Co-owner of Russia’s ‘Trassa’ gas station chain arrested over theft of fuel meant for police
Moscow’s Meshchansky District Court has ordered Igor Martyshov, chairman of EvroTrans’s board of directors, held until November 6, the Russian business news outlet RBC reported.
PJSC EvroTrans, an independent gas station operator, runs a chain of 56 “Trassa” stations across Moscow and the Moscow region, along with its own oil depot and fleet of fuel trucks. RBC noted that the company is on Russia’s list of systemically important enterprises. Martyshov owns a 44.1% stake in the company.
Martyshov is accused in a case involving the theft of fuel during deliveries to the Moscow region’s police department. His lawyer said the charges do not specify what actions his client is alleged to have taken. Investigators believe an organized group committed the crime and that the damage exceeds 100 million rubles.
Several other EvroTrans executives have already been arrested in the same case, along with police officers including Sergei Malkov, a major general and former deputy head of the Moscow region’s police department. Investigators have charged them with large-scale embezzlement.
Investigators believe fuel from the Moscow region police’s reserves may have been diverted to private gas stations left empty by strikes on oil refineries. Industry sources told RBC that EvroTrans’s stations have effectively been out of operation since the crisis began, leaving police in some cases without enough fuel even for patrol cars. Investigators are also examining whether other government agencies used the same scheme to supply private gas stations with fuel in exchange for kickbacks, the Russian business daily Kommersant reported.
EvroTrans was already in financial trouble by the time of Martyshov’s arrest. The company went public in 2023, raising 13.5 billion rubles in an IPO on the Moscow Exchange, but its shares have since fallen more than eightfold.
EvroTrans has repeatedly defaulted on a technical basis in 2026, and the Moscow Exchange recorded a default on all of the company’s exchange-traded bonds on September 7. Its public debt currently stands at 36.1 billion rubles, according to Cbonds. Sberbank and Bank Rossiya have both announced plans to seek EvroTrans’s bankruptcy.
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