Police drop extortion case against Tsapkov gang

Law enforcement officers in Rostov-on-Don have closed a criminal case of extortion against members of the Tsapkov gang from the village of Kushchevskaya, Krasnodar Territory. It is reported by RBC with reference to the lawyers of the defendants in the case.

According to Elbrus Musaev, the defender of gang member Vyacheslav Tsepovyaz, the investigation concluded that the crime had not been established.

Members of the Tsapkov gang Vladimir Alekseev and Vyacheslav Tsepovyaz, as well as Tsepovyaz's ex-wife Natalya and his brother-in-law Ivan, were suspected of extortion on an especially large scale (clause “b” part 3 of article 163 of the Criminal Code).

A RIA Novosti source in law enforcement emphasizes that evidence of the gang's guilt could not be collected due to the statute of limitations for the crime -

traces of money transfers and other evidence "impossible to obtain."

The Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs for the Rostov Region has not yet commented on this information.

According to the initial version of the investigation, Tsepovyaz and other defendants in the case in 2010 received under threats from businessman Alexander Isyuk more than 70 million rubles, taken on credit.

Gang member Vladimir Alekseev is now serving a life sentence, he has already confessed to extortion and named Sergei Tsapok, Tsepovyaz and Fyodor Streltsov among his accomplices. He also added that Isyuk's car was taken away.

The ex-wife of Tsepovyaz, Natalya Strishnyaya, was arrested in 2019 in a case of extortion. The case against Tsapok was dismissed due to death. Tsepovyaz is serving a sentence of 20 years in prison. In 2020, he was taken under state protection, as he became a witness in a case against the former leadership of the maximum security colony 3 in the Amur Region, which provided prisoners with access to smartphones, a TV and delicacies for a fee.

In 2018, photographs of Tsepovyaz from the colony, taken in 2015, were published on the Internet, in which he eats barbecue, crab and caviar and uses a smartphone.

The Tsapkov gang existed in the 1990s-2000s in the village of Kushchevskaya, Krasnodar Territory. They accounted for 19 murders, including children, as well as robberies and rapes. The police took up the gang only after a high-profile massacre in November 2010, which drew the attention of the media.