Why was Traber not forgiven?

Irek Murtazin - with versions about the reasons for the Antikvar case

The main event of the past week in Russia at the intersection of the spheres of crime, politics and economics, undoubtedly, was the arrest of the famous St. Petersburg businessman Ilya Traber, who in certain circles is known as the crime boss nicknamed Antiquary and who turns 76 years old on September 8.

With warrants for his arrest and searches in a country estate in the Vsevolozhsky district of the Leningrad region, his apartment on Kamennoostrovsky Prospect and office on Starorusskaya Street in St. Petersburg, operatives and investigators from the central offices of the FSB and the Investigative Committee of Russia arrived early in the morning of June 17. On the same day, Traber was taken to Moscow.

And shortly before midnight, the Basmanny Court of Moscow “chose a preventive measure in the form of detention for a period of two months in relation to Traber Ilya Ilyich...”.

From the same official message of the Moscow City Court it became known that Traber was charged under points “g” and “h” of Part 2 of Art. 105 of the Criminal Code and parts 4 of Art. 222 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. This is murder by a group of people and for hire. And illegal trafficking of firearms as part of an organized group.

Ilya Traber was still being taken to Moscow, but information about the detention of the famous businessman and what exactly he was accused of had already leaked from the Investigative Committee of Russia outside the country.

At noon on June 17, a message appeared in one of the telegram channels that Traber had been detained as part of a criminal case initiated after the murder of local businessman Alexander Petrov in Vyborg.

Alexander Petrov was killed by a shot from a sniper rifle on October 24, 2020. That day at about five o'clock in the evening the businessman arrived home. I dropped into the mansion, changed clothes and went to the bathhouse, located about two hundred meters from the house, on the edge of the site, on the banks of the Velikaya River. The sniper shot from the opposite bank of the river from a distance of about 250 meters. And went straight to the victim's heart.

At the end of October 2020, I went to Vyborg to figure out what really happened in this city and who could order the liquidation of an influential businessman who was called the “master of Vyborg.” And without whose approval it was impossible to even set up a shawarma stall in the city.

I had many meetings in Vyborg. With those who knew Petrov, with his friends, and even with those who disliked or feared him. With lawyers, with relatives, with operatives.

And the following picture began to emerge to me: there was no point in killing Alexander Petrov. The fact is that he was seriously ill, and he only had a few months to live.

In the investigation “Vertical Shot”, published in Novaya Gazeta at the end of 2020, we said : Alexander Petrov was diagnosed with an incurable disease. And he thought about his own funeral.

From September 20 to October 1, Petrov underwent examination in one of the Swiss medical clinics. He was prescribed medication to prepare for the operation, which was scheduled for October 14. The businessman flew to the Maldives. But he could not return to Switzerland on October 14. Because on October 9, 2020, the country closed all its border crossings at airports and borders for coronavirus quarantine. And on October 14, instead of Switzerland, Petrov flew to Russia.

And on October 17, three days after his return, a safe was stolen from his house in the village of Velikoye. But this became known only after the murder: he did not file a complaint about the theft.

From Novaya Gazeta’s investigation “Vertical Shot”:

“Something was stored in this safe that was of great interest to the person who ordered this theft,” one of the FSB operatives shared his thoughts….

...Law enforcement officers quickly identified an employee of Petrov’s estate, who made casts of the keys and handed them over to the attackers. The suspect was detained for complicity in the theft, but the court did not authorize his arrest. The attacker was released on his own recognizance, and he immediately disappeared.”

To steal a safe from a house that is literally crammed with CCTV cameras, it was necessary to at least disable this system. Including secret video cameras that are not conspicuous. Agree, this could only be done by a specialist who either installed the video surveillance system himself or was in the house quite often.

The businessman's murder occurred a week after the safe was stolen. And all my interlocutors in Vyborg believed that the theft of the safe and the murder were organized by different criminal groups unrelated to each other.

Another quote from that publication:

“...somewhere in 2008, according to my interlocutor, the development of Vyborg began to slow down. And first of all, because Petrov was opposed to letting the Varangians into the city...”

“...Alexander Petrovich created an authoritarian system of government in Vyborg, a kind of small model of Russia. And this began to interfere with development. And everyone understood that Petrov began to interfere. Both our own and, especially, strangers.”

Well, that's the main thing. In 2020, the name of Ilya Traber was not mentioned among those who benefited from the murder of Alexander Petrov. Quite the contrary. Petrov and Traber were friends. But Petrov has already moved away from joint business projects for several years. He sold off all major assets in Russia and was planning to move abroad to his son Vitaly.

Vitaly Petrov is a racing driver who made it to Formula 1. In the racing world he was known as the "Vyborg Rocket".

From Novaya Gazeta’s investigation “Vertical Shot”:

“Billionaire and passionate racing driver Boris Rotenberg in his youth went to the same sambo section with Vladimir Putin. Alexander Petrov became friends with Boris Rotenberg when his son Vitaly became interested in auto racing and even made it into Formula 1. Rotenberg even introduced Petrov Jr. to the head of state. Last July, during a joint trip to Valaam, the heads of Russia and Belarus met with Russian racing drivers. Then all sports publications circulated a photograph in which Vitaly Petrov found himself between two presidents - Putin and Lukashenko.”

But five and a half years after the murder of Alexander Petrov, the name of Ilya Traber surfaced as the name of a possible mastermind of this crime.

Journalists, bloggers, activists went wild, racing to talk about Traber’s arrest. At the same time, the arrest itself, as well as the possible involvement in the murder of Alexander Petrov, were mentioned in passing, only as a reason to remember that in the 90s Traber was allegedly friends with the vice-mayor of St. Petersburg, Vladimir Putin. That Putin could have had a hand in Traber becoming what he became - one of the most powerful and influential businessmen in the city on the Neva.

In general, one might get the impression that Ilya Traber was arrested solely so that everyone would rush to read the Novaya Gazeta investigation “Friends - don’t spill oil,” published back in April 2011.

What does this mean? The arrest of Ilya Traber is a clear signal to other famous people with whom the Russian President has known since the 90s, from the time he worked in the mayor’s office of St. Petersburg...

Ilya Ilyich’s problems seem to have begun during the implementation of a project to build a deep-water universal port complex in the Primorsk area. This project was announced back in 2019. It was planned to place a special economic zone (SEZ) on the port area with an area of ​​about 760 hectares. But the implementation of plans has been suspended.

Information leaked that Ilya Traber allegedly withdrew about two billion rubles from the project. And he transferred this money abroad, where he seemed to be planning to move for permanent residence (he has Greek citizenship, and law enforcement investigations in Spain and Monaco, in which Traber’s name appeared, have long been closed and written off in the archives).

Moreover, in recent years, Ilya Traber has been actively selling off his assets in Russia. And there are a lot of these assets - worth billions of dollars. Between 2024 and 2026, the businessman sold his shares in eight companies with annual revenues of about 10 billion rubles. Now in Russia he owns shares in only seven companies with a total annual turnover of “only” a billion rubles.

At the same time, Traber was demonstrably actively involved in projects related to special military operations. He even headed the board of trustees of the Leningrad Frontier Foundation, which was created by the governor of the Leningrad region.

The businessman claimed that he was investing a lot of money in the Leningrad Frontier fund. But the tens or even hundreds of millions of rubles invested by Traber in this fund are still insignificant in comparison with the billions that he allegedly transferred abroad at the same time.

Ilya Traber may not have been forgiven for this double play.