Dashing zeros

Caviar, UBOP, prosecutors and criminal gangs: Newsweek looked into the unprecedented case of the head of the Astrakhan UBOP Rinat Salekhov

“IMN, get out!” Colonel Rinat Salekhov, 47, the former head of the Astrakhan Organized Crime Control Department, has not been called differently for a long time. IMN is “an exceptional measure of punishment”, as in the zone they refer to “suicide bombers”, that is, those sentenced to life imprisonment. A dim light bulb shines in the face all day and night, in the corner the camera buzzes with a red light. There is no sun and fresh air here, but it is full of rats and cockroaches. Rinat Salekhov spent two and a half years in solitary confinement in the Astrakhan pre-trial detention center "White Swan" while awaiting a verdict - according to the European convention, such a long isolation from society until a court decision is equated to torture.

Salekhov was accused of creating a gang that included his subordinates from the Organized Crime Control Department, representatives of rival criminal groups, and even the director of a large plant—a total of ten people were in the dock. According to investigators, it was the “Salehov gang” that was behind the extortion and the most high-profile contract killings committed in Astrakhan from 2003 to 2007. On the other bench—the victims—were people whose names still terrify the majority of local residents.

The case was heard in the regional court by a jury. Half of the accusations, including the creation of a gang, were dropped by state prosecutors at the stage of judicial debate for lack of evidence. But even those that remained were more than enough—in June, the jury unanimously found Salekhov guilty of organizing the murders. The sentence is life imprisonment.

Salekhov's case has become unprecedented. The head of one of the most effective organized crime units has never been in the dock yet. Never before have there been so many complaints about violation of the law from the defendants in this case—their number is already in the hundreds. Now the lawyers of the convicts are seeking the annulment of the verdict in the Supreme Court and a new trial in another region of Russia.

After the verdict was announced, rumors spread around the city that Salekhov could not stand the shame and hanged himself in his cell. “If something happens to me, if I suddenly lay hands on myself, know that I did not do this. I will defend my honest name to the last. My only fault is that I worked in the UBOP,” he wrote to President Medvedev.

Guys with a plus sign

Working with agents, infiltrating criminal groups, suppressing the slave trade and drug trafficking - RUBOP was something like the American FBI. RUBOP reported directly to the minister—then the Interior Ministry was headed by Vladimir Rushailo. They were not asked for statistics, they were asked for the result—to stop the bloody showdown. “It was impossible to do such work in white gloves, everyone understood this. But, unlike the bandits, they were our guys, with a plus sign,” says a former high-ranking officer of the Organized Crime Control Department. The leadership of the Ministry of Internal Affairs turned a blind eye to the fact that almost all these guys had their own business, and they said about the Moscow Organized Crime Control Department that this was the best "roof". “Only the Shabolov ones are cooler than the Solntsevo ones,” there was such a saying in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

Under Minister Boris Gryzlov, the RUBOP was reorganized into the Organized Crime Control Department and subordinated to the local chiefs of the Central Internal Affairs Directorate and the Internal Affairs Directorate, including them in the general police cane system. It was the verdict of the entire service. At the same time, criminal cases began to be initiated against fighters against organized crime: for abuse of office, torture, raiding. Ubop member Sergei Khadzhikurbanov was charged with the murder of journalist Anna Politkovskaya, and his colleague Vyacheslav Dushenko was charged with the murder of submariner Alexander Pumane. These were the loudest processes. Khadzhikurbanov was acquitted by the jury, but in May of this year he was sentenced to eight years for extortion. Dushenko was on the run for more than two years until all charges were dropped from him.

In September 2008, the Organized Crime Control Department was finally disbanded—according to official reports, organized crime was put an end to globally, and the criminal investigation department was assigned to deal with the “deficits”. But the context was such that the UBOP began to turn into an uncontrollable group. There was also a version that the UBOP was sentenced to retire one of the most corrupt generals of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, who was simply impossible to remove in any other way.

Chicago on the Volga

Rinat Salekhov was appointed head of the Astrakhan UBOP in December 2002. For half a year, the leaders of various groups were shot almost every week in the city. The newspapers wrote that Astrakhan had turned into Chicago. The city was divided by four powerful groups: the Russian Club, which included athletes, the ethnic Tatar Trade Union, the Stepanov family clan, and the silent owners of the city, Aslambek Datashov’s group, which included Chechens and Dagestanis.

In 2003, Rumia Askarova, the owner of the Kamelia cafe, was brutally murdered in Astrakhan. She was tortured with an iron and demanded 15 million rubles. The husband of the deceased promised a reward for information about the killers. Soon, the "Datashov's" came to him: they presented a video cassette with a detailed story of the killer and some things missing from the house. Askarov took all this to the Organized Crime Control Department. The operatives recognized the “killer” as a well-known pimp in the city—later he was found dead in the steppe—and assumed that the same Datashians were behind the murder of the businesswoman: they never found money in the house, but decided to get a reward.

Finally, they took Datashov himself and his associates. They did not deny it—they already knew that Rumiya Askarova turned out to be the aunt of one of the leaders of the "Tatar Trade Union" and their competitors would not leave them alive. Soon, two more high-profile murders were uncovered: the vice-mayor of Astrakhan, Sergei Nakhshunov, and the deputy head of the regional arbitration court, Lyubov Cheremnykh, who were also shot by the Datashovites. The court sentenced them to long terms. Going to jail, Aslambek Datashov declared Salekhov and his deputy Krasheninnikov his personal enemies and sentenced both to death.

Veronika Karpycheva went to the UBOP when the bandits, having learned that her friend was going to run for the Duma, began to extort a large amount of money from him. “Salekhov's guys worked like in a movie,” recalls Karpycheva. “They quickly double-checked the information through their channels and developed an operation. Extortionists were caught “on live bait”, everyone was caught red-handed, and then convicted.” Science fiction writer Andrey Belyanin encountered the work of the Organized Crime Control Department in May 2004 when his 13-year-old son Vanya did not return from school. For his release, the kidnappers demanded $100,000 over the phone. “In 15 minutes, the task force was already at my house. I have nothing to reproach them with, I don’t know if it was possible to act better in that situation, ”recalls Belyanin. The operation was led by Salekhov, the kidnappers were detained two days later. But it was too late - the boy was killed on the day of the abduction.

Uncle Vasya

When Datashov was arrested, Viktor Stepanov, the youngest son of Vasily Stepanov, who was popularly called Uncle Vasya, became the new Astrakhan Al Capone. He earned his first capital back in the 90s on poaching caviar. Uncle Vasya had his people everywhere, he kept the whole city in fear, says an employee of the Astrakhan special services: “The kidnapped children were hidden in the basement of Uncle Vasya, but the parents refused to write a statement against him. When a slave was freed at his dacha, he wept with happiness, and the next day he brought a paper that he was grateful to Stepanov for giving him a job. The merchants whom he put “on the counter” did not go to the police, but climbed into the noose.

Zukhra Karymsakova, the owner of the Astrakhan cafe U Zukhra, was personally tortured by Viktor Stepanov. Zuhra's relative wrecked his friend's car, and they couldn't agree on a price. The owner of the car complained to Stepanov. Victor took one car from Zukhra, then the second. “Mom went to the Tatar Trade Union—they protected our district, and she sent food parcels to the zones many times at their request,” says Zukhra’s son Ramazan. for some cars. The son persuaded his mother to go to the UBOP. They were received personally by Salekhov. “There is a lot of operational information on the Stepanovs, but at the last moment everyone plays back,” Ramazan recalls that conversation. “You must decide: either you go with us to the end, or we won’t even start.”

Stepanov Jr. was only sentenced to a colony-settlement in another case. But he filed a request for parole before he even reached the place of serving his sentence, and the court immediately granted it. The new case - about armed extortion from Zukhra Karymsakova - did not suit him at all. The operatives also had a lot of questions for Stepanov Sr., but he successfully avoided any conversations, hiding in a psychiatric hospital. The case went to court, where he was reclassified from “armed robbery” to “arbitrariness”. Stepanov Jr. was given three years in a colony-settlement.

Seven bullets and a knife

In June 2005, a certain citizen Kolesnikov was brought to an Astrakhan hospital with gunshot wounds. During the audit, it turned out that under this name was hiding the Cossack chieftain, and part-time one of the leaders of the "Russian Club" Vyacheslav Belanenko. Since 2000, he was on the federal wanted list and lived on forged documents. The wounded man was interrogated by the prosecutor's office investigator. He also allowed the ataman to place his guards from the Cossacks in the ward. No police guards were posted.

The UBOP had its own interest in Belanenko—his brother Igor was wanted. The operatives were waiting for him to come to visit his brother, and left two officers of the Organized Crime Control Department near the hospital. But Igor did not come, and the observation was removed. Then Belanenko was transferred from the intensive care unit to the trauma department, and there the killers visited him. Seven bullets were found in Belanenko's body, and a knife was stabbed into his temple.

The prosecutor's office was engaged in the investigation, operational support was for the Organized Crime Control Department. Soon, Sergei Velichko, also a member of the Russian Club, was detained on suspicion of killing the ataman. He was arrested, and after numerous searches, a live grenade was found on him. He sat down for her. The prosecutor's office dropped the rest of the charges against him.

Almost three years later, Velichko was detained again and his car was searched again. Then, judging by the materials of the case, the main evidence was found - half a sheet from Salekhov's working notebook, on which he allegedly drew a diagram of the hospital ward with his own hand and marked with a cross the place where Ataman Belanenko lay. Where this notebook came from remains unclear—it does not appear in any of the inventories of the seized items. An independent examination showed that on the part of the same sheet with the diagram that remained in the notebook, Salekhov really made notes with his own hand at a field meeting in Nalchik, but this was already a year after the murder of Belanenko. For the court, this is the basis for a new comprehensive examination of the entire evidence, but the defense was even denied the right to summon experts to court.

The prosecutor's office decided that Salekhov and his deputy Krasheninnikov were the ones who ordered the murder of Ataman Belanenko. True, the machine gun from which Belanenko was shot has changed during the investigation. Witnesses and attesting witnesses claimed that it was a machine gun with a wooden butt—it was taken out of a village toilet just a few meters from the scene of the assassination attempt. But at the trial, the jury was shown a machine gun with a metal butt.

According to investigators, two people killed Belanenko: Sergei Velichko and Pavel Noskov, "Salekhov's personal killer," as they wrote in the local press. Last year, Noskov was detained in the Moscow region, his case was separated into a separate proceeding, he was heard by other jurors and another judge - as a result, Noskov was found not guilty of the murder of Belanenko. But he was not released from custody. According to investigators, Noskov was involved in another murder, Viktor Stepanov himself. Allegedly, it was his corpse that was found in the steppe last summer. Allegedly, because different examinations gave fundamentally different conclusions. According to one of them, this is really the corpse of Stepanov. According to another, the body belongs to an unknown man, 60 years old.

In Astrakhan, not everyone believes in the death of the local Al Capone. Some even claim that after the murder they saw him alive and well. Andrey K., the owner of a small shop, met with Viktor Stepanov in early August and promised to tell Newsweek about his conversation with the “killed man”. On the eve of the meeting, two men in good suits came to him and advised him to forget everything. He didn't get in touch anymore.

Spawn of Discord

Sergei Bobrov, the chief Astrakhan investigator, has repeatedly said in interviews that he began to suspect Salekhov just after the murder of Belanenko: he set up guards himself and removed them himself so that his killers would finish off the ataman. An official check, carried out immediately after the murder, showed that the protection was not part of the duties of the Organized Crime Control Department—if you make claims against anyone, then the prosecutor's office.

Salekhov himself believes that all the problems began after the leadership of the prosecutor's office and the Department of Internal Affairs changed in the region. People from Volgograd came to the places of Astrakhan. Together with them, Salekhov claims, the Volgograd organized criminal group "Kazachata", which specialized in poaching, entered the region. Astrakhan was preparing for the 450th anniversary of the city, contracts for repair and construction work also began to pass to Volgograd firms. Salekhov was then a member of the regional commission for control over the spending of budgetary funds, and all the figures flocked to him.

Since the beginning of 2006, the Organized Crime Control Department began to receive information that a large floating plant appeared in the border control zone of the Northern Caspian, where poachers sell fish. According to operational data, seven brigades, all Volgograd residents, regularly went to work. In the spring, the Organized Crime Control Department confiscated several tons of sturgeon from them, and in October, during the “Putin” operation, operatives found 600 kg of black caviar worth 11 million rubles in an abandoned country house. The poachers were arrested, but then the prosecutor's office got involved, and the detainees were released.

After this story, a war broke out between the UBOP and the prosecutor's office. The UBOP detained criminals, the prosecutor's office released them. The operatives accused the prosecutors of closing criminal cases for money, the prosecutors initiated cases against the operatives for exceeding their official powers. Gradually, those with whom the Astrakhan UBOP fought became witnesses of the accusation from the Astrakhan prosecutor's office.

In the spring of 2007, returning late at night along the bypass road, Salekhov hit three people in a jeep, two died on the spot. Soon the entire leadership of the region was at the scene of the accident. “Salekhov immediately contacted us, offered compensation—50,000 rubles,” recalls Viktor, the father of the deceased Sergei Chudskaev. “I wanted a million, the parents of the deceased Dima Bazhenov—four. Salekhov said that he did not have that kind of money.” Then let the court decide, said Chudskaev. “But there may not be a trial,” Salekhov answered him.

But in the fall, Salekhov was arrested. The reason for the detention was the following wording: “Salekhov, being a high-ranking head of the Internal Affairs Directorate of the Astrakhan region, has special knowledge and compromising information regarding officials of the Astrakhan region, including persons conducting a preliminary investigation.” In places of deprivation of liberty, they announced over the loudspeaker: "Everyone who considers themselves victims of the actions of the Organized Crime Control Department, contact the administration of the institution."

Exposing articles appeared in the newspapers with reference to the prosecutor's office. Salekhov was accused of creating a gang, which, in addition to the murder of Ataman Belanenko, was responsible for the high-profile murders of lawyers Yevgeny Zamoskovichev and Igor Rozenberg, extortion from Vasily Stepanov (Uncle Vasya) for the release of his son from custody and about a dozen more crimes.

For the accident, Salekhov was given three and a half years, the victims were awarded from 300,000 to 400,000 rubles. Salekhov's wife had two cafes and a hotel, and this was known even before he came to the Organized Crime Control Department. “The newspapers later wrote about his fabulous wealth, dozens of cars and apartments, but the bailiffs can’t find anything, we still haven’t received anything,” Viktor Chudskaev states.

Black Colonel

According to investigators, the motive for the murder of lawyer Rosenberg was that he had dirt on Salekhov, confirming that he was involved in the theft of machine tools from the Astrakhan industrial equipment plant. Previously, the director of the plant, Vladimir Slastunov, was accused of this, but he has already been acquitted twice. At the trial, it emerged that Salekhov had not yet worked in the Organized Crime Control Department at that time, and the prosecutor changed the motive for the crime right at the trial. Allegedly, Rosenberg so annoyed Salekhov with his complaints when he defended his client Mimbulatov that it was easier to kill him.

Another lawyer, Zamoskovichev, was also ordered to be killed by Salekhov because of compromising evidence. True, Zamoskovichev's last act was to protect the interests of the Stepanov clan, and, according to operational information, Viktor Stepanov was terribly dissatisfied with the way Zamoskovichev "resolves issues." The search for evidence at the place of execution of Zamoskovichev lasted four days, and each time, combing the grass, the operatives found new cartridges. One of those who was on duty then was Vladimir Grigorshev, an UBOP officer.

They decided to conduct a search at the Stepanovs'. In addition to the Organized Crime Control Department, investigators from the prosecutor's office and FSB operatives were in the Stepanovs' house, filming the entire process on camera. A pistol was found under Viktor Stepanov's mattress, from which the lawyer was shot. The Stepanovs claimed that the gun had been planted on them by a "little Tatar boy" who had taken part in the search.

The tall, fair-haired Grigorshev, who also participated in the search, did not fit this description, there was no evidence against him, but it was he who ended up in the dock as a member of the Salekhov gang. The question of Grigorshev's guilt was the only one on which the jury disagreed. They spent about three hours discussing the remaining 111 questions—two minutes per question, answering almost unanimously "yes, guilty." Juror Natalya Konstantinova says she voted for Grigorshev's innocence. However, even she has little doubt that Stepanov's evidence was planted, "after all, everyone knows that the police always do this."

Another juror, Vladimir Krasnov, foreman of the collegium, was finally convinced by Grigorshev's accusation that the case against the UBOP men was fabricated. “I could not stand it and shouted “Freedom to Grigorshev!”,” he recalls. In the evening of the same day, two people were waiting in Krasnov's doorway. “I was so stuck in the eye that in the morning it did not open. I didn’t go to court like this,” he continues. The juror Krasnov, who did not appear, was replaced with a spare. Now that Salekhov was given a life sentence, and Grigorshev was three and a half years old, Krasnov regrets that he did not return to the trial: “It was clear to the blind that they simply decided to blame everything on the peasants.”

Aleksey Valyaev, who was convicted for poaching, became the new foreman of the jury. Juror Irina Chumakova has both sons on trial, juror Svetlana Ushakova has a husband. Even judge Olga Kovaleva's own father, as it turned out, was also tried for poaching. The defense repeatedly challenged both the judge and the jury, but they were all rejected. Lawyers for the convicts found dozens of grounds for overturning the sentence, and how wealthy they are, the Supreme Court will now decide. The Astrakhan prosecutor's office says that after Salekhov was given a life sentence, people will no longer be afraid of him. And the prosecutor's office will reveal more than one crime committed during the time of the "black colonel", as they wrote about Salekhov in the Astrakhan newspapers.