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A court has recognized the evidence gathered by the Kirov Region Office of the Investigative Committee sufficient to convict Mikhail Prokopyev, the organizer of Prokopovskiye gang. He was found guilty of crimes under part 1 of Article 210, Part 1 of Article 209 of the RF Penal Code, Part 102, item “m” of Article 102 of the RSFSR Penal Code, Part 2, items “a”, “f”, “g”, “h” and “j” of Article 105 of the RF Penal Code, part 3 of Article 30, Part 2, items “a”, “g”, “h” and “j” of Article 105, Part 3 of Article 222 of the RF Penal Code (organization of a criminal community, banditry, murder, murder of two or more people, attempted murder of two and more people, illegal circulation of firearms).

In 2014, while investigating crimes committed in previous years, investigators of the Kirov Region Office of the Investigative Committee managed to fall on the track of Prokopovskiye gang, that acted in Kirov Region between 1993 and 2004. The investigators revealed that the gang had three structural divisions including a killing gang set up to attack and kill members of competing gangs and businessmen. Some of the gangsters were especially good with firearms at hand-to-hand combat, martial arts and were war veterans. The gang had at least 22 members, charges against 13 of them were dropped due to their death or statute of limitations.

The court and investigators have revealed that in the 1990s Mikhail Prokopyev, a cruel and proud man, set up the gang to extort money and other kinds of assets from businessmen, and to control their businesses. Gradually, the stable and united gang was joined by residents of Kirov Region. The unity of the gang was maintained by strict discipline, system of rewards for wrongdoings and flat refusal to cooperate with law-enforcers. The gangsters acted highly discreetly. They called each other on numbers known only inside the gang and constantly changed the rented flats. At the same time criminal authority, the numbers and financial power of the gang grew by the year.

Mikhail Prokopyev was charged with an attempted murder of three people and a murder of eight people: head of a rival gang Roman Gorodchikov, businessman Yevgeny Yolkin, director of a private security firm Ayaks Pavel Senin, director of a tea plant Igor Gaidash, CEO of Vyatsky commercial center Anatoly Gorbushin and three gangsters.

This way, on 5 August 2000, following the order of Prokopyev and his henchman Sergei Krivoshein, one of the gangsters shot to death Igor Gaidash near his house in the settlement of Subbotikha. The businessman was murdered because he had refused to pay the gangsters and to warn other businessmen.

Three years later the town of Kirov was shook by another conspicuous murder. Anatoly Gorbushin, the CEO of Vyatsky commercial center was shot for the same motives. On the morning of 7 July 2003, Gorbushin had taken off in his car from his summer cottage in the village of Kameshniki. Krivoshein and the hitman had laid an ambush by the road and gunned the car down from a Kalashnikov sub-machine gun and a pump-action shotgun. Krivoshein informed Prokopyev that the mission had been accomplished and fled the city.

The investigators found out that Prokopyev invested the money he “earned” into establishing and developing entertainment establishments and cafes in the region, some of the profit was spent to support the gang, including buying firearms and ammunition. Three stashes were found in Kirov which contained 32 guns, including Kalashnikov submachine guns, a rocket-propelled grenade, pistols, revolvers, sawn-off smooth-bore guns, a hunting rifle, a lot of cartridges of different calibers, anti-tank rocket grenades, hand grenades, gun silencers.

Though investigators refused to offer any plea deals to Prokopyev, he still confessed due to the number and gravity of the evidence gathered by the investigators and forensic specialists.

As for the second accused – one of active Prokopovskiye gangsters Pavel Kolpakov – he was found guilty of killing two and more people (Part 2, items “a”, “f”, “g”, “h” and “j” of Article 105 of the RF Penal Code). The court and investigators have revealed that in 1995-1996, he joined the gang as its hitman. The investigators established that Kolpakov was involved a triple murder: in November 1998, he and other gangsters killed three colleagues from a rival gang in the town of Kirov. In 2000, Kolpakov tried to leave the gang and was attacked by Sergei Krivoshein following the order from Prokopyev. Charges of membership in a gang under Part 2 of Article 210 were dropped due to the statute of limitations.

The team of the regional investigative authority has done a lot of work to find and collect evidence of the activity run by Prokopyevskiye gang. They questioned about 400 witnesses, including those who were involved in the gang’s activity, representatives of rival gangs, businessmen who had been forced to pay kickbacks and eye-witnesses. They ran 93 forensic inquiries: medical, ballistic, explosive, psychiatric and psychological. They ran 50 on-site checks of testimonies involving the accused and suspects, more than 73 face-to-face interrogations, while the case numbers to more than 50 files.

A court has recognized the evidence gathered by the Kirov Region Office of the Investigative Committee to convict the accused. Mikhail Prokopyev has been sentenced to life in prison, Pavel Kolpakov to 18 years in a maximum-security correctional facility.

Earlier the rest of Prokopovskiye gang were found guilty of major crimes. Sergei Krivoshein got 24 years 1 month in prison, Dmitry Izmestyev got 24 years, Sergei Shirin 23 years, Roman Kara 13 years. Leonid Podgaits, who had been responsible for the security of gangsters, got 13 years in prison.