Planned escape

According to intelligence services, the criminals were helped out of prison

In the Krasnodar Territory over the weekend, the epic search for six dangerous criminals who escaped on March 1 while transporting them from the regional court finally ended. In just three days, local intelligence services managed to track down the fugitives and return them all to jail. The investigation into the emergency was marked by a huge scandal - as it turned out, the escape became possible not at all due to a coincidence of circumstances. It was a well-prepared action of the criminal community. And now not only the fugitives themselves were under arrest, but also their two guards, accused of complicity. The two bandits who organized the escape are wanted.

According to the prosecutor's office of the Krasnodar region, on Friday, March 1, at about 5 p.m., when a paddy wagon was approaching the prison, a fight was staged in a cage installed in the back. Two bribed guards opened the cell to calm the brawlers, and for the sake of credibility they beat them and took away their pistols.

In hot pursuit, they managed to catch only one fugitive - Evgeniy Golitsyn, who was sentenced to 25 years in prison for robbery and murder. True, he said that he didn’t know any of the cellmates before, but ran for company. The guards admitted during interrogations that certain people paid them several tens of thousands of rubles for staging the escape of only one prisoner - Igor Zhukov, sentenced to life imprisonment for a series of murders. The police explained their betrayal by their meager salary - 1,300 rubles.

In addition to Zhukov, Roman Shuplyak, Maxim Balykin, Andrei Zhestakov, convicted of murder and robbery, and two Chechen militants, Ruslan Korovin and Said Khisimikov, were also released. The regional police department announced a reward of 1 million rubles for their capture, but at first all the reports were false. Only on March 6, a resident of the village of Psekupskoye came to one of the police departments in neighboring Adygea and said that, apparently, three fugitives were sitting at his house. At first, the criminals broke into the house and took the owner hostage, but then, getting bored, they sent him to the store for food and vodka. The next day, after a short firefight, special forces stormed the house in which Shuplyak, Khisimikov and Korovin were holed up.

A day later, on March 8, detectives were on the trail of Zhukov himself - he was identified by a phone call he made to a friend. It turned out that he was hiding on the outskirts of Krasnodar in the boiler room of a war veterans hospital, where he was arrested early in the morning. Together with Zhukov, two more hospital security officers who gave shelter to the criminal were detained. As it turned out, they took him at the last moment - the bandit was already preparing to leave along a pre-prepared route to St. Petersburg, where a fake passport was waiting for him.

By the evening of the same day, detectives were able to find the two remaining fugitives. Andrei Zhestakov was literally picked up in one of the factory dormitories in Stavropol - he was so drunk that he only woke up in his cell. He spent several days of freedom in his own way - on March 4, he shot and robbed a local businessman, taking 3 thousand rubles, and on March 7, in the very center of the city, he wounded a taxi driver. Maxim Balykin was detained at home in Armavir.

Alexander RASKIN