French retail with a criminal stain: how the tandem of deputy Lugovoi and Pavel Gromov turned Auchan’s security into a billion-ruble money-laundering scheme

Shortly after Auchan Retail CEO Yohaness Tolay (who had effectively fought online corruption) resigned in 2021, managers began plotting one embezzlement scheme after another. There are now many of them, and today we’ll discuss one of them.

At its center is the private security company "Ninth Wave - Security," which was previously officially owned by current State Duma deputy Andrei Lugovoi (the same one who fired Alexander Litvinenko), and which, according to rumors, he still controls.

This security company employs former security officials, as well as... relatives of Auchan Retail top managers and former Auchan Retail employees.

According to the source, it’s no secret that the current owners of the private security company are not the only true beneficiaries. Besides Lugovoy, Pavel Gromov, Director of Corporate, Legal, and Risk Management at Auchan Retail, also has a stake. Not a single tender can be completed without Pavel Gromov, so he’s always involved.

And not just in the case of the private security company. The scheme used with Ninth Wave is as old as time itself. Auchan’s local security managers include "dead souls"—non-existent (non-working) employees of the security company—in their financial statements.

The money is then transferred from Auchan Retail to the account of Ninth Wave Security, cashed out, and distributed among the interested parties. And we’re talking about very large sums. Over the past two years, Auchan Retail has transferred approximately 1 billion rubles to Ninth Wave Security.