In early January 2018, the near-criminal world of Samara was stirred by the news that the deputy of the Provincial Duma Andrei Lugovoi sent a request to the Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation, Yuri Chaika, asking him to check several people from the power structures of the Samara region. According to the parliamentarian, werewolves in uniform purposefully for several years covered the criminal activity of the famous Zakonovskiy gang in the province.
Crime in uniform
Lugovoi’s request did not arise from scratch. In mid-August 2017, a series of high-profile arrests began in Samara. They handcuffed not ordinary mortals, but, according to investigators, the leader of the most famous organized criminal group in the province , Sergei Gafurov and his assistants. The main blow to the Zakonovskie organized crime group in Samara was dealt several months later, in December, with the arrest of not only anyone but the prosecutor of the Bezenchuksky district, Andrei Pavlov. With his detention, the media leaked information about the involvement of several people from the city’s security forces in organized crime.
The fact that the Zakonovskys was covered by the local police was discussed for a long time, but the matter did not move beyond the conversations - there was no evidence. Or they intentionally were not collected. For many years, the gang felt quite at ease, openly moving around the city with whole motorcades, loudly, firing in crowded places, resolving issues falling within their sphere of interests. It seemed that the police simply did not notice this activity of the crime of Samara, since, no matter what happened, members of the organized crime group were still at large.
There is an assumption that the officers of the Novosibirsk State Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Yuri Sterlikov and Nikolai Turbovets, made them untouchable when they were in charge of the power structures of the Samara Region. In favor of this statement is the fact that at one time they reported to higher authorities on the eradication of organized crime in the city on the Volga. And that such a thing as a gangster Samara no longer exists. However, the arrest of Gafurov, his fighters and the prosecutor Pavlov is the best evidence that the organized crime group is still operating. Moreover, it infiltrated the police circles.
The heyday of the "Legislative"
The creation of the gang fell on the "dashing" 90s. From the very beginning, her companions were imprisoned in the colony settlement Alexander Zakonov and Vyacheslav Sorokin. Before the arrest, both were mainly engaged in racketeering, controlling trading floors. While they were in places not so remote, their influence in the criminal structures of Samara was somewhat shaken. Realizing that it would not be easy for them to regain the past and firmly seize part of the markets in the city of their exploits without strong support, future authorities turned for patronage to the Moscow-famous Solntsevsky group, known throughout the country.
By happy coincidence, one of the capital's criminal figures, Petya Gorbaty, was a relative of Sorokin. The eminent Muscovite, a former boxer who served time for murder, did not disappoint. He put in the word “whoever is needed”, and soon the Zakonovskie organized crime group appeared in the Volga city. Samara in those years experienced all the "charms" of redivision of business between old and new bandits. The hunchback turned out to be a far-sighted patron and not only helped a relative clear the area for his business, but also enlisted the support of officials from the city hall and the Ministry of Property of the capital of the province.
With lobbyists among those in power, the “legal” empire began to develop rapidly. Soon, many retail outlets of the city and parking lots, bringing a stable and quite tangible income, came under its influence. But only with the transition to their control of the largest Kirov market in Samara, the era of heyday of organized crime groups began. Moving toward this goal, the “lawful" had to literally remove many dissenting from their path in the literal sense of the word. The gangster ranks of the city have noticeably thinned.
Legalization is a priority
In the early 2000s, the influence of the group extended not only to trading floors and car parking networks. Alexander Zakonov gradually took the criminal business out of the shadows, filling out company and gang members of the company, which he patronized. He managed to take control of part of passenger traffic in Samara and the region, some services in the field of housing and communal services. Criminal activity gradually legalized. The group had real estate, which was successfully leased. Shadow money was laundered through official business.
The moment came when the militants of Zakonov more carefully began to choose objects for their protection, in other words, to defend for a tribute. Their interest extended only to those firms that could be partially or completely taken over. The business of Zakonovskys grew in depth and breadth. Wholesalers, security companies, trade in sand, timber - only a small part of the empire. The leader of the gang himself at that time was one of the reputable entrepreneurs of Samara, being the official founder of numerous companies. The bulk of Zakonov’s militants were former commandos, reinforcing through their channels the connection between the criminal group and the police. A special foresight in this regard stood out Alexei Ryzhov, who later took the chair of the leader of the organized criminal group.
Having served theirs - from the road
Death from old age rarely overtakes representatives of gangster communities. The first of the Zakonovskys, this unwritten principle was experienced by Vyacheslav Sorokin, who crossed the road to another influential city authority - the Samara Pope. Having shown his disrespect to one verbal skirmish, he significantly reduced his life. Not far from the market on Fadeeva Street in Samara, which he himself built, Sorokin was shot from a machine gun at the end of September 2002. And shortly before the murder, a significant amount of money was stolen from his apartment, according to one version - a gangster common fund.
Two years later, Alexander Zakonov suffered a similar fate. However, the official version of his murder from the one that soon leaked to the press was significantly different. Many still argue that the incident was not spontaneous in the heat of a quarrel, and that the fatal shot in the head of a bandit was managed to be coordinated with the top of the criminal community of the province and the capital's patrons. New criminal times have come for the Zakonovskie organized crime groups in Samara. At the head of the gang stood the former bodyguard of Zakonov from the special forces - Ryzhov. And the widow of the deceased, Oksana, went to another of his security guards, whom she soon married. And all with the permission of the Moscow "watchmen" and the Samara Pope, who personally participated in the reorganization of the group.
Order for a former ally
Until 2016, a relative lull in criminal circles remained in the Volga city. All worth money between authorities was divided fraternally, and new tidbits were distributed among spheres of influence. Enough for everyone. But in the summer of 2016, the long-term leader of the Zakonovskie organized crime group in Samara, Alexei Ryzhov, died of pancreatic disease, whose funeral put an end to the peaceful coexistence of his fighters. Inside the group, a struggle began for the vacant chair of the leader.
The main applicants for his place, Sergei Gafurov (nickname - "Gafur") and Vladimir Izumrudov (nickname - "Emerald"), by that time had long been reassigned as successful entrepreneurs, but few people knew about their involvement in the criminal community in Samara. Including law enforcement. Each of the applicants believed that it was him who should take the place of the leader, but the bulk of the fighters of the group gave priority to Gafurov. According to some reports, the gangster empire crossed over to him. But an active member of the Zakonovskie organized crime group, the Emeralds did not give up. Realizing that his activities had long crossed the line, and that he could take extreme measures at any time, Gafurov decided to play it safe.
Today, the investigative authorities of Samara have information that in May 2017, a former Zakonovskys member, one Denis Kovegin, received from the gang leader an order to kill Izumrudov, weapons to complete the mission and a deposit of three hundred thousand rubles. However, the killer did not have time to liquidate the entrepreneur, as he was soon arrested on suspicion of shooting another Samara businessman, a former police officer - Vadim Vinokurov.
Hanging and Netzke. Unexpected turn
The end of the summer of 2017 turned out to be quite hot for the Zakonovskie organized crime groups in Samara. Gafur was arrested, and before that, in addition to Kovegin, three more gang members were imprisoned. A former secret law enforcement officer, whom the Samara immediately christened Netske, handed over his former accomplices. He himself came to the police with a confession. His detailed account of the murder of Vinokurov in May 2014 became the basis for the arrest of all five "lawyers" led by the leader. The investigation of this case three years ago has long been considered by the Investigative Committee of Samara to be strong hanging, because the prospects for its disclosure gave the former bandit the status of a specially protected witness.
According to Netske, the shooting of Vinokurov on a personal boat in the floodplain of the Tatyanka River was the result of his rather rude statement about Alexey Ryzhov, who was heading the Zakonovskys at that time. 22 gunshot wounds, some of which were fatal, became a vendetta to a former policeman for careless words. So, the witness claims that the organizer of the execution of the businessman was precisely Gafur - Sergey Gafurov Musaevich. Samara took the news of the arrest of the latter, and before that, four direct executors of the raid on the Vinokurov yacht, as the beginning of the end of the Zakonovskys.
Ostap suffered
Once behind bars, Kovegin, Psarev, Popov and Khairetdinov - the very same four raiders - told the investigation about several previously unknown episodes of the gang's criminal activity. Their eloquence led to the assumption that members of the criminal group in return for revelation were promised some relief in the future, which would positively affect their own fate. Considering that in December 2017, according to the court verdict, Kovegin received nine years in prison, and Khairetdinov was suspended for only a year and a half, there are reasonable grounds for such an assumption, and members of the criminal group did cooperate with the investigation.
According to them, in the summer of 2010, the gang carried out an armed raid on Koniks, a fairly successful market in Samara. As a result of the shootout in the malls, four people were killed. The investigation did not reveal the reasons for the attack, but it is known for certain that none other than Gafurov became the organizer of the intimidation action. In addition to details on the Koniks, the arrested representatives of the gangster Samara revealed previously unknown details on several other incidents, of which the Zakonovskys had been involved. In total, the gang has more than a dozen grave and especially grave crimes in the past few years. The investigation against the leader of the group received irrefutable evidence for his arrest.
Gafur denies everything
The special forces took the home of the businessman and criminal authority by storm. For the businessman himself, the visit to his house of people in camouflage and with assault rifles was, according to lawyers, an absolute surprise, since he does not rank himself among gangster structures and has nothing to do with the Zakonovskie organized crime groups in Samara. All the testimonies that the former members of the group gave against him, Gafur calls delirium. Naturally, he claims that he was not involved in the organization of the murder of Vinokurov and Izumrudov either. Given that the investigation, at the time of his arrest, had only the testimonies of four former gang fighters, the lawyers insisted that their client be released on bail and identified a preventive measure for house arrest. But the court left Gafur in custody.
During the arrest, about 20 million rubles were seized from the businessman. Such a sum could not serve as a convincing argument that the businessman is engaged in criminal activities. But a few months after his arrest at one of the cottages located in the department of Gafurov, a weapon arsenal was discovered: machine guns, rifles, a grenade launcher, flamethrower, grenades, cartridges of various calibers, explosives. According to investigators, the warehouse belongs to the group, and its leader has a direct relationship to it. Currently, several criminal cases have been opened against Gafurov, he is being held in a pre-trial detention center, awaiting trial.
Under supervision - the prosecutor
The fact that the gang is under the auspices of regional law enforcement agencies has been discussed by the world of the criminal Samara for several years. For some incredible reasons, many high-profile crimes involving fighters of the group were closed. We couldn’t succeed in getting the brakes off, we found dummies on whom all the responsibility was hung, as was the case with the arrest of the well-known bloggers in Samara, Oleg Ivanets, Natalya Mironova and Dmitry Begun. But with the arrest of Gafurov, the investigation into some previously closed episodes resumed. The Investigative Committee of the Samara region released part of the data that confirms the popular belief that police structures are closely connected with crime.
The first danger of the eloquence of the convicted gang members was felt by Gafurov, and behind him - the prosecutor Andrei Pavlov, who is considered one of the main patrons of the Zakonovskie organized crime group in Samara. Bezenchuk, whose area until recently was headed by an arrested law enforcement official, did not directly fall into the group's interests. Therefore, it was not possible to attach the prosecutor of a somewhat remote municipality from the provincial capital to organized crime for so long.
He was arrested at the end of December during the transfer of a bribe in the amount of 750 thousand rubles. But at the current stage of the investigation, the 37-year-old Pavlov is charged with an article on attempted fraud. So far he has managed to protect himself from a bribe with the wording “tossed”. And with fraud, several episodes with the testimony of a certain Alexander Orlov, which passes to the victims in the case, are proved.
Who is next?
Lugovoi’s deputy request is replete with high-profile names of representatives of the Samara Region Ministry of Internal Affairs, whom he demands to check for involvement in criminal activity. The document provides the rationale for the suspicions of the people's deputy. According to him, the crime of Samara would not have flourished so wildly if it had not been for the support of Interior Minister Oleg Trukhman, who until recently held a rather high position, but was demoted, and Vadim Neshchadimov. A check is being conducted against the latter, but so far there is no evidence of his connection with the “legal” ones, he still holds his post as head of the Center for Combating Extremism of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in the Samara Region.
Lugovoi ascribes to Trukhman and Neshchadimov deliberate concealment of information about the attack on an employee of the city hall of Ilyin, which is responsible for the optimization of street retail outlets in the regional capital. And this is precisely the sphere of activity that the leader of the Samara organized criminal group of laws was so actively creating at the time. After the attempt on Ilyin, not the attackers themselves, but well-known bloggers were behind bars. However, why exactly their surname Lugovoi leads as dummies in this case, the prosecutor general will also have to double-check, as Begun, Ivanets and Mironov were convicted under a slightly different article - for extorting a bribe.
In the meantime, an investigation of the criminal activities of businessman Gafurov and the prosecutor Pavlov is in full swing in Samara. It is possible that the fighter against extremism Neshchadimov may soon join them.