Russian Official Palmed Off Chinese Products as Locally-made Military Equipment

A Russian official has been accused of a large-scale fraud one of which involves selling Chinese military equipment as domestically produced ones to the Russian Armed Forces.

The official, Colonel General Khalil Arslanov, Deputy Head of Russia’s General Staff, reportedly managed to pull off the trickery through a simple change of labels.

He was charged under Voentelecom case that involved swindling of state funds allotted to buy special military equipment for the Russian armed forces. According to crimerussia.com, the Russian MoD in 2013 bought equipment for a price more than double that of the actual cost.

The fraudulence costed Russia 2.2 billion Rubles (approximately $34.47 million at current exchange rates) in damages, Kommersant reported.

Charges of fraud have also been pressed against Arslanov's accomplice Colonel Pavel Kutakhov who is the head of the orders department for improving the technological basis of the Russian Armed Forces’ control systems.

The accused have pleaded not guilty. Kutakhov has been arrested, but Arslanov was unwell during questioning and has been sent to hospital.

In the same case, the deputy ex-head of Voentelecom, Oleg Savitsky, the former adviser to the company's commercial director, Dmitry Semiletov, the CEO of ErSiAy LLC Tatyana Ilyina were arrested earlier.