News

In Tver Region, investigation of a probe into rendering unsafe services entailing by negligence death of 13 persons finished

The Tver Regional Directorate of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation finished investigation into four persons - an individual entrepreneur, Director General of Avtodom LLC, founder and director of TransAuto LLC. Depending on a role of each, they are charged with rendering of services failing to meet standards of safety of customers lives and health, entailing by negligence death of 13 persons in a traffic accident that occurred near Nekrasovka village of Tver Region (Part 3 of Article 238 of the Criminal Code of Russia).

The investigation established that in the morning of October 5, on the 24th kilometre of Tver-Rzhev Road, the driver of Ford Transit minibus, feeling ill and exhausted due to violation of rest time between shifts, collided with LiAZ bus used by Tveravtotrans JSC. The driver received access to driving the vehicle despite medical contraindications that prevent him from driving and wasn’t instructed on passenger safety. As a result of the traffic accident, the driver and12 passengers of Ford Transit died of their injuries. Injured passenger and driver of LiAZ and a passenger of the minibus were delivered to a hospital.

As it was established during the preliminary investigation, the perpetrators of the probe organized in Tver activities of carriage of passengers, including motor pools. In fact, there were over 10 affiliated organizations in this territory, aimed to extract maximum profit from the carriage of passengers at minimal cost by saving money on activities related to the work of drivers and vehicles. The illegal roles were clearly assigned between the perpetrators. Division on several organizations was conditional, in fact, they were led by the same people. The individual entrepreneur assigned roles, instructed one of the convicts to act as a director of Avtodom LLC in part of financial and accounting activities of the organization, being responsible for accounting and financial surveillance of all designated companies; the other persons received functions of a medical chief of Avtodom LLC and a chief of drivers of TransAvto LLC.

From March 1 to October 5, 2018, the convicted provided services of carriage of passengers, failing to meet safety standards of consumers life and health, in Tver and Tver Region, extracting stable big volume of material profit. They committed actions and inaction which led to systematical violation of work and rest conditions and forged actions of commissioning of vehicles. The drivers were not formally employed; they had never been instructed or trained; vehicles were stored at the residence of drivers in violation of transport safety; the drivers received documents with forged stamps of conducted events.

Apart from that, the convicts actively resisted the investigation by putting pressure on witnesses and victims, concealment or destruction of documents and items of importance for investigation, providing forged employment and instruction documents and events with TransAvto drivers.

During preliminary investigation none of the convicts admitted their guilt. Despite that, investigator of the Investigative Committee of Russia collected enough evidence. Circumstances of the fatal accident and traffic activities on the day of the accident and the day before have been restored. Investigators carried out over 20 searches at the residence of persons providing passenger carriage services or related to this activity; approximately 20 forensic examinations; over 150 witnesses have been interrogated. In this, over 10 witnesses changed their testimonies after seeing undeniable facts and told the investigator about the illegal scheme used by the convicts.

As a result of well-planned investigative actions and other activities, the connection between illegal activities of the convicts and generally dangerous consequences has been established.

The investigation gathered enough evidence; therefore, the probe with the approved indictment will be sent to the court to be tried on the merits.

Video archive