The investigative committee of the Russian Federation

Investigators establish in detail the circumstances of Mikhail Krug’s murder

The Tver Regional Directorate of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation has managed, due to a complex of investigative activities conducted over the co-perpetrators and witnesses of the crime, to establish the smallest detail of the murder of singer Mikhail Vorobyov, widely known as Mikhail Krug, committed in Tver 17 years ago.

At the initial stage of the investigation, it was established that, on June 30, 2002, on the evening of the celebration of the Day of Tver, two men had secretly entered the house of Mikhail Krug, located in the rural settlement of Mamulino in the regional center, with the aim of robbing, and one of them had killed the singer. It had not been possible to solve the non-obvious crime in 2002 on hot pursuit due to the lack of actual witnesses and insufficient evidence.

While studying the criminal case materials, the investigators of the Investigative Committee carried out an immense amount of work to restore the smallest details of the crime. After a long period of time, the persons interrogated during the investigation could no longer reproduce the details of what had happened on the night of July 1, 2002. The investigation worked out various versions, including Krug’s personal conflicts, mercenary motives of committing the crime, as well as the involvement of persons previously convicted and dependent on drugs. The investigative bodies of the Investigative Committee checked every acquaintance of the singer, as well as people associated with the organization of his tours and concerts and all residents of the settlement where the tragedy had taken place.

In the course of identification of persons involved in the commission of the crime, members of the Tver Wolves gang, which had been operating in the city of Tver and Tver Region at that time, came to the attention of the law enforcement agencies. A member of the gang, Alexander Ageyev, was investigated for involvement in the murder of Mikhail Krug. No direct evidence of the commission of this crime by Ageyev was available at that time. However, in 2019, as part of the Investigative Committee’s work to solve the crimes of past years, additional information was received on the circumstances of the murder of Mikhail Krug, and the preliminary investigation of the case was resumed.

The persons involved in the commission of the crime were identified due to the close cooperation of investigators and forensic experts of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation for Tver Region with the staff of the regional Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Ministry of Emergency Situations, and the Federal Penitentiary Service of Russia, as well as with the special units of the National Guard, and due to the efficiency of the investigation of the information received and the coherence of the work of these law enforcement agencies.

Members of the Tver Wolves gang, Alexander Ageyev and Alexander Osipov, who were sentenced to life imprisonment for committing a number of contract murders, were transferred to the Tver detention center in order to check the operational information received from the penal colonies in Yamal-Nenets Autonomous District and Khabarovsk Territory.

The investigators succeeded in establishing psychological contact with these persons, which resulted in Alexander Ageyev confessing to the attack on the house of Mikhail Krug together with another gang member, Dmitry Veselov. In the course of the investigation, Ageyev pointed out the motives behind their entry into the victim’s home, explaining that the singer’s murder had not been intended. Ageyev said that, upon an instruction of Tver’s criminal authority known in certain circles as “Lom”, who had died in 2006, he and Veselov had had to enter the home of Mikhail Krug, who, according to the information at the disposal of the gang members, should not have been at home together with his family on that evening. The only intention of the accomplices had been to steal antiquities and valuables from there and then leave the scene. According to the client’s plan, Mikhail Krug, having found out the fact of theft of his property, would have asked him for help, he “would have found” the stolen property, after which the singer would have been obliged to him and would have paid part of the fees from the concert activities. However, Mikhail Krug and his family had suddenly come home and surprised the robbers in the act. Bearing no doubt, Veselov had decided to eliminate the problem by attacking Krug’s mother-in-law. When Mikhail Krug had suddenly appeared in the path of the attacker, Veselov had shot him twice with a 7.62 mm TT pistol and then shot the dog guarding the ground floor hall. Following that, Veselov and Ageyev had fled the scene. The singer had died in a hospital in Tver as a result of gunshot wounds to his chest and stomach.

In March 2003, Dmitry Veselov had been killed by another member of the Tver Wolves gang, Alexander Osipov (Osipov Jr.), who is now serving his life sentence as well. Osipov explained his motives of killing Veselov to the investigators of the Investigative Committee, which had been born out of vengeance for Mikhail Krug’s murder. He said that he had met the singer and had been a fan of his work. When he had learned that Dmitry Veselov had been responsible for Krug’s death, he had shot and killed the latter in a forest area in Kimrsky District, Tver Region.

The investigators of the Tver Regional Directorate of the Investigative Committee and the officers of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in Tver Region have carried out a set of investigative and search measures aimed at establishing all the circumstances of the crime committed. For instance, Alexander Ageyev’s testimony has been fully verified and impartially confirmed by the collected evidence on the criminal case, testimonies of other persons, which are reasonable, consistent, interrelated, and reflect the whole picture of the incident, protocols of inspections and other investigative actions, as well as conclusions of forensic examinations and specialists. The investigative authorities have decided upon closing the investigation and the criminal prosecution, taking into account the death of Dmitry Veselov suspected of the singer’s murder.

Operative footage

23 September 2019 11:00

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