Wildberries has been accused of embezzlement from its warehouses under the guise of drone strikes

A conspiracy theory is circulating in Russian social media groups that the management of the Wildberries marketplace organized a large-scale, secret scheme to embezzle goods that sellers had consigned for sale. 

According to this theory, high-value goods—including valuable electronics and jewelry—were transported to separate, controlled locations under the guise of evacuation, while the electronic inventory system continued to show that they were still in the old warehouses. After a series of fires and drone strikes, the removed goods were en masse written off as destroyed as a result of the shelling. 

This made it possible to conceal the true scale of internal theft and shift the losses onto sellers. Reports indicate that thousands of sellers have suffered due to property losses and accumulated debts, including some cases of suicide, although official Russian law enforcement agencies have so far refrained from commenting.

Source: Russian media

Following a series of strikes on Wildberries’ logistics centers, owners of order pickup points began losing customers and revenue. In some regions, their revenue in July fell by 15–20% year-over-year, and on peak days, the decline reached 30–40%. Market representatives warn that some pickup points may become unprofitable, and by the end of the year, about 15% of them may close.

On the night of August 5, drones attacked the Wildberries logistics complex in Aleksin, Tula Oblast, Russia. The strike hit the company’s largest warehouse in Russia’s Central Federal District, with an area of approximately 300,000 square meters.