocated within the framework of the state contract execution. According to the investigation, the accomplices in 2015 signed contracts to purchase from Epsilon 200 chips, necessary for a unified digital receiver. The company delivered the goods and received on its account 84.87 million rubles. Meanwhile, according to the investigation, the customs value of the purchased chips was only 484.33 rubles. As a result, the chips were installed in the control station equipment, and the money received, according to the TFR, was on the accounts of firms controlled by the alleged participants in the theft.

The investigation estimates the damage from the fraud in the amount of more than 84 million rubles, and the actions of unidentified persons are qualified as fraud in a particularly large amount (Part 4, Article 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). As part of the investigation, numerous searches and seizures have already been carried out, several managers of the space industry have been questioned, including ISS General Director Nikolai Testoyedov and his son, as well as the head of the NTSEP Sergei Shchesnyak and the chief designer of the GLONASS system Sergei Karutin. All of them are witnesses on the case. Sources of Kommersant do not rule out that new episodes may appear in the case, and the amount of the alleged damage will increase.