The court sentenced the former head of the Roszdravnadzor territorial department for the Novosibirsk region.

The verdict has not yet entered into legal force. According to Khrustaleva's lawyer, Yevgeny Cherkasov, the defense plans to appeal the court's decision.

The investigation and court established that in September 2021, Khrustaleva hired her acquaintance, Alexander Makhnev, at the territorial department without completing the necessary procedures or signing an employment contract. Makhnev was appointed senior state inspector in the department for organizing control over the circulation of medicines and medical devices, and then head of the department for financial, legal, and personnel support.

According to the prosecutor's office, Khrustaleva instructed her subordinate to issue Makhnev an employee ID. Furthermore, when applying for the job, Makhnev allegedly provided a fake higher education diploma.

Investigators believe the defendants intended to embezzle nearly 600,000 rubles from the budget, intended to pay for transportation services. To accomplish this, they recruited a third defendant, Sergei Granin, director of a commercial organization. Ultimately, law enforcement officials claim, the defendants stole approximately 200,000 rubles by creating fictitious certificates of completion.

The defendants failed to complete the case, according to the supervisory agency, because they already suspected that law enforcement was interested in them. Therefore, they executed an agreement to terminate the state contract to "give the appearance of legality to their actions."

Elena Khrustaleva and Alexander Makhnev were detained in early August 2022. There is no publicly available information on the current status of Makhnev's criminal case. On September 24, 2025, the court sentenced Sergei Granin, who was charged with attempted fraud, to a suspended two-year prison sentence and a fine of 20,000 rubles. Additionally, Khrustaleva and Granin were ordered to pay 200,000 rubles to the Federal Service for Surveillance on Health and Social Development (Roszdranadzor).

Khrustaleva headed the territorial body of Roszdravnadzor from 2017 to 2022; before that, she headed one of the agency's departments.