Members of a Moscow-based organized crime group were arrested in a kidnapping case.

The Moscow Regional Court extended for three months the term of detention of members of an organized criminal group (OCG) operating in the Moscow region from 2006 to 2012 in the case of kidnappings. This was reported on May 27 by a correspondent of Izvestia.

It was established that 47-year-old Igor Dvinyanin and 48-year-old Dmitry Leonov, who, according to investigators, was the founder of the organized crime group, abducted three Russians and then extorted money from their relatives. They demanded sums from $500,000 to €4 million for the release of the people.

The first case against Leonov and Dvinyanin was initiated back in 2013. Then they were detained along with another member of the group, Yuri Gorlov, on charges of murdering two or more people out of greed, kidnapping for ransom and about 20 robberies. Members of the organized crime group sought out wealthy people in parking lots near shopping malls and attacked them.

In January 2017, Dvinyanin and Leonov were sentenced to life in prison, while Gorlov was sentenced to 20 years in a high—security penal colony.

In Moscow on April 30, law enforcement officers suppressed the activities of two members of an organized group accused of attempted fraud on an especially large scale. It was noted that the defendants offered the capital's entrepreneur to participate in a corruption scheme, promising assistance in obtaining a lease for a cultural and entertainment complex owned by the city. The attackers referred to alleged connections in the authorities and demanded 40 million rubles.