Ilya Vedmedenko17:27, 03/28/24
Experts believe that this is a “complex criminal scheme” in which Russian and Gabonese officials may be involved.
Last year, the Russian Federation, which has serious problems with aviation , imported aircraft parts worth approximately $2 billion from abroad, with $1.5 billion of it coming from the Gabonese company Ter Assala Parts. The Moscow Times reports this with reference to Russian customs data .
According to the publication, the company is “fake”. There is no data about her in the database of legal entities of the African country. The beneficiary of the company is an unnamed citizen of Kyrgyzstan, and the place of registration of the company in the Gabonese capital of Libreville is a residential building.
According to The Moscow Times, the amount of product imports exceeds half of Gabon’s annual budget. In addition to this, the Russian companies for which aircraft parts were imported have signs of front companies.
It is known that Ter Assala Parts sent spare parts for Boeing and Airbus aircraft to Russia. This included oxygen masks, washers, pipes, bolts, nuts, brackets, fuel regulators, computers and warning systems.
In addition, 15 used engines for Boeing-737 and Airbus A320/A321 aircraft worth more than $58 million were imported from Gabon.
Buyers of spare parts in Russian customs declarations are listed as Association of Suppliers LLC, Quantum LLC and Protector LLC. The lion’s share falls on the first of them ($1.2 billion).
According to experts, the scheme may be more complex than it seems at first glance: both Russian and Gabonese officials may be involved in it.
“This is a private company that was invented in Gabon to conduct customs transactions, and then it will disappear. I think there is some kind of structure that is registered in one way in the documentation, but appears in customs declarations differently. Accordingly, someone, apparently “, in the Gabonese administration, this is covered. The government (Russian – Ed.), apparently, gives the so-called carte blanche,” says Doctor of Economics Igor Lipsits.
(C)UNIAN 2024
The black hole for spare parts has been found: Gabon.
Very obviously, the Gobonese government has to been involved in this corrupt scheme. But this also begs the question, which western supplier drlivered parts to a company that doesn’t exist? Anyway, this should lead to sanctions against Gabon, a prohibition to sell aircraft parts to that country. No big deal, since its state-owned national airline went defunct in 2006. Other airlines’ jets, that may get stranded there, can be repaired by technicians and parts flown in on a case-by-case basis, after careful investigation. This certainly will reduce the number of flights to Libreville, tough luck. That’s so sad for the government crooks, who don’t deserve vacations abroad anyway. 😠
I seriously doubt that Gabon will help mafia land’s aircraft maintenance problems in the long run, or even in the medium one.