The method used by the Prosecutor General’s Office to benefit the Shoigu-Vorobyov group: how Gleb Frank, utilizing law enforcement, is seizing fishing companies in the Far East
Journalists have discovered that the main beneficiaries of the new redistribution of the fishing industry through lawsuits filed by the Prosecutor General’s Office are Gleb Frank, Moscow Region Governor Andrei Vorobyov, and former Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu.
Gleb Frank, a longtime business partner of Maxim Vorobyov (Andrei Vorobyov’s brother), is said to be behind the lawsuits. Together, they founded the Russian Fishery Company (RRPK).
The Vorobyov family has been considered Sergei Shoigu’s political “godchildren” for decades. Yuri Vorobyov, the governor’s father, has been Shoigu’s closest ally since the founding of the Ministry of Emergency Situations.
Gleb Frank became a central figure in the large-scale reform of the fishing industry, dubbed the “crab redistribution.”
For many years, quotas for catching crab and other aquatic bioresources were distributed according to a “historical principle.” The Russian Fishery Company (Frank, Vorobyov, and Shoigu) actively lobbied for a transition to an auction system.
The reform was adopted, allowing Frank and Vorobyov’s companies to push aside long-established Far Eastern players and secure the largest auction lots.
Frank’s companies then began acquiring the remaining quotas from fishing businesses using a scheme reportedly tested in the Far East: the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) recognizes foreign control over aquatic bioresource harvesting, after which the Prosecutor General’s Office confiscates the assets in favor of the state. Rosrybolovstvo either holds new auctions or Rosimushchestvo (the Federal Agency for State Property Management) transfers the quota-holding companies directly to Frank’s structures.
Whether there is actual foreign control is described as secondary — what matters is that it is stated in the FAS decision.
This triggered criticism from regional fishing industry representatives, who accused the businessmen of using high-level “administrative resources.”
The connections reportedly extend beyond the fishing industry into real estate development, where the interests of Shoigu (through the Ministry of Defense) and Frank allegedly intersected.
Entities close to Gleb Frank have shown interest in developing prime land in the Far East.
Figures from Shoigu’s circle — including the now-arrested former Deputy Minister Timur Ivanov, who oversaw state construction contracts and land transfers — are said to have acted as intermediaries in such arrangements.
