04 February 2005, 10:32 Society

The court hides werewolves

Irina Petrakova The Moscow City Court has begun a trial on the case of werewolves from the Moscow traffic police who were involved in the theft and sale of expensive foreign cars. Their trial is being held closed to the press. Most of the defendants do not admit their guilt, although they were caught red-handed during the operation.

In Moscow, a trial began over a group of car thieves, which included two employees of the capital's traffic police . There are five people in the dock. The main person involved in the case is police captain Alexander Morozov , an employee of the 3rd special traffic police battalion on Dmitrovskoye Highway. He is charged with three articles of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation: Art. 158 (“Theft”), Art. 285 (“Abuse of official position”) and Art. 327 (“Forgery of documents”). Similar charges were brought against another traffic police officer - inspector of the 1st department for vehicle registration, Major Yuri Morozov (the captain's namesake), who was released on his own recognizance for cooperating with the investigation. In addition to them, three more people are being tried under Article 158 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation: the owner of an underground room-busting shop from Pushkin near Moscow, Sergei Kholod, and two members of the Murmansk criminal group, Oleg Kurapov and Dmitry Gribovsky.

Preliminary hearings in the Moscow City Court began at the end of last year. And on Thursday, the criminal case began to be considered on its merits: the indictment was announced, after which all the defendants spoke. According to the Interfax agency, four of them did not admit their guilt, and the fifth admitted the charges only partially. Other details of the meeting are unknown: the process is being held closed to the press at the request of a representative of the prosecutor’s office, since the materials of the criminal case contain documents classified as “secret”.

All five accused were detained on May 24, 2004 as part of a special operation organized by the Main Directorate of Internal Security of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs to check the activities of traffic police officers. As Gazeta.Ru was previously told by the press service of the Main Directorate of Security Services of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia, one of the first police officers detained Captain Alexander Morozov when he tried to sell a stolen Volkswagen Golf to a GUSB employee embedded in the group for $4 thousand, which is about 30% less. its real value. The second traffic police officer, inspector Yuri Morozov, was detained in his office in the 1st department for vehicle registration of the Moscow State Traffic Safety Inspectorate. Several registration certificates of foreign cars and keys to a stolen Toyota RAV4 with departmental license plates were confiscated from the major.

According to the Prosecutor General's Office, the namesake policemen acted together: Yuri Morozov prepared documents for stolen cars, and Alexander Morozov sold them.

During the operation, which was carried out by the GUSB together with colleagues from the MUR, GUBOP and the Prosecutor General's Office , 23 stolen foreign cars were confiscated. On the territory of the traffic police battalion alone, police officers found four stolen Jeep Cherokees, one of which was used by the deputy head of the unit. Several more cars purchased from Alexander Morozov were later handed over by some of the detainee’s colleagues. In total, 18 searches were carried out as part of the operation, including at the central office of the Moscow State Traffic Safety Inspectorate and divisions of the Moscow Region State Traffic Inspectorate. On the same day, in the Moscow region (in Pushkin and Reutovo), underground workshops were discovered where numbers were changed on cars, after which the police registered these cars and sold them. During the searches, firearms, large sums of money in foreign currency and registration documents for cars were also seized.

According to investigators, in addition to the five people who appeared in court on Thursday, several more members of the criminal group were arrested, whose cases have now been separated into separate proceedings. Thus, in the garage opposite house 16 on Korneichuka Street, where a stolen Volkswagen Golf was parked, “bought” by a GUSB employee, previously convicted Gennady Glebovsky, who was supposedly engaged in changing license plates, was detained. During the search, two sets of special tools and several identification cards from various government agencies were found on him.

In addition, a certain Andrei Kirilyuk was arrested (what his role in the criminal group was is still unknown). In Reutov, near Moscow, the owner of an underground workshop for refurbishment of foreign cars, Alexander Prozherin, who previously worked as a teacher at a police secondary school, was detained. During the search, a collectible Ferrari was confiscated from him , but for active assistance to the investigation he was released on his own recognizance.

In Nizhny Novgorod, even before the start of the operation in Moscow, on May 22, the head of the NTK-2000 company, Alexey Lenshin, and his deputy, a certain Davydenko, were detained. During the search, four stolen cars were found - three foreign cars and one heavy-duty truck. They are also charged with a crime under Art. 158 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (“Theft”).

According to the investigation, the detainees are only part of an interregional criminal group, which included about 100 people involved in the theft and sale of foreign cars.

According to the head of the Main Directorate for Security of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia, Konstantin Romodanovsky, it is known that among the bandits there were ten current and several more former police officers. According to him, the center of the criminal group is most likely located in Moscow, and its leader is unlikely to be a police officer. “In order for such a system to work, a lot of money is needed,” explained the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The ministry says that the criminal group operated in Central and Eastern Europe, Kazakhstan, as well as in the Russian regions - the North Caucasus, Ryazan, Samara, Nizhny Novgorod and Mordovia. According to the police, car thieves sold about 360 stolen cars every year.