Ex-Gasification Official Neverov on Trial in Chita for Fraud, Money Laundering

The Central District Court of Chita will begin hearing the criminal case against former director general of the Vostochno-Arctic Oil and Gas Corporation (VANK) Stanislav Neverov on January 28. He is accused of embezzling and legalizing 1.4 billion rubles (approximately $15.6 million at current rates) during the implementation of concessions in Russian regions, including Transbaikalia. The upcoming hearing is noted in the case card on the court«s website.

Neverov will be tried under Article 174.1 of the Russian Criminal Code (money laundering) and Article 159 for fraud committed by a person using their official position on an especially large scale. Senior Assistant Prosecutor of the Transbaikal Territory Yevgeny Sinelnikov confirmed that this is the same case for which the indictment against Neverov was approved by the Russian Prosecutor General«s Office in December 2025. He noted that this is the main case, covering several regions of the country, from which smaller fraud cases subsequently emerged.

Earlier reports stated that, according to the investigation, the accused, from September 2022 to May 2024, during the implementation of concession agreements for the construction of 11 socially significant facilities (six schools, four kindergartens, and a gasification section) in the Transbaikal, Primorsky, and Khabarovsk Territories, embezzled 558.1 million rubles (approximately $6.2 million at current rates). After the funds were received in the organization«s accounts, they were spent on purposes unrelated to fulfilling obligations.

Furthermore, acting as part of an organized group, in December 2022, Neverov transferred 833.9 million rubles (approximately $9.3 million at current rates) from previously embezzled budget funds, intended for the construction of the aforementioned facilities, to the accounts of controlled commercial organizations under fictitious contracts. Thereby, under the guise of profit from civil-law transactions, he introduced them into legal economic circulation.

Neverov was previously sentenced to 3 years and 6 months of imprisonment in a general regime correctional colony for financial machinations with budget funds during the execution of concession agreements in the Transbaikal and Khabarovsk Territories. Then, in another case related to the gasification of Chita, in January 2026, he was sentenced to a new term, increasing the total sentence to 6 years and 6 months in a colony by summation. The court also satisfied a civil lawsuit from the Ministry of Housing and Communal Services for the recovery of 48 million and 40 thousand rubles (approximately $533,800 at current rates). We wrote about what the concessionaire said at the last court hearing in an extensive report.