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In St. Petersburg, sentence imposed over a probe into murders of socially unprotected citizens and fraudulent actions with their apartments

The evidence gathered by the St. Petersburg Investigative Department of the Investigative Committee of Russia was found by a jury sufficient to convict Zabara Zubov, Gennady Ageyev, Victoria Godovikova, Valentina Torochkova and Viktor Zorin. Depending on the role of the each, they were found guilty of committing offenses under Part 5 of Article 33 paragraph H of Part 2 of Article 105, paragraphs A, G, H, J of Part 2 of Article 105, Part 4 of Article 159, Part 1 of Article 30, Part 4 of Article 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (organization of murder, murder, fraud, attempted fraud). Article 159 of Part 4 of the Criminal Code (organization and complicity in murder, murder, fraud, attempted fraud).

The investigation and the court established that, in 2010, Sergey Krokhin, a district police officer of Kolpinsky District of St. Petersburg, had organized a criminal group in order to commit murders of socially unprotected citizens and take over their apartments; he had enrolled Zabar Zubov, Gennady Ageyev, Victoria Godovikova, Valentina Torochkova, and Viktor Zorin in the group.

Krokhin and his accomplices had been finding senior or asocial people owning an apartment, discovering whether they had had legal heirs, and decided upon a murder after analyzing the obtained information. Preferably, they had searched for apartments owned by women that had had a son or a grandson. After the murder of the owner of the apartment, the heir had been urged to enter into a fake marriage with one of the accomplices, and once she had become a legal heir, he had been also murdered.

Krokhin had invented ways of committing murders without leaving signs on the bodies. Ageev, a pensioner of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, had been in charge of legal issues of registering inheritance and sold the apartments. Zubov and Zorin had been directly engaged in committing the offenses while Torochkova and Godovikova had been entering into fake marriages with victims.

From August 2010 to March 2015, the accomplices had committed four murders and two episodes of swindling.

The jury verdict found Zubov, Ageyev, Godovikova, Torochkova, and Zorin guilty.

The court sentenced Zubov to life imprisonment to be served in a special regime penal colony, and Zorin to 11 years' imprisonment to be served in a strict regime penal colony.

With respect to the remaining accomplices criminal cases were terminated due to the expiration of the statute of limitations for criminal liability. The defendants fully pleaded guilty to the crimes committed. The court's verdict against Krokhin, who entered into a pre-trial cooperation agreement, was pronounced earlier.