Court to sentence criminal mastermind in double murder case

In St. Petersburg City Court on Thursday, February 13, the jury will announce the verdict of the well-known criminal mastermind Vladimir Kulibaba. He is accused of double murder, attempted murder, as well as participation and leadership of a stable armed group.

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Matvey Saulov, senior investigator of the Investigative Committee of the Investigative Committee of Russia for St. Petersburg, told Izvestia that in the 1990s and 2000s, the "Mogilov" organized crime group was one of the largest organized crime groups in the city. The group was headed by Kostya Mogila (Vladimir Yakovlev), who was called the "godfather" of St. Petersburg.

According to the investigator, during Mogila's lifetime, Kulibaba was his right-hand man and was responsible for the "power block," and after his death in 2003, he took over the leadership of the group.

"In the 1990s, the "Mogilovsky" in the city had a huge administrative resource, and the name of Kulibaba, along with the name of Yakovlev, appeared in many operational reports. However, in order to realize this operational information, the investigators lacked evidence, especially witness testimony. In those years, people were afraid to testify against the OCG members, so many cases on them are still suspended," said Saulov.

Kulibaba managed to combine his criminal "career" as a candidate for master of sports with public workload: from 2000 to 2006 he held the position of ex-president of the St. Petersburg Freestyle Wrestling Federation, and in 2007 he became its president. Kulibaba was also assistant to the chairman of the Russian Olympic Committee, vice-president of the National Security Academy, and founder of the Orlyonok sports club.

The criminal mastermind was first arrested in November 2010 on charges of murdering Vadim Chechel, director of the security company Cascade, two years earlier. Then Kulibaba managed to escape punishment - in 2013, a jury found him not guilty.

He was detained again only in December 2021 and charged with the murder of a "colleague" in the organized crime group Igor Savin and police officer Kirill Ugolnikov, attempted murder of the former assistant to Deputy Interior Minister Dmitry Skvortsov and participation in the group for the entire period of its existence.

Read more in the exclusive material of "Izvestia":

Criminal parity: the court will determine the guilt of the ex-head of the "Mogilov" OCG