Fight on Leninsky Prospekt

Another attack on collectors took place in Moscow

In the west of Moscow yesterday there was a daring attack on collectors, which escalated into a fleeting but full-fledged battle. As a result, two collectors were killed and another was wounded. A Muscovite who happened to be nearby and one of the attackers, who was later detained in the hospital, were also injured. Whether the escaped bandit managed to steal the money and how much remained unclear yesterday. According to Sberbank, at one of whose branches the emergency occurred, the robbery was not successful; according to other sources, the robber still managed to take the money.

According to the capital's Main Internal Affairs Directorate, the emergency occurred at about 9.30 at the Sberbank branch located on the first floor of residential building No. 94A on Leninsky Prospekt. As usual at this time, a Ford collection minibus drove up to the department and delivered the money. What amount we are talking about was not reported yesterday; moreover, the bank itself stated that the collectors should, on the contrary, have taken the money from the bank. One way or another, when two collectors got out of the car, two men with Kalashnikov assault rifles came out of a blue Zhiguli model nine standing nearby and immediately opened fire. Cash collectors Maxim Novikov and Viktor Krykanov, as expected, were wearing bulletproof vests, but they did not save them from machine guns. In addition, several bullets hit them in the head. Both died almost instantly.

According to unofficial information, after this the bandits took the bags of money, got into their car and began to drive out of the area in front of the house onto the avenue. But at that moment, the driver who remained in the collection car, backing up, rammed the “nine”, causing it to catch on the metal fence of the lawn. While the raiders were trying to move the car, the driver, moving from his seat to the main compartment, opened the door and opened fire from his service pistol. One of the criminals was wounded in the leg, but his accomplice then began firing at the armored car. The collector managed to slam the door, and then the bandit came from the other side and fired a burst through the windshield. As a result, the driver was slightly injured.

Then the criminal, according to eyewitnesses, pulled the wounded accomplice aside and tried, under the threat of a machine gun, to take away the car from a man who was parking his Volkswagen Golf nearby. He, however, was not afraid and began to fight back with a traumatic pistol, but the bandit wounded him in the arm and leg with two shots. The man tried to escape, taking the keys to the foreign car with him. Unable to start it, the bandit went out to the neighboring Udaltsova Street, where at gunpoint he threw the driver out of a Volvo car standing at a traffic light. Returning to the wounded man, the raider loaded him up and drove away.

Later, the Volvo, in which the criminals left their weapons, was found nearby, and detectives were just finding out where one of the robbers had gone. The police found the wounded accomplice in one of the hospitals, to the doors of which he himself crawled. His identity has been established, but his last name has not been reported. According to some reports, he is a native of one of the Caucasian republics. It is believed that the wounded man was driven to the hospital by his accomplice.

Sberbank stated that no material damage was caused as a result of the emergency. But according to unofficial information, the bandits, while still at the Sberbank branch, allegedly transferred most of the money from the collection bags into their own bag.

This is not the first attack on collectors in Moscow recently . On the night of June 27, attackers attacked collectors of the Russian Standard Bank. As a result, one collector was killed and one was wounded, but the bandits were unable to take the money.

Grigory BARINOV, Alexey GRISHIN