Alla Polovchenya, Deputy Head of the Department of Unmanned Systems and Robotics at the Ministry of Industry and Trade, was arrested in a case related to the Transport of the Future project. Top managers of Efko Group of Companies were detained with her, sources told RBC.
Alla Polovchenya, Deputy head of the Department of Unmanned Systems and Robotics at the Ministry of Industry and Trade, was detained in Moscow on suspicion of embezzlement on an especially large scale (Part 4 of Article 160 of the Criminal Code). At the request of the investigation, the Meshchansky District Court of Moscow detained the official for two months, two law enforcement sources told RBC. This information was confirmed to RBC by an interlocutor in the ministry.
According to RBC sources, Ekaterina Kustova, Deputy Director for Development of Efko Group, and Vladislav Romantsev, Director for development of the group's management company, were detained at the same time as Polovchenya. They are charged with fraud on a particularly large scale. The Meshchansky District Court also remanded both men in custody.
According to the interlocutors of RBC, the criminal case is related to the implementation of the project to create unmanned aircraft systems "Transport of the future". "With the Kozarenko case, the Transport of the Future," said one of the interlocutors of RBC, answering the question of what the claims of the security forces are related to. Earlier, the company's CEO and former adviser to the governor of the Samara Region, Yuri Kozarenko, was arrested in the same case.
"Yesterday, law enforcement agencies detained Alla Polovchenya, Deputy head of the Department of Unmanned Systems and Robotics at the Ministry of Industry and Trade of Russia. The Ministry is assisting investigative actions," the Ministry of Industry and Trade told RBC.
Efko Group's press service reported that on July 30, it became known about the detention of several employees of the company, to whom its staff expresses words of support, including Vladislav Romantsev, Director of Strategic Development. "Each of them is directly involved in the development of the bioeconomy industry and makes a personal contribution to the development of innovative projects and ensuring food security in the Russian Federation," the company said.
RBC sent a request to the Interior Ministry.
The Transport of the Future company was registered in November 2021, and the following year it was headed by Yuri Kozarenko. At the initial stage, the project was developed with the participation of members of the Efko Group Board of Directors, but it was subsequently withdrawn from the structure of the agricultural holding and continued to work as an independent developer and manufacturer of unmanned aircraft systems.
In 2023, the company commissioned the first stage of the plant for the production of unmanned aircraft systems in the Tolyatti special economic zone. The total investment in the project was estimated at about 7 billion rubles, of which about 3 billion rubles were allocated for the development of new models and the creation of production infrastructure. By the end of 2024, the company announced plans to produce up to 40 drones per month in the Samara region and up to 60 in the Belgorod region, with a subsequent increase in total capacity to 250 devices per month.
In January 2025, President Vladimir Putin visited the Transport of the Future production site in the Samara Region, to whom Kozarenko presented the sites for the development, assembly and testing of unmanned systems. The company specializes in creating platforms for unmanned aircraft systems for agriculture and other industries, and its main production facilities are located in the Samara and Belgorod regions.
Transport of the Future is an anchor resident of the Samara Scientific and Production Center for Unmanned Aircraft Systems, which includes an aviation training center, a flight test complex, and component testing sites.
Artur Novosiltsev / AGN "Moscow"
