Former Roscosmos Director of Quality Control Found Murdered in Shared Prison Cell
On March 18, 2017, Vladimir Yevdokimov, the former quality control director of Roscosmos, was found stabbed to death in the bathroom of his shared prison cell at a pre-trial detention center in Moscow. Yevdokimov was arrested at the end of 2016 on charges of embezzling $3.1 million from Russian Aircraft Corporation MiG between 2007 and 2009. A number of theories have been floated on how and why this may have come about.
Interestingly, he had reportedly just recently been moved from a CCTV-monitored cell to a larger one without security cameras with 11 inmates facing similar charges. His death follows years of restructuring at Roscosmos stemming from a failed Proton‑M launch in July 2013 and a determination by the Kremlin to address perceived failures within the organization. The formal federal agency was transformed into a state-owned corporation in January 2016 with the intent of cutting waste and improving services.