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Members of Taganskaya criminal gang to stand trial

The Investigative Committee of Russia continues investigation of a probe into members of a gang, and later of a criminal community involved in murders, kidnapping and extortion, swindling and other offenses of varying severity. For a long time these crimes remained unsolved, as members of the gang skillfully disguised its activities under private security companies and security services of firms. However, investigators of the Investigative Committee of Russia and officers of operative services managed to detect a number of participants of Taganskaya gang. After detention of the gang leader Igor Zhirnokleev on January 22, 2019 in Moscow and subsequents detention of a number of other participants the criminal community ceased its activities.

Investigation of a probe into former members of Taganskaya criminal gang Grigory Rabinovich, Igor Zhirnokleev, Oleg Rusanov, Boris Tretyak, Dmitry Ukhnevich, Igor Balashov, German Grishin, Gennady Lukyanov, Sergey Schervakov, Sergey Schukarev and Marat Yanbukhtin is finished. Depending on the role of each they are accused of committing offenses under Parts 1, 2 of Article 209, Parts 1, 2 of Article 210, Paragraphs A, C, E, G, H of Part 2 of Article 105, Paragraph A of Part 3 of Article 126, Paragraphs A, B Of Part 3 of Article 163, Paragraphs A, B of Part 3 of Article 161, Paragraph A of Part 4 of Article 158, Part 4 of Article 159.2, Part 3 of Article 222, Part 3 of Article 222.1, Part 3 of Article 223, Part 3 of Article 223.1 of the Criminal Code of Russia (creation and participation in an armed gang and a criminal community, aggravated murder of more than two persons, committed by a group of persons out of mercenary motives, kidnapping, theft, robbery and extortion of someone else's property, swindling and receiving payments, illegal turnover of weapons, ammunition, explosive devices and explosives).

According to investigation, not later than in 1991 Zhirnokleev, together with Alexander Graber, who died in 1994, and Igor Shilov, who died in 1999, organized Taganskie stable armed group (gang) in order to attack citizens, take over organizations and commit murders. Later, during the period from the end of 2002 to beginning of 2003 Zhirnokleev, already with Grigory Rabinovich, formed on its basis another criminal community in order to commit similar offences.

In order to realize their criminal goals of attacking citizens, during the period from January 01, 1991 to March 18, 2019 members of the gang under the leadership of Zhirnokleev manufactured and acquired a large number of various firearms, their main parts, ammunition for them, as well as cold steel, explosive devices and explosives, which were secretly stored in specially prepared caches until the moment of their seizure on March 18, 2019 by law enforcement agencies.

In addition, the structure of the created criminal community provided for external surveillance units and a technical service, which monitored the victims, their routes of movement, and also developed escape routes for criminals after committing of offenses.

Thus, in different years the accused committed the murder of Valery Zhuravlev, general director of Rospishcheprom OJSC, assisted in the murder of Aslan Usoyan, known as Ded Khasan, committed the murder of a businessman from Moscow, and the murder of an employee of the legal department of Univermag Moskva OJSC and of a member of their gang, the murder of an entrepreneur from the Yaroslavl region; the murder of lawyer Natalya Vavilina; robbery, extortion and kidnapping of an entrepreneur in Moscow, a series of frauds, illegal turnover and manufacture of weapons and explosives.

Members of the gang together with persons not belonging to it, committed the theft of property rights for the building owned by Rospischeprom OJSC, located on the 1st Tverskoy-Yamskiy lane in Moscow. Further, the leaders of the criminal community Zhirnokleev and Rabinovich, having found out that General Director Valery Zhuravlev became aware of this and was going to apply to law enforcement agencies with a claim about fraudulent actions at re-registering ownership of the building, decided to kill him. To implement their plan, they attracted 7 members of the Taganskie gang led by them, which is part of the criminal community of the same name, developed a plan, and also assigned the roles in the crime. They carried out covert surveillance of the victim to establish his lifestyle, places of stay and residence. In the evening of February 6, 2008, when Zhuravlev was heading from his official car to the entrance of his house, the defendants attacked him and inflicted multiple injuries, from which the victim died at the scene. The attackers stole a bag with documents of Rospischeprom OJSC, which was subsequently handed over to a member of the gang for further actions to alienate the property of the joint-stock company.

The investigation gathered enough evidence; therefore, the criminal case with the approved indictment has been sent to the court to be tried on the merits.

Previously, a gang member Yury Malinovsky was sentenced to 14 years of imprisonment in a strict regime penal colony and a fine of 1,5 million rubles.

Investigation of other episodes of criminal activities of the gang continues.