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Based on the verdict of the jury, a court has recognized the evidence gathered by the Investigative Committee Head Office as sufficient to convict Ilkham Adilov, Irina Voronova, Khafiz Gasymov, Rovshan Dzhafarov, Sbukhi Makhmudov and Namik Mustafayev. Depending on the role of each one on the crimes, they were found guilty of fraud on a very large scale committed by an organized group under Part 4 of Article 159, abduction under part 3, items “a” and “c” of Article 126 and robbery under Part 1 of Article 161 of the RF Criminal Code.

The court and investigators have established that the accomplices joined the organized group in different times to abduct people for ransoms. They committed crimes since 2009 in the city of Moscow and the town of Smolensk against people who had no close relatives, orphans, older people, alcoholics, addicts or mentally troubled people. In some cases, they killed their victims. They abducted and killed people to defraud them of their flats.

In 2013, Adilov, Gasymov and Dzhafarov got information that there was an alcoholic who had a two-room flat in Moscow. They abducted the man and took him to Smolensk Region. They stole his passport, put a photograph of one of the accomplices in it and sold the victim’s flat. They took all the money to themselves. They committed the similar crime against an elderly married couple who had a flat in Moscow.

The investigators did a lot of work to uncover the whole scam and to hold those guilty. The case files include more than 100 questionings of witnesses. The victims’ bodies were exhumed, more than 40 different forensic, construction, DNA and medical examinations were run.

It was particularly hard to solve the crimes as not all of them were known, because the victims who managed to survive feared that the accused would kill them. In addition, the crimes were committed in Moscow, but them both the accomplices and the victims went to Smolensk Region. The accused made the property sale deals look as much legal as possible. In all, they committed more than 30 crimes.

The court has sentenced Makhmudov to 10.5 years in a maximum-security correctional facility, Voronina to 12.5 years in a minimum-security correctional facility, Gasymov to 16 years in a maximum-security correctional facility, Adilov and Dzhafarov to 10 years in a maximum-security correctional facility, Mustafayev to 3 years 8 months in a penal settlement.

The group also included former deputy chief of the Smolensk Police Department Tagir Abbasiv. He got 7 years in prison. Three more members of the group – Mikhail Gavrilenkov, Nikolai Shaikin and Konstantin Yakushin also were sentenced to long prison terms.

At present, the investigators are working to investigate other crimes committed by more than 20 members of the group, including those convicted.