DR reports that Anton Rogachevsky, a former top executive at Carlsberg-owned Baltika Breweries who was arrested in Russia on fraud charges in 2023, now holds a leading position at Russia’s largest commodities exchange.
In an article published on September 1, DR Nyheder writes that Rogachevsky is now regional chief for northwestern Russia at the commodities exchange SPIMEX. The exchange was established in 2008 following a decision by President Vladimir Putin, who underlined its importance again in 2015.
Rogachevsky was vice president and legal chief at Baltika, Russia’s largest brewery, when he was arrested on November 14, 2023. He was detained together with Baltika’s then chief executive, Denis Sherstennikov, in an investigation in which the intelligence service FSB played a key role.
Both men were charged under a fraud provision carrying up to ten years in prison. At the time, Carlsberg called the charges shocking and said the Russian state was targeting innocent employees to justify its takeover of the business. The company denied that the two managers had broken Russian law.
Less than a year later, both cases were dropped after the two businessmen paid smaller fines, according to DR. The Russian news agency Interfax reported that Rogachevsky was fined a modest sum.
The Baltika sale
In the summer of 2024, Carlsberg still formally owned its Russian business but had been shut out for half a year under a decree from Putin. At the same time, Baltika had filed a series of lawsuits in Russia against its own owner for billions of kroner.
In a letter to the Danish Business Authority, Erhvervsstyrelsen, the brewer wrote that selling the factories for a fraction of their prewar value would solve a number of problems. Carlsberg announced a few months later that the Russian breweries had been sold and that all lawsuits against the company had been dropped.
No mention of the criminal case
Rogachevsky’s new job became publicly known in November last year. Since then he has appeared frequently as a commodities expert in Russian media. DR writes that in every article, television appearance and mention it could find, the closed criminal case is not referenced once.
In February, he spoke to the state news agency TASS about how crisis-hit forestry companies can recover. Two years after the FSB arrest and the charge of large-scale fraud, he holds a senior role at one of the central institutions of the Russian commodities economy.
DR Nyheder asked Carlsberg for a comment for the story. The company’s press chief replied by email that the brewery has no comment.
