Aeroflot job, arrests, trials, and convictions
Glushkov had been AvtoVAZ's Finance Chief until he left his job in late 1995 and was appointed as Deputy General Director of Aeroflot on request from Yevgeny Shaposhnikov in February 1996.[4] According to Alexander Goldfarb, he found that the airline company worked as a "cash cow to support international spying operations":[5] 3,000 people out of the total workforce of 14,000 in Aeroflot were FSB, SVR, or GRU officers. All proceeds from ticket sales were distributed to 352 foreign bank accounts that could not be controlled by the Aeroflot administration. Glushkov closed all these accounts and channeled the money to Swiss company called Andava in Switzerland.[5] He also sent a bill and wrote a letter to SVR director Yevgeny Primakov and FSB director Mikhail Barsukov, asking them to pay the salaries of their intelligence officers in Aeroflot in 1996.[5] Both Glushkov and Berezovsky were the main shareholders of Andava at that time.[6]
In 1996, a Forbes article claimed that Glushkov was convicted of theft in 1982.[7] Glushkov and Berezovsky sued Forbes for libel in the United Kingdom, with the ruling coming down against the publisher.[7][8]
Glushkov was arrested in December 2000 by Russian law enforcers and charged with channelling money through his accounting centre Andava. He was a business partner and close friend of Boris Berezovsky, who from November 2000 resided in Britain; Berezovsky had to give up his ownership of the ORT TV channel,[9] transferred to Roman Abramovich's Sibneft) in exchange for the promise to release Glushkov, which was not fulfilled.[10]
In April 2001, Andrey Lugovoy organised an "escape" of Glushkov from a hospital where he was kept by authorities. According to Glushkov, that was a set-up by FSB. He had no intention of escaping and "was walking in his slippers to the hospital gate to go home for the night, with his guards' knowledge, as he had done a few days earlier".[5]
During his trial, Glushkov was incarcerated in Lefortovo Prison. He was cleared of the original fraud and money laundering charges by the court in March 2004, but found guilty of attempted escape and "abuse of authority"[5] and sentenced to 3 years and 3 months of imprisonment. Glushkov was released in the courtroom, since he had already served his sentence in the pre-trial detention centre. The Moscow City Court rejected the verdict and returned the case for new consideration. In 2006, the Savelovsky District Court terminated the prosecution of Glushkov, and gave him a two-year suspended sentence.[11]
