Translated material
Authoritative Care
The most famous Russian thief in law Vyacheslav Ivankov has died
Vyacheslav Ivankov, better known as a thief in law nicknamed Yaponchik, died in Moscow on Friday at the age of 70. He died in one of the clinics where he was treated after an attempt on his life in July. Mr. Ivankov was, without exaggeration, a legendary figure in the world of intelligence services and crime. He won his reputation as one of the most authoritative leaders of the criminal world, with extensive connections and influence from artists to politicians and big businessmen, back in Soviet times and maintained it until recently. He was well known abroad, where the intelligence services of many countries, including the United States, considered him one of the leaders of the entire “Russian mafia.”Mr. Ivankov has always avoided publicity, and recently (before the assassination attempt) nothing was heard about him at all. Nevertheless, the passing of such an iconic figure, who became a kind of symbol of not one, but even several eras - from the “Soviet mafia” to the “wild racketeering” of the 90s, could not go unnoticed not only by crime experts, but and politicians. Even State Duma deputies commented on Mr. Ivankov’s death.
The assassination attempt on Vyacheslav Ivankov occurred in Moscow on July 28 at about eight in the evening on Khoroshevskoye Highway. As he was leaving the Thai Elephant restaurant, an unknown person fired a sniper rifle. The bullet hit Mr. Ivankov in the stomach, and, as investigators believed, an accident saved him from death - he bent over at the moment of the shot. As it turned out, the killer fired from a Gazelle parked opposite the restaurant. After the assassination attempt, the killer fled in another car.
Until now, the case of the assassination attempt on Mr. Ivankov has not been solved. But investigators almost immediately stated that the main version was the victim’s “professional activity” in the criminal field. According to the investigation, Yaponchik until recently served as an “arbiter” in conflicts between criminal gangs, and shortly before the emergency, he came to Moscow from abroad just to settle one of them. According to media reports, sources in the intelligence services even named the name of the alleged customer. According to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, it could be another crime boss Tariel Oniani, who is now under arrest. As sources in the Ministry of Internal Affairs reported then, in recent years the confrontation between the thieves' clans of Oniani and Aslan Usoyan, better known as Ded Hassan, has intensified. In that conflict, according to detectives, the Jap allegedly sided with Ded Hasan.
After the assassination attempt, Mr. Ivankov was taken to the Botkin Hospital, he underwent several operations, but remained unconscious. Later, according to media reports, Mr. Ivankov’s relatives transferred him to the Neurovita private clinic, one of the few medical centers licensed to provide stem cell treatment. There, Ivankov underwent several more operations, including the installation of a pacemaker; it was reported that later his liver and kidneys allegedly failed.
In early October, information appeared that Mr. Ivankov’s condition began to improve and he regained consciousness. However, at the end of last week his condition worsened again, and on the night of October 9 he died.
According to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Mr. Ivankov was born on January 2, 1940, and from the age of 14 he was engaged in theft. In 1965, after his first arrest for pickpocketing due to violent resistance to the police, he was sent for a forensic psychiatric examination, where he was diagnosed with schizophrenia and sent for compulsory treatment, but he escaped from the hospital. Subsequently, this diagnosis more than once allowed him to avoid punishment for minor crimes. The diagnosis was removed only in 1974. According to detectives, Mr. Ivankov got into the gang of the Mongol authority (Gennady Korkov), which was engaged in robberies and racketeering of underground Soviet businessmen - the so-called guild workers, thanks to his success in boxing. It was there that he received the nickname Yaponchik for his eye shape - by analogy with the Odessa bandit during the Civil War, Mishka Yaponchik. In 1972, the MUR defeated the Mongol gang, but Yaponchik, thanks to a previous diagnosis, again managed to escape punishment. In 1974, Mr. Ivankov was detained for a fight with Georgian thieves in law, but received only a short sentence for using a false passport and driver's license. Then, while in the pre-trial detention center, the cellmates, according to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, crowned Yaponchik a thief in law.
After this, Mr. Ivankov organized his own gang, which specialized in theft and extortion. Ivankov was especially famous for how skillfully he evaded responsibility. So, in 1976, Yaponchik was accused of extortion, but escaped the chase. Six months later, Ivankov, with a prepared alibi, came to the police himself. According to some reports, he was nevertheless recognized as suffering from paranoid schizophrenia and was sentenced to five years for robbery and resisting the police, to be served in a prison-type mental hospital. After serving his sentence, he returned to Moscow again.
In 1981, Ivankov was again detained and sentenced to 14 years for robbery, possession of weapons and forgery of documents. While in the colony, according to media reports, Ivankov violated the regime 58 times and ended up in a punishment cell and punishment cell 35 times. While still serving his sentence, in 1986 Ivankov was again convicted - under Art. 193 of the Criminal Code (causing minor bodily injury to an official), and then also under Art. 110 (intentional bodily harm inflicted in a state of strong emotional excitement). In the late 1980s, a campaign began for Ivankov’s release; as media reported, many famous people interceded for him, including artists Joseph Kobzon and Alexander Rosenbaum, ophthalmologist Svyatoslav Fedorov and human rights activist Sergei Kovalev. In February 1991, by decision of the Supreme Court of the RSFSR, Ivankov’s sentence was commuted, and he was soon released.
In 1992, Ivankov left the country. Under the guise of a film studio employee, he first went to Germany and then to the USA. Ivankov settled in New York, where he became a mediator in disputes between both crime bosses and Russian businessmen. Local intelligence services believed that along the way he oversaw many areas of criminal business, including Russia, and therefore the Western press openly called him the head of the “Russian mafia,” but there was no evidence against him.
In 1995, Mr. Ivankov was nevertheless detained by the FBI on charges of extorting $3.5 million from businessmen Alexander Volkov and Vladimir Voloshin, who owned the company Summit International. In January 1997, he was found guilty and sentenced by an American court to nine years and seven months in prison for extortion and a fictitious marriage. In April 2000, in Russia, Yaponchik was charged in absentia with the murder of two Turkish businessmen in the Moscow Fidan restaurant back in 1992, and a request for his extradition was sent to the United States. In July 2004, Ivankov was released from an American prison and was immediately deported to Russia. In Moscow, he was again arrested in the case of the murder of Turkish businessmen, but in July 2005, a jury of the Moscow City Court found him not guilty, and he was released.
After that trial, Vyacheslav Ivankov stated that he was not going to engage in any business and would “fish”, and his lawyers reported that in prison he wrote a series of poems, fairy tales for children and an autobiographical book with the working title “Against the Wind.” However, detectives believe that he continued to play the role of “arbiter” in conflicts between criminal gangs.
Yesterday information appeared that Mr. Ivankov will be buried at the Vagankovskoye cemetery in Moscow, in the same area where his mother is buried. According to sources in the Ministry of Internal Affairs, this event will bring together many “widely known leaders of criminal communities in narrow circles,” including from abroad. It is worth noting that another notorious businessman, Otari Kvantrishvili, who at one time also enjoyed great authority in certain circles and was considered one of Mr. Ivankov’s associates, is also buried at the Vagankovskoye cemetery. He was shot dead in Moscow in 1994.