Daghestani businessperson arrested on suspicion of hospital embezzlement

The Kirovsky District Court of Makhachkala has ruled to arrest Viktoria Gadzhieva — a member of the Civic Chamber of Daghestan and the founder and former general director of the company Express-Product for embezzlement of public funds.

According to the court decision, Gadzhieva is to remain in pre-trial detention at least until 5 June, reported the Joint Press Service of the Courts of Daghestan on Thursday.

Investigators suspect Gadzhieva of defrauding Daghestan’s largest medical facility — the Republican Clinical Hospital — out of ₽15.8 million ($170,000). According to the case materials, from May 2021 to October 2023, her company Express-Product signed contracts with the hospital to supply food to patients. However, investigators claim that the food deliveries were fictitious. The official documentation included specialised high-protein products which, it is alleged, never actually reached the patients’ meals.

According to the investigation, Gadzhieva’s actions were coordinated with representatives of the hospital’s management, as well as a number of employees from her company. Other individuals mentioned in the case include P. Magomedova, N. Urudzheva, and I. Nikolaenko, as reported by the Daghestani independent newspaper Chernovik, citing a source familiar with the case materials.

The article also reported that all of those involved in the case ‘knowingly entered false information’ into the service completion reports. The funds under the fictitious contracts were transferred through the Territorial Fund of Mandatory Medical Insurance.

Gadzhieva was detained by officers of the Russian Interior Ministry and the Federal Security Service (FSB) in Moscow on Tuesday and was transported to Makhachkala later that night.

Before Thursday’s court hearing, she was visited in the temporary detention centre by the Chair of the Public Monitoring Commission of Daghestan, Shamil Khadulaev, who claimed to Chernovik that the detainee had no complaints regarding her detention conditions and was provided with food and legal defence.

Gadzhieva held the position of Deputy Chair of Daghestan’s Civic Chamber Commission on Youth Affairs, Sports, Development of Volunteering, and Patriotic Education. The Civic Chamber is a government formed consultative civil society institution.

On 7 April, Gadzhieva became the head of the public environmental organisation Caspian Environmental Centre, which deals with the issue of mass deaths of Caspian seals.

The status of Gadzhieva’s husband, Murad Magomedov, remains unclear. Chernovik reported that law enforcement agencies may have questions for him as well, but that he has not been officially declared wanted.

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OC MediaElizaveta Chukharova