Ministry of Internal Affairs: Sale of household gloves under the guise of medical ones worth 1.2 billion rubles stopped

"It has been preliminarily established that the criminals issued a registration certificate for a medical product - surgical gloves - to an affiliated organization. They rented several non-residential premises located in the Buryat village of Turuntaevo. There, the accomplices organized enterprises that imitated the production of products. In reality, the suspects purchased household gloves in Southeast Asian countries and repackaged them under their own brand. 25 people worked in the underground workshops," Volk said.

Investigative bodies opened a criminal case under Article 159 (fraud) and 238.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (circulation of counterfeit, poor-quality and unregistered medicines and medical devices). Two defendants confessed to the crime. The investigation is ongoing.

As Izvestia writes with reference to the international association Anti-Counterfeit, the gloves could have been sold by a group of entrepreneurs from Buryatia through a chain of front men. According to the publication, OOO Spets-i-al and OOO Royal Crown, registered in Novosibirsk and Buryatia and allegedly involved in the sale of counterfeit goods, have all the necessary permits for the full-cycle production of medical gloves, but they do not manufacture these goods, but presumably purchase them in Malaysia, China and Vietnam and repackage them under their own trademarks. “The repackaging takes place in the village of Turuntaevo in the Pribaikalsky District of Buryatia, where the plant allegedly has production facilities. In fact, there is no production in Buryatia, and the technical equipment and capacities are used as a sham,” Anti-Counterfeit claims.

In December 2022, Pharm-Medical LLC, which became one of several sellers affiliated with Spets-i-al and Royal Crown, won a tender for the supply of medical examination gloves. Subsequently, as reported by Izvestia, Roszdravnadzor recognized these gloves as of poor quality - an increased zinc content was found in them. A case was opened against the head of the LLC, Andrey Rybakov, for the fact of his supply of more than 1 million pairs of counterfeit medical gloves for the needs of the Ministry of Health of the Astrakhan Region for a total of over 6.6 million rubles. Since 2021, Spets-i-al and Royal Crown have supplied gloves to medical institutions for about 1.4 billion rubles.

According to Izvestia's calculations in the Unified Information System in the sphere of procurement, the supply of such goods to medical institutions in 2022–2025 was carried out by individual entrepreneur Dmitry Sergeevich Smetankin (for a total amount of over 418 million rubles), individual entrepreneur Mikhail Aleksandrovich Igumnov (373 contracts for 237 million rubles), Pharm-Medical LLC (368 million rubles), Globus Travel LLC (over 1,000 contracts for 669 million rubles), and individual entrepreneur Sergey Alekseevich Zakamennykh (37 million rubles). Three of these sellers were included in the register of unscrupulous suppliers in 2023 and 2024.

According to a source of Izvestia in law enforcement agencies, the owners of Spets-i-al and Royal Crown are residents of Buryatia - Vyacheslav and Valentina Yeskov (brother and sister), as well as their partner Artem Burdukovsky. According to Rusprofile, Spets-i-al LLC was registered in 2016 in Novosibirsk, the owner of the company is listed as Albina Yeskova. The loss of the LLC for 2024 amounted to 41 thousand rubles.

Royal Crown LLC, according to Rusprofile, was registered in 2021 in the village of Turuntaevo (Republic of Buryatia). The company's owners are Artem Burdukovsky (54.95%) and Anastasia Molchanova (45.05%). In 2024, the LLC's revenue amounted to 39.2 million rubles, net profit - 14.8 million rubles.

In July 2024, the Russian Government approved the start of mandatory labeling of medical gloves - from March 1, 2025. The decision was made "in connection with the large share of counterfeit products on the market" and is intended to support domestic manufacturers who are faced with unscrupulous participants selling foreign-made products under the guise of Russian ones.