Russian food tycoon Valery Kustov detained on fraud charges linked to Putin-visited drone project

Valery Kustov, the chairman of the board and principal shareholder of the Russian vegetable oil and fat producer Efko, was detained in Moscow on suspicion of large-scale fraud, sources told RBC. Efko's general director, Yevgeny Lyashenko, was also detained, and investigators are seeking court orders to arrest both men.

Two other Efko executives were arrested a day earlier: Yekaterina Kustova, deputy director for development, and Vladislav Romantsev, director of strategic development at the group's management company. According to RBC sources, the allegations stem from a drone development project called Transport of the Future. As part of the same investigation, the project's general director, Yuri Kozarenko, a former advisor to the governor of the Samara region, had been arrested earlier.

Separately, Alla Polovchenya, deputy head of the unmanned systems and robotics department at Russia's Ministry of Industry and Trade, has been placed in pretrial detention on embezzlement charges connected to Transport of the Future.

Kustov ranks 144th on Forbes Russia's 2026 billionaires list, with an estimated fortune of $1.1 billion. Efko, one of Russia's largest food producers, manufactures oils, mayonnaise, and other products under brands such as Sloboda, Altero, DeOlio, and Fresh. In 2025, the company acquired the vegetable oil producer Oleyna.

The Transport of the Future project was launched in 2021 with Efko's involvement and later became an independent company. In 2023, it opened the first phase of a plant producing unmanned aerial systems in the Tolyatti special economic zone; President Vladimir Putin toured the facility in 2025.