The case of the Taganskaya organized crime group. What did one of the most violent gangs do in Russia?

The court announced the verdict of 10 members of an organized criminal group known as Taganskaya on May 12. What the members of one of the most violent gangs in Moscow were accused of, what crimes were proven and what compensation the victims will receive — in the Izvestia article.

The trial of the Taganskaya organized crime group

• The members of the Moscow gang were found guilty of organizing a criminal group, committing murders, thefts, robberies and extortion, as well as participating in the illegal trafficking of weapons and explosives and kidnapping (Part 2 of art. 105, Part 2 of art. 209, part 2 of Art. 210, Part 3 of art. 163, part 3 of art. 161 of the Criminal Code Russian Federation).

• From 1991 to 2019, the Taganskys committed their crimes on the territory of Moscow, the Moscow Region and other regions. At the same time, most of the episodes remained unsolved for a long time, because the gang disguised its activities as private security companies and security services of insurance companies.

The only survivor of the three founders of the organized criminal group, Igor Zhirnokleev (nicknamed Fatty), was sentenced to 25 years in prison, 12 of which he will spend in prison, where the regime is much stricter than in a penal colony. He must also pay a fine of 4 million rubles. The remaining members of the organized crime group — Oleg Rusanov, Boris Tretyak, Dmitry Yukhnevich, Igor Balashov, German Grishin, Gennady Lukyanov, Sergei Shcherbakov, Sergei Shchukarev and Marat Yanbukhtin — were sentenced to terms from 22 to 25 years in prison. Another gang member, Grigory Rabinovich, also known as Grisha Tagansky, died in jail in June 2024 and was found guilty posthumously.

Crimes of the Taganskaya gang

• The Taganskys have seven proven contract killings on their account. One of the most notorious crimes was the murder in 2017 of lawyer Natalia Vavilina, who was shot dead in the entrance of her own house. She stood on the side of small tenants in the process against the company "Architect-98", whose owners were Grigory Rabinovich and Marat Yanbukhtin, who was called "Yakuza" in the organized criminal group.

• A murder suspect, Yanbukhtin, was arrested in hot pursuit. According to investigators, he played the role of a hitman in the Taganskaya organized crime group, and Zhirnokleev was involved in planning the murder. Taganskiye also staged a massacre of lawyer Andrey Bralyuk, who challenged the raider seizure of the Moscow department store in the arbitration court and won the trial against the members of the organized crime group.

• The gang took out entrepreneurs for debts. This is how businessmen Armen Avanesov and Alexey Pokrovsky were abducted and killed. Avanesov's body was discovered only 20 years after the crime, when construction workers began to change the floor tiles in the 24 Chaykhon on Lyublinskaya Street and discovered a strange package. Yaroslavl businessman Alexei Pokrovsky was held in a private house in the Orekhovo-Zuyevsky Helicopter Farming Co. where Boris Tretyak ("Badger") tortured him to death with a soldering iron. The businessman's body was buried in the forest.

• Taganskiye also eliminated those who prevented the organized criminal group from misappropriating the business. In 2008, Valery Zhuravlev, Rospishcheprom's CEO, was beaten to death near his own home. 10 days before his death, he contacted law enforcement officers with a statement about the raider seizure of a building belonging to the company. The court also proved the complicity of the leader of the Zhirnokleev group in the murder of criminal boss Aslan Usoyan (Ded Hassan).

• The Taganskaya organized criminal group monitored its victims and possessed an arsenal of weapons and explosives. On May 12, FSB officers reported the discovery of a criminal community's cache, from which they seized "more than 100 firearms of domestic and foreign manufacture," as well as 36 kg of explosives. Illegal assets of the organized criminal group in the amount of more than 342 million rubles were seized.

How the Taganskaya organized crime group appeared

• The founder of Tagansky in the early 1990s is considered to be the "thief in law" Vyacheslav Ivankov, known in criminal circles as the Jap. The gang was created in order to counter criminal groups from other republics, primarily Caucasian ones. The group was headed by Andrei Isaev, who received the nickname Painting for a large number of tattoos.

• Isaev recruited Alexander Graber (died in 1994) and Igor Shilov (died in 1999) into the gang, and they attracted Igor Zhirnokleev, an acquaintance who served in the 16th GRU Special Forces Brigade, to illegal activities. When Isaev disappeared abroad after several attempts, Graber, Shilov and Zhirnokleev led the Tagansky organized crime group in 1994, which instead of fighting the Caucasians engaged in racketeering and raiding enterprises.

Maximum instruction: participants of the Taganskaya organized criminal group were given up to 25 years in a penal colony

They will spend half of this time in conditions for especially dangerous repeat offenders.

The Spanish trail

• In collecting evidence against the Taganskaya organized crime group, Russian law enforcement officers were assisted by Spanish colleagues who, together with Interpol, developed a criminal group consisting mainly of immigrants from Russia. The main focus was on the former CEO of the Moscow-based Kristall plant, Alexander Romanov, and his wife, whom Spanish law enforcement officers suspected of money laundering, fraud, and extortion.

• In Russia, criminal cases were initiated against Romanov on the facts of fraud on an especially large scale (Part 4 of Article 159 of the Criminal Code) and abuse of official authority (Article 201 of the Criminal Code). The investigation suggested that Romanov and his deputy Pavel Lobanov bought unsecured promissory notes from two companies, LLC General Investment Corporation and LLC Kvant, for 220 million rubles. In 2005, Romanov was arrested, and at that time Rabinovich and Zhirnokleev were the founders of the General Investment Corporation.

• After serving 3.5 years in a Russian prison, Romanov was released and fled to Mallorca, Spain, where he attracted the attention of the police with his spending. In particular, he acquired the Mar i Pins hotel and the adjacent house for €6 million on the coast of the Paguera resort. Studying Romanov's biography, the Spaniards found out that he had gained control of the Kristall plant thanks to a raid with the participation of the Taganskaya organized crime group security company.

Tagansky Theater: leaders of Moscow's oldest organized crime group were asked for 25-year terms

The defendants called on the court to acquit them and congratulated them on Easter.

• As a result of the Dirieba special operation conducted by the Spanish police, Romanov and several other representatives of the "Russian mafia" were detained on the island of Mallorca. Incriminating letters were found in Romanov's possession related to the illegal seizure of the Moscow department store by Afganets, which mentioned the names of Rabinovich and Zhirnokleev. In 2018, the materials obtained as a result of the operation were transferred to the Russian side, which helped shed light on the gang's activities. Before that, in the case of the Taganskaya organized criminal group, there was only the murder of Valery Zhuravlev.

Details of the trial

• The victims in the case are relatives of the victims: Valery Zhuravlev's daughter, Alexey Pokrovsky's wife and children, Armen Avanesov's son and Andrei Bralyuk's widow, as well as Maryam Bikchurina, a former waitress at the restaurant where Grandfather Hassan was killed. As a result of the shooting, she suffered spinal cord injury to her lower extremities and was forced to use a wheelchair.

• In total, the court recovered more than 43 million rubles from the defendants as compensation for moral damage to the victims. The defense of the accused considered the amounts of compensation for the victims' civil claims to be too large.

The defendants' lawyers insisted that the sentences were unjustifiably harsh, and that the statute of limitations had expired on a number of charges. But according to Russian law, the court has the right not to take into account the statute of limitations if it is a crime for which life imprisonment is provided. Igor Zhirnokleev denied his guilt in court and referred to the presence of chronic diseases. His defense attorney has already stated that he intends to challenge the verdict.

• The Investigative Committee of Russia notes that the investigation of the criminal case against other members of the Taganskaya organized crime group is ongoing. Among the suspects, investigators name members of the group Vladimir Grekov and Mikhail Churkin, who are on the international wanted list.