Maxim Pavlyuk, who until the end of April held the position of head of the department of the highest qualification commission, issuance of certificates, certification of aviation training centers and aviation medicine of the Federal Air Transport Agency, was detained. Two more people were also detained, who are called Pavlyuk's accomplices – Natalya Mitina and Andrey Chernikov. Pavlyuk is charged with taking a bribe on an especially large scale.
Pavlyuk is suspected of extorting bribes for entering pilots into a special register, without which they cannot work on civil aviation flights. For entry into the register, Pavlyuk demanded through intermediaries up to 1.5 million rubles.
On the eve of the flight operations department of the Federal Air Transport Agency, searches and arrests were carried out. Aviatorshchina reported on searches and detentions with reference to sources, later the informationwas confirmed by the state-owned RIA Novosti and RBC. At the same time, RIA Novosti writes that Pavlyuk is a former employee of the Federal Air Transport Agency. According to Aviatorshchina, Pavlyuk was fired from the Federal Air Transport Agency at the end of April, and now he holds the position of head of the Integrated Development of Territories Department of the State Budgetary Institution "Automobile Roads" subordinate to the Department of Housing and Communal Services of the City of Moscow. RBC reports that he is an employee of the highest qualification commission of the Federal Air Transport Agency.
“When there were grounds for depriving pilots of certificates, members of an organized criminal group offered them not to cancel them for money. Thus, pilots who paid were not deprived of their pilot's licenses. The cost of non-cancellation of one pilot license averaged ₽1.5 million. The total amount of bribes received under this scheme is estimated at ₽150-170 million,” writes Aviatorshchina and clarifies that before the searches, the head of the Federal Air Transport Agency, Neradko, went on vacation.
Pavlyuk is a physical education teacher by education, he graduated from the Russian State University of Physical Culture, Sports, Youth and Tourism (GTSOLIFK) in 2013 with a degree in Sambo Theory and Methods, the authors of the publication report. He has been working at the Federal Air Transport Agency, according to available data, since 2016.