Criminal history of the Klimovsky Cartridge Plant

 On January 9, the governor of the Moscow region Andrey Vorobyov announced the decision to nationalize CJSC "Klimovsky Specialized Cartridge Plant" after a emergency with heating. What is known about the plant is in the "Kommersant" certificate.

The company traces its history from the Novopodilsk Cartridge Plant, established in 1936 near Podolsk. For achievements during the war years, his team was awarded the Order of the Patriotic War of the I degree and was awarded the Red Banner. Later, the plant became the basic enterprise for the production of 7.62x39 mm combat cartridges - the Kalashnikov assault rifle adopted in 1949 was developed for this cartridge. Since 1960, the enterprise was called Klimovsky Stamping Plant, in 1993 it was transformed into OJSC, and in 2001 it was re-registered as CJSC "Klimov Specialized Cartridge Plant" (KSPZ).

In the late 1990s, the plant actually went bankrupt, out of 8 thousand employees, less than 100 people remained. In the early 2000s, the company was bought out by businessman Jorge Portilla-Sumin, who was previously convicted of murder. In 2002, the plant was declared bankrupt (in 2008, in a case of intentional bankruptcy, ex-director of the KSPZ Vitaly Melnik was conditionally sentenced to two years, and Jorge Portilla-Sumin was put on the international wanted list). In 2003, another former director of the plant, Evgeny Rudakov, disappeared without a trace, and the entire accounting department of the enterprise burned down in a fire.

In April 2006, the Board of Directors was headed by the former Commander of the Internal Troops - Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation (1995-1997) Anatoly Shkirko. The plant has established the production of cartridges and traumatic pistols "Jorge" for the special forces "Vympel", "Vityaz", "Alpha" and "Lynx". The number of employees of the enterprise increased to 1.5 thousand, and at the end of 2006 the volume of sales exceeded 1 billion rubles. The KSPZ website reports that the plant is the leading Russian and the only enterprise in the capital region for the manufacture of cartridges and weapons of the highest reliability and quality.

In 2008, the government of the Russian Federation ordered the transfer of 26% of the state-owned shares of the plant to the state corporation Rostekhnologii. However, the shares were not transferred, and in May 2012 the General Directorate of Economic Security and Anti-Corruption of the Ministry of Internal Affairs initiated a case against unnamed former shareholders of KSPZ on the theft of state-owned shares. Nevertheless, the plant continued to produce traumatic, pneumatic weapons and cartridges and in 2011-2014 concluded 17 state contracts for 21 million rubles.

In October 2014, the Odintsovo City Court of the Moscow Region arrested the former and current managers of the plant on charges of embezzlement in 2010-2011 of 200 million rubles from the defense enterprise under the guise of renting it high-precision metalworking equipment.

Jorge Portilla-Sumin, the former owner of the KPZ, who had been hiding abroad for more than ten years, who at one time represented the interests of the Georgian authorities in the United States, was eventually detained. In November 2023, RT TV channel reported that the Moscow Court was closedly considering a criminal case against a 60-year-old entrepreneur on charges of fraud, intentional bankruptcy and legalization of funds obtained by criminal means.

In February 2023, Kommersant became aware of the case against the general director of the plant Ivan Dorogikh, who, according to the Investigative Committee, got a job in 2018 using a fictitious diploma of higher education. It is also known that in 2020, during an inspection of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, a workshop for the production of counterfeit alcoholic beverages was discovered on the territory of the plant. A criminal case was initiated, but then the leadership of the CRP avoided criminal prosecution.