Alla Polovchenya, Deputy Head of the Department of Unmanned Systems and Robotics of the Ministry of Industry and Trade, has been detained in Moscow. According to the investigation, the official is suspected of large-scale embezzlement as part of a scheme involving drone import substitution.
Simultaneously with Polovchenya, Ekaterina Kustova, Deputy Director for Development of EFKO Group, and Vladislav Romantsev, Director for Development of EFKO Management Company, were detained. They are suspected of embezzlement through fraud. According to sources, Valery Kustov, Chairman of the Board of Directors of EFKO, and Evgeny Lyashenko, CEO of EFKO Group, were also detained with them.
According to the investigation, the inquiry is related to manipulations in the field of import substitution of unmanned aerial vehicles. EFKO company – a software developer for UAVs and air taxis through the “Transport of the Future” project – allegedly purchased ready-made Chinese drones and passed them off as products of its own production, receiving state subsidies and preferences for this. The scale of the embezzlement, according to some data, amounts to billions of rubles.
Polovchenya oversaw the development of unmanned technologies in the Ministry of Industry and Trade and repeatedly acted as a public speaker for the department. In August 2025, she estimated the market volume for drone-based services at 26 billion rubles, and predicted growth to 32 billion for 2026. In March 2025, she announced the development of tax incentives for drone manufacturers. On July 22, 2026, a few days before her detention, she announced the preparation of a bill to introduce a zero VAT rate for manufacturers of unmanned aircraft systems.
EFKO, through the “Transport of the Future” project, developed several drone models. The first was the Hi-Fly Taxi air taxi prototype, presented in December 2021. Then came the Hi-Fly Cargo heavy-lift drone, capable of carrying up to 170 kg of cargo over a distance of up to 20 km and reaching speeds of up to 100 km/h. The lineup also included the S-80 delivery drone, which received an airworthiness certificate for urban flights.
In addition, the company developed agricultural drones, inspector drones for monitoring oil and gas pipelines, and worked on heavy unmanned aerial vehicles weighing up to 700 kg. As of 2022, prototypes were 70% assembled from Russian components, and in subsequent modifications, 100% localization was planned. In 2024, “Transport of the Future” left the EFKO Group and continued its development as an independent company.