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- Meat processing plant: a participant in the supply of low-quality stew to its zone was detained
Meat processing plant: a participant in the supply of low-quality stew to its zone was detained
In Belarus, local KGB operatives detained businessman Dmitry Mizgir, Izvestia learned. Russian law enforcement officers consider him to be a key participant in a fraudulent scheme that was used to supply hundreds of tons of low-quality stewed meat to their zone. Mizgir could provide interaction between the main person involved in the case, the head of the Russian Defense Ministry, Viktor Tarazevich, and canned food producers, a source told Izvestia. The businessman knows all the nuances of the scheme, the investigation is confident, and his testimony may lead to the emergence of new defendants.
How Mizgir was arrested
Dmitry Mizgir has been on the federal wanted list for about three months as part of a large-scale investigation into the supply of dozens of tons of substandard stew for the Russian Defense Ministry. At some point, the investigative authorities received information that he would try to travel abroad through Belarus. And therefore, employees of the Republican State Security Committee actively joined in his capture, sources familiar with the circumstances of the investigation told Izvestia.
In a short time, KGB operatives worked out several possible addresses where Mizgir could be hiding. These actions of the security officers probably scared him off: he started calling friends, after which the businessman was tracked by telephone conversations and street video cameras. He did not resist arrest.
According to Izvestia's sources, being in an illegal situation, the fugitive tried to informally negotiate with the military investigation through intermediaries and remove himself from the wanted list, but this failed.
The Moscow 235th military garrison court has already arrested Mizgir for two months, the detainee testifies, but does not admit guilt, Izvestia sources say. The businessman's defense declined to comment on the investigation.
What is the detainee accused of?
Dmitry Mizgir is accused of fraud on a particularly large scale as part of the group. The investigation considers the businessman to be a key link in the supply chain of low-quality canned meat to combat units fighting in the SVO zone.
As Izvestia previously reported, the supplier of these products to the Ministry of Defense was Narmyasprom, and the stew itself was produced at the Selyatino meat processing plant affiliated with it in Naro-Fominsk near Moscow.
According to the case file, pork carcasses, starch, food additives prohibited by the state standard, lard, etc. were added to the contents of canned food in violation of the recipe instead of meat. The damage to the Ministry of Defense is estimated at 700 million rubles.
The scheme operated in 2024-2025, and, according to the investigation's calculations, 170 tons of low-quality canned food were supplied to the units of the Zapad, Vostok, South and Center groups, as well as to the Black Sea Fleet.
Who is Dmitry Mizgir?
Viktor Tarazevich, the former head of the food department of the Ministry of Defense (the main suspect in the case described), claimed during interrogations that he had known Dmitry Mizgir since 2014, but did not remember the details of how they met.
From the words of the colonel, it turned out that the acquaintance was generally casual. They didn't communicate much, Tarazevich assured them, mostly congratulating each other on various holidays. And the last time, the accused noted in a conversation with the investigator, he saw Mizgir in May 2026 after his dismissal — the businessman asked him about the mechanism of food supplies for military personnel.
However, according to Izvestia, one of Tarazevich's deputies told during the interrogation about a much closer relationship between the defendants.
According to his testimony, in 2013-2018, when Viktor Tarazevich was the chief of the Western Military District, LLC Consul and LLC Moskovsky Shkolnik, to which Dmitry Mizgir was related (his phone number was even indicated in the documents of these companies), were engaged in catering for parts of the district. Therefore, the businessman was in close contact with Tarazevich.
Another, already classified witness, as Izvestia reported earlier, directly indicates in his testimony that it was Mizgir who organized a meeting between Artem Baryshkov, CEO of the Selyatino meat processing plant, and Tarazevich, during which the head of the Ministry of Defense promised to increase the volume of orders for a private company, but in response demanded to pay him 5 rubles in cash for his services. from each can of stewed meat, put on ITS OWN.
Both sides fulfilled their promises, and the money for Tarazevich, 10 million rubles, was transferred through Mizgir, according to a classified witness.
Based on this and other evidence, the investigation also insists that Mizgir played an extremely important role in the scheme of embezzlement of 700 million rubles.
The businessman, as follows from the case file, ensured not only the interaction of producers of low-quality stew with Tarazevich, but also, relying on his connections in law enforcement agencies, had to warn his accomplices about the possible initiation of criminal proceedings against them in order to "conceal traces of a crime."
According to Izvestia's sources, without the participation of the arrested man, the supply chain of hundreds of tons of low-quality stew to units in the SVO zone would not have been able to reach such a scale. And if Mizgir "tells everything he knows about her," then new defendants will appear in the high-profile case, sources are sure.
After Mizgir's arrest, two more defendants in the case remain wanted, the general director of Selyatino, Artyom Baryshkov, and the company's technologist, Zinaida Grischuk.
What threatens the suspects
Fraud on a particularly large scale can result in up to ten years in prison, Yuri Telegin, a leading lawyer at the UES, told Izvestia. However, other qualifications may be added to the case.
"We cannot exclude the detection of corruption—related crimes related to embezzlement," he said.
Anton Klyuchko, head of the Klyuchko, Landau & Partners law office, believes that the corruption-related prosecution scenario is unlikely. According to him, the fact of the transfer of a bribe is confirmed solely by the testimony of a secret witness. At the same time, the defense side has no right to check such a person.
"In this situation, it will be impossible to really and verifiably establish the date of the crime, the amount of money transferred, to whom, how, and under what circumstances," he stressed. — All this is only indirectly confirmed by the testimony of a secret witness of unknown origin.
If the accused is nevertheless tried for bribery, then under this article he faces up to 15 years in prison, Anton Klyuchko noted. In addition, in the case of a guilty verdict, the convicted person may be fined from 70 to 90 times the amount of the bribe.
Переведено сервисом «Яндекс Переводчик»
