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In Vladimir Region, leader and members of organized criminal group to stand trial for series of personal and property crimes

The Vladimir Region Office of the Investigative Committee has finished the investigation in the murder of a family committed on 12 June 2015 in a flat in Nizhnyaya Dubrova Street in the city of Vladimir. Residents of the town of Noginsk are going to appear in court on charges of 7 counts of criminal activity: leader of the organized criminal group 49-year-old Anatoly Mazur, members of the gang 26-year-old Viktor Smirnov, 38-year-old Maksim Meshchankin, as well as 26-year-old Alexander Raldugin and 47-year-old Galina Bobrova. Depending on the role of each one they are charged with crimes under part 2, items “a”, “d”, “e”, “g”, “h” and “j” of Article 105 (aggravated murder of two or more people), Part 2 of Article 209 (banditry), Part 3 of Article 222 (illegal circulation of firearms and ammunition), Part 1 of Article 167 (deliberate destruction of another’s property) and Part 2 of Article 139 of the RF Penal Code (illegal break-in).

The murder of a man, his pregnant wife and her teenage son shocked the public and best investigators and criminalists of the regional investigative authority and police detectives were dispatched to look into the case.

The leader and members of the criminal group, as well as the people who had ordered the murder were detained in Noginsk as early as on 23 and 24 June 2015.

During the initial stage the investigation was complicated by suspects denying the charges, but as irrefutable evidence was presented two of the accused made a plea deal and the leader of the gang admitted the guilt.

Thanks to well-planned professional and psychological tactics, an investigator was able to solve two more murders committed by the accused some years before.

According to investigators, Mazur, previously convicted of major crimes, decided to continue committing crimes in 2011 in order to get some money and decided to do that by means of killing. At first he involved Smirnov and later Meshchankin aware of their inclination and need for money. As the leader of the gang Mazur used his authority in criminal circles and acted toughly, demanding discipline and obedience. To commit contract murders they got things to maintain secrecy and a pistol.

In June 2015, Mazur agreed to commit a murder ordered by Galina Bobrova who was angry with her husband she was being divorcing at the moment. She provided Mazur with necessary information on the victim, promising a reward of 1 million rubles for the murder of her husband after she had inherited and sold his flat in Vladimir.

On the night of 11 June 2015, Mazur together with Smirnov and Meshchankin arrived in Vladimir to survey the victim and then went back to Noginsk. Next morning they drove up the victim’s house in Nizhnyaya Dubrova Street with a 9mm pistol fitted with a silencer and a knife. Meshchankin was left in a car to be on the lookout, while Mazur and Smirnov went into the flat. Mazur shot the 42-year-old man to death, and then when he saw the 16-year-old boy he shot him in the head in front of his mother. They killed the 36-year-old pregnant woman by stabbing her multiple times. To make it look like a robbery-related murder they took a laptop computer and a phone from the flat, which they threw into a river on their way to Noginsk. When Bobrova had arrived they informed her of the murder of her husband and other people present in the flat.

Divers retrieved the laptop from the bottom of the river and it was filed with the case as physical evidence.

Galina Bobrova has never admitted the guilt.

Along with the circumstances set forth, the investigators had gotten evidence suggesting Mazur, Smirnov, Meshchankin and Raldugin had been involved in murder of two more people.

According to the investigators, Mazur and Smirnov strangled an elderly man in October 2011 in Noginsk. They sold his housing for 150 thousand rubles. For a long time the death of the man who had abused alcohol was considered natural and not until the investigator insisted on an integrated forensic inquiry was the criminal nature of death discovered.

In 2013, the accomplices received an order from Raldugin to kill his stepbrother who, being a drug addict, made his family suffer. The 33-year-old man was smothered by a plastic bag and sustained an injury to the neck. His body was buried in another’s grave on a cemetery.

The accused were taken into custody pending trial.

The investigators have done a lot of work, questioned more than 70 witnesses and run 45 different forensic inquiries.

The criminal case of 22 files with the signed indictment of a thousand pages has been referred to court.