| Attacks on money carriers have become a real scourge for Moscow Last Friday, another attack on collectors was carried out in Moscow. This happened near the Perekrestok store on Krasnoprudnaya Street. The criminal snatched a bag containing 150 thousand rubles. straight from the hands of the money carrier, then disappeared in a green Zhiguli. The “Interception” plan announced by the police did not bring any results. But this incident was just the latest in a chain of robberies and assaults on collectors, the number of which has exceeded 40 since the beginning of the year. The attackers stole a total of almost $5 million. Despite the fact that the best forces of the capital’s police have been sent to search for the robbers, so far the operatives have come across just a small fish. Those who planned and committed the robberies are still at large. At the same time, criminals often use uniforms and fake IDs of police officers. And although, according to investigators, robbers only want money, there are often cases when collectors who resist are beaten, injured and even killed. Investigators have reason to believe that the largest robberies are on the conscience of the same gang. In addition, given the speed and coordination of their actions and the fact that the criminals have not yet made a single mistake and always got their way, investigators do not rule out that the brain of the organized crime group is an excellent analytical specialist and once worked in the special services. And the police cannot yet give any guarantee that another major robbery will not occur in the city.
There have never been such a number of such crimes in Moscow, but officially in the structures of the Central Internal Affairs Directorate - the MUR and the district departments of the capital's criminal investigation department - Vremya Novostei refused to comment. However, our correspondent Boris KORABLEV managed to speak on condition of anonymity with one of the MUR employees involved in the investigation of such crimes. Although in the current situation many questions remain, the answers to which have yet to be received by detectives, but at least the reasons for what is happening have now become clear.
Despite the fact that in appearance all these robberies are different from each other, the detectives investigating these crimes believe that they were committed by the same gang. “In any case, this is one of the main versions that we are currently working on,” a source at the Moscow Criminal Investigation Department told Vremya Novostey. - The style of organizing raids, the clarity and coherence of the attackers, the escape routes worked out, etc. are very similar. Most likely, all this is the result of the work of the same person with excellent analytical skills. It is possible that he is a former employee of one of the special services.”
According to operational information, data on the amounts being transported were leaked to the raiders by one of the cashing operators - an illegal intermediary structure that organizes the cashing of money. “The following facts speak in favor of this version: all the cars belong to different banks, only a few knew about their route, as well as the time of arrival at the bank, but in all cases large sums of money fell prey to the criminals, and there was not a single puncture,” said the detective and gave an example of one of the largest robberies of cash collectors, which occurred in July on Dmitrovskoe Highway. Then the criminals stole 9 million rubles. One of the injured guards was detained on suspicion of committing this crime along with his military friend. “These detainees still need to be dealt with. The security guard says that he organized everything himself, hired a friend and two Ingush, who subsequently fled with the money. But we think he's really just a small fry who got set up. It is possible that bandits approached him at one time, offered to become an accomplice and then take a share, and also, if caught, promised a substantial reward for his silence.”
Operatives of the Moscow criminal investigation department, investigating the robberies, see two reasons for what is happening. “Firstly, this is the usual Russian laxity, and secondly, greedy businessmen who save 200-300 dollars on security while transporting millions. Nothing has happened here for too long, so the collectors have relaxed,” said the MUR employee, and then spoke about the ways in which large sums of cash are usually transported in the capital.
Quiet people
They are considered the most daring and cheapest cash collectors - they usually transport illegal cash. Two or three young men, usually jock athletes without weapons, sometimes carry $300 thousand in backpacks and sports bags right on public transport. It is believed that it will be very difficult to commit robbery in the subway. But it still happens. True, it is not bandits who attack, but “vigilant” police officers. It is difficult to snatch a bag from the hands of three karatekas, but a guard can easily find a quiet guy in a stream. “He detains them and asks them to show the contents of the bag. Seeing the money and stamps used to draw up forged documents for illegal funds (and quiet couriers almost always have them with them for cashing out), the policeman begins to groan and threatens to call the OBEP, who will not only take away all the money, but also the management the company, together with its accountant, will be imprisoned for laundering proceeds from crime,” said a MUR operative. “Then the internal affairs officer gives the collector the opportunity to make a phone call and think about the future of his employers.” Depending on his appetite, a policeman can take from several hundred to several thousand dollars as compensation from a quiet man.
Savages
The second type of carriers are the so-called wild collectors. As a rule, these are employees of the company or the businessmen themselves who carry money in ordinary cars. According to operatives, taking money from such collectors is as easy as shelling pears, and they cannot offer serious resistance. In addition to the police, bandits also know this, and they take advantage of it. There are about a dozen ways to take money. This includes simple robbery, attacks at traffic lights, and car accidents. Criminals stage a minor accident. While the stunned collectors are coming to their senses, several thugs run out of another car. They beat up the savages and disappear with their money.
“Apart from everything else, several more methods of taking money from wild collectors have recently appeared in the capital. Such atrocities are classified as fraud, not robbery. These are fake exchangers, and fake fighters against economic crimes, and maybe not fake,” the detective suggested. In the first case, criminals, using lost or false documents, rent a room in the city center with a back entrance, design it as a currency exchange office, then advertise on the Internet where they offer a favorable exchange rate for large amounts of currency.”
As a rule, the victims of criminals are those who want to exchange at least 50-70 thousand dollars. “The exchange of smaller amounts, as a rule, is refused under various pretexts - the game is not worth the candle,” noted our interlocutor. The crime scheme is as follows: the cashier takes money from the victim and asks him to wait five to ten minutes while he counts and checks the bills. And at this time he goes out through the back door and hides.
In the second case, criminals use any means to stop a car with amateur collectors. This could be a staged accident or a car being slowed down by a criminal in the uniform of a traffic police officer. An UBEP officer is poked in the driver's face and asked to show documents for the money. “If the collectors do not have the documents, they begin to burden them with the seizure of money and criminal liability for cashing out. As a rule, the issue is resolved on the spot, the collectors leave, but without 20-30% of their money. Naturally, people don’t report to the police after such incidents,” our interlocutor noted.
By the way, according to operational information, in the capital there are about a third more attacks on money carriers, but not all victims turn to the police.
“People transport black cash, cash, common funds. The loss of this money for them is significant, but not fatal. Worse would be a conversation with an investigator, who will have to explain the origin of the money.”
Cash collectors
This is the third type of money carriers - armed people in armored cars, called upon to deliver money from point A to point B at any cost. Nevertheless, the most notorious crimes of recent times are associated with them.
“There is nothing to be surprised here. Sooner or later, a hunt had to begin for the would-be collectors,” noted the MUR operative.
Most of the collectors are ordinary security guards. “Well, yes, they know how to hold a weapon in their hands, drive alcoholics out of the entrances and not let children go to school without a change of shoes. But they don’t know how to act in an extreme situation, and they simply don’t want to risk their lives for 10-15 thousand rubles. In theory, the shift supervisor should have an analytical mind, quickly figure out what to do in a given situation, calculate possible troubles in advance and develop escape routes,” says the policeman. “In reality this is not the case. We ourselves have more than once witnessed how collectors get out of the car to buy something to drink and eat, we have seen drunken guards, etc.,” the operator sighs sadly.
Bandits
Detectives have not yet been able to catch the organizers of most attacks on collectors. But already now the police roughly know who is doing what in this field and how.
Currently, about a dozen gangs are engaged in attacks on money carriers in the capital. If previously such criminal groups consisted mainly of people from the Caucasus, operating on a rotational basis, now, as operatives note, international brigades have appeared. Most of them are engaged in attacks on savages and quiet people.
“As a rule, victims are herded near exchange offices. Nowadays, attackers rarely go there on their own. They are either in cahoots with the cashier, or they use some technical means: they stick a bug in the gum exchanger or even install a video camera,” said our source at the Moscow Criminal Investigation Department. -- The villains themselves are sitting in a car nearby and waiting for a wealthy client. In the center of Moscow there are several wholesale exchangers whose clients become victims of robbers. We catch intruders as much as possible, but a holy place is never empty.” A striking example of this is the exchange office on Malaya Gruzinskaya Street. According to police officers, criminals are detained there from time to time. Others come instead. But another fact is interesting. Attackers always follow the same pattern: they puncture the tire of the victim’s car in such a way that it can travel several kilometers before the driver notices the breakdown. When a person starts doing repairs, money is stolen from his car.
"Terror to the bandits!"
Such a huge number of crimes could not but go unnoticed by the leadership of the capital’s police. After another attack on collectors, the head of the Moscow City Internal Affairs Directorate, Vladimir Pronin, convened a press conference at which he proudly declared: “I declared terror on criminals and bandits attacking collectors...” Under the banner of the fight against raiders, all banks, exchange offices, and collectors are ordered to report local ATS through the duty station about upcoming major transactions and transportation. In turn, police officers are now required to arrive at the designated place 10-15 minutes before the planned event. There they must identify suspicious individuals and dubious cars. Special attention of law enforcement officers should be focused on “persons of Caucasian appearance, heavily tinted cars and cars without license plates.” In the event of an attack, all suspicious persons are ordered to be taken to the district district and run through the criminal investigation database there.
The initiatives of the leadership of the Central Internal Affairs Directorate caused a grin among bankers, collectors, and operatives. “It was necessary to think of such a thing! So five or six people know about the money being transported, and now the entire police department will know the information about the amount, exact time of arrival and route! Secondly, most of the money transported around Moscow is still black cash. What kind of fool would flash this money?” - the MUR employee laughed.
What to do?
In order to stop the further commission of these crimes, according to the police, something can be done by the businessmen themselves. “Businessmen need to finally overcome their greed and entrust the transportation of money to professionals - private enterprises that have long established themselves in the market, or private security units,” the operative believes. Among other things, the police say that it is necessary to tighten state control over cash collectors: develop strict instructions for them on transporting money and mercilessly punish those who violate them. According to operatives, it is also necessary to introduce the practice of compulsory insurance of transported valuables, as is customary in many civilized countries.
Those who become victims of attacks - collectors - also expressed their attitude to the problem. This is what Valery Chernikov, director of the Bastion 2 security company, told us: “Indeed, there is a problem with the increasing number of attacks on money carriers. We analyzed all the cases and also came to the conclusion that there is one well-organized gang operating in the city. There are three reasons for what is happening. Firstly, the lack of professionalism of the operatives - there are few smart detectives left.
Secondly, thrifty customers. In theory, to transport money, you need three people plus a driver: one monitors the situation, the second carries the money, the third insures it. When we explain all this to a client who wants to transport an amount with five zeros, he says that it is expensive. In his opinion, it is enough to rent one security guard, and he turns to another company offering low rates.
Thirdly, these are unqualified security guards. A good collector is expensive. We spend about three months training him. During the classes he is taught how to behave in a given situation, his behavior is practiced in conditions that are close to real ones. And his salary should be appropriate. Now the market is full of companies involved in dumping. Ordinary security guards work there and are paid pennies. They do not know the banal basics of transporting and protecting goods, and therefore most of the robberies are committed due to their unskilled actions. It turns out that the miser pays twice.”
Chronicle of attacks
In the last two months alone, there have been three high-profile attacks on collectors in the capital. On July 13, 2005, as a result of a raid on the Olsufievsky branch of Vnesheconombank, the criminals lost one million dollars. An employee of the capital's private security company, 34-year-old Alexander Nekrasov, was killed on the spot. His 41-year-old partner Artur Shakhmuratov was wounded in the leg. The third guard, 42-year-old Alexander Savkin, returned fire and damaged the attackers' car.
According to eyewitnesses, the attack occurred at the moment when an armored UAZ drove up to the doors of the bank. At that moment, two men standing on opposite sides of the street instantly pulled black masks over their faces. When Alexander Nekrasov, an employee of the private security company Strelets, came out of the cab with two canvas bags in his hands, and his partner Shakhmuratov, who, according to instructions, was supposed to insure his colleague, only managed to stick his leg out of the car and step onto the sidewalk, the criminals opened fire on the collectors from machine guns After the shooting began, a dark Volga drove up to the raiders and picked them up. The gangsters managed to take possession of two bags containing 980 thousand dollars, 20 thousand euros and only 8 thousand rubles.
On July 18, 2005, a robbery was committed on a cash-in-transit armored car in the area of Dmitrovskoye Highway. The crime was committed at the moment when one of the two security guards of the Astrea private security company, who were transporting 9 million rubles, became thirsty. As soon as the car stopped, two bandits attacked the guards. The gangsters hit the thirsty collector on the head with a piece of pipe, intimidated the driver with a pistol and stole bags of money. A Zhiguli model 99 abandoned by criminals with false license plates was found on the same day in the Krasnogorsk district of the Moscow region. Empty cash-in-transit bags were also found in the cabin. A security guard who suddenly felt thirsty and his soldier friend were detained on suspicion of committing this crime. The collector admitted that he often transported money along this route and decided to rob his own office. To organize the attack, the young man recruited two natives of Ingushetia and his friend.
On July 25, 2005, as a result of a robbery against collectors, the attackers stole 8.5 million rubles. The daring crime was committed at about 12 noon near house 37 on Altufevskoye Highway. The raiders in a UAZ with transit number VN979 initiated an accident with a green collector Niva. Immediately after the accident, three criminals got out of the car and began to inspect the damage. Contrary to the instructions, the driver of the armored car opened the door to go out and see the scratches in his car. At that moment, the Trinity attacked him. The raiders pushed the driver back into the salon of his car and got there. The capture of the car took less than a minute. The UAZ, in which the fourth accomplice remained, meanwhile headed towards the region.
The robbers, threatening a gun, took possession of a bag in which there was money, after which they pushed the driver outward and headed towards the Dmitrovskoye Shosse. And the criminals were thrown right on the go on the move after a couple of quarters. It was not possible to detain the villains in hot pursuit. Later, the Niva was found at the house number 3 in the signaling passage. Eyewitnesses who saw how she drove up there, said that three had run out of the car - one of them was a Caucasian, and his accomplices had a Slavic appearance. Boris KORABLEV |
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