The Krasnodar Territory investigating bodies of the Russia’s Investigative Committee have finished investigating three criminal cases against Kushchevsky district residents Aleksey Gurov, Yevgeny Gurov, Vyacheslav Skachedub, Aleksey Steblevsky, Sergey Steblevsky, Dmitry Lobanov, Igor Bessonov, Yevgeny Nikitenko, Artak Sarksyan.

Depending on the role of each one of them they are charged with inflicting grave injuries, entailing by negligence death of the victim (part 4 of article 11 of the RF Criminal Code), two episodes of involving a minor in a crime as a member of a criminal group (part 4 of article 150), five thefts by a group of persons under a preliminary conspiracy involving considerable damage to citizens (paragraphs “a” and “c” of part 2 of article 158), two rapes of minors (paragraph “e” of part 2 of article 131), two episodes of sexual abuse including against minors (part 1 and paragraph “a” of part 3 of article 132), extortion (part 1 and paragraph “c” of part 2 of article 163), robbery (part 1 of article 161) and attempted robbery committed by a group of persons using violence (part 3 of article 30, paragraphs “a” and “d” of part 2 of article 161), deliberate destruction of other’s property by arson (part 2 of article 167) and illegal purchasing and storage of drugs (part 1 of article 228).

All these crimes were solved during an investigation of brutal murder of 12 people in the village of Kushchevskaya. To find the assumed murderers and at the same time evaluate the size of the outrage and illegality, which had been taking place in the village for 10 years, a special operations investigating group was created as from the very first days it was obvious that the Tsapok’s gang was not the only one acting in Kushchevka. Investigators found out that beside the Tsapok’s gang there were two more gangs acting in Kushchevsky district. One of them was headed by Vadim Palkin and its members are charged with killing Sergey Tsapok’s brother. Another one was led by Aleksey Gurov and its members are charged with more than 30 serious and especially serious crimes committed in Kushchevsky district.

According to investigators, the Gurov’s gang acted in the period between 2007 and 2009. It included 9 people. They committed robberies and extortions of locals, a number of thefts of audio and video equipment from cars. In addition the leader of the gang, Aleksey Gurov, committed a number of sexual crimes: in 2008-2010 he committed two rapes of women and two episodes of sexual abuse including against minors. One more member of the group, Yevgeny Gurov, together with Sergey Karpenko (a member of the Stapok’s gangm who killed himself during investigation) in January 2009 set fire to a Mitsubishi Mirage owned by a CEO of an elevator, with whom both Yevgeny Gurov and Sergey Tsapok had a conflict.

During the investigation a pretrial restraining measure was not imposed on Yevgeny Gurov, as he had been sentenced to 12 years in prison. Under the motion of the investigators the court ruled to place Aleksey Gurov and Vyacheslav Skachedub in custody as a pre-trial restraining measure. Dmitry Lobanov is wanted. Other accused gave written undertakings not to leave the place and behave properly.

The criminal cases against members of the Gurov’s gang will be sent to the court to be tried on the merits after the indictments are approved.

Investigators have done a load of job to solve the crimes and bring to justice all leaders and members of the gangs acting in the village of Kushchevskaya and Kushchevsky district for many years. This was possible first of all due to the fact that investigators managed to make a psychological contact with the local people as at first they hardly trusted the local law enforcement.

At present the court is hearing criminal cases against members of two gangs – those of Sergey Tsapok’s and Vadim Palkin’s. They will be sentenced in the near future.