Russian police suspects Nestle of land theft

MOSCOW, Russian Federation - Oct. 30, 2020 - PRLog -- The MIA Administration for the Kaluga Region opened a criminal case on the theft of land by NLMK-Kaluga LLC with a total area of 8.35 hectares. This land was later acquired by the Russian division of Nestlé, a Swiss food and drink processing conglomerate.

According to investigation materials, the site is located in Vorsino industrial park between the two enterprises. This project was initiated by Kaluga region government, exempting investors from paying the tax on the property of organizations and reducing the income tax rate.

At the same time, the seller of the land was a certain individual entrepreneur Arabadzhi B.F., who allegedly bought it from NLMK-Kaluga for 28 thousand rubles a year earlier, and then sold it to Nestlé for 62.3 million rubles. At the same time, Nestlé turned to the regional authorities with a request to remove former owner's infrastructure from the land that includes sewer network and modular buildings. Expenses were to be borne by the Kaluga Region Development Corporation.

At present, the investigation has requested Nestlé-Russia LLC to provide information on personalities who were directly involved in the preparation, conclusion and execution of the contract. Individual entrepreneur Arabadzhi B.F. is to be interrogated as well in order to understand circumstances of the case.

According to the Kaluga region department of Rosreestr (Federal Service for State Registration, Cadaster and Cartography), it was one of Nestlé's managers who was engaged in the transaction with individual entrepreneur Arabadzhi. However, when he was interrogated by investigators, he refused to testify, citing 51st article of the Constitution of the Russian Federation.

Novye Izvestia editorial could not receive a requested comment from Nestle.
https://en.newizv.ru/news/society/26-10-2020/the-police-w...