2009-03-26

Well-known Georgian “thief-in-law” will spent 2 years in prison

Moscow City Court left unchanged the sentence by Meshchanskiy District Court to renowned Georgian “vor v zakone” Ramaz Dzneladze. According to Moscow City Court press-service, on February 2 Dzneladze was found guilty in illegal drug possessing and sentenced to 2-year imprisonment in general regime penitentiary. The criminal boss’s barrister tried to appeal in Higher Judicial authorities against the judgment of the District Court but Moscow City Court penal having considered the appeal found no reasons for cancellation of the sentence.


As per the earlier reports, Ramaz Dzneladze was detained by Criminal Investigation Department on July, 24 last year in Moscow Kazanskiy railway station with the dose of cocaine and heroine in syringe. To weeks prior to his detention Ramaz Dzneladze took part in underworld meeting of Tariel Oniani’s supporters. All participants of the meeting were detained by policemen but the most of them including Ramaz were released next day without raising the charges.

2009-03-25

“Vasya the Bandit” Stays in a Jail

Recently the lawyer of renowned Russian “vor v zakone” Igor Kokunov, named “Vasya the Bandit”, has appealed against Khoroshevskiy court’s decision to prolong his imprisonment. March, 23 Moscow City Court considered the appeal and left it unsatisfied, press-service said.


According to earlier report by Prime Crime, Igor Kokunov who had been internationally wanted for extortion was detained last September together with another criminal boss Eduard Vardanyan in Koktebel by Anti-Organized Crime Department of Ukraine’s Ministry of Interior. In December Ukrainians extradited both kingpins to Russia. Now “Vasya the Bandit” remains in custody in Moscow “Presnya” pre-trial detention center.

2009-03-20

Armenian crime boss arrested in Moscow

Moscow Criminal Investigation Department arrested 36-years-old Andranik Arutunyan, known as “vor v zakone” Ando “The Lame”, suspected of drug-dealing. 3 grams of heroine were found during his body search.


Detainee considered one of the most influential kingpins of Armenian origin living in Moscow.

2009-03-19

Ukraine gets rid of another Georgian criminal

A Georgian 29-years-old gangster Papuni Dagiani who reckons himself among “thieves-in-law” was caught by Department for Combating Organized Crime on March 14 in Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine.


According to investigative information Papuni suspected in residential burglary and carjacks.


It was also learned that Dagiani had illegally lived in Ukraine, thus he will be deported soon for being an undocumented and undesirable alien. Now Papuna detained at jail in Chernovtsy region pending deportation proceedings.

2009-03-02

Crime Watch: Harakiri, Russian-Crime-Boss-Style

I've been trying all day to confirm this little item that I saw this morning on a heretofore unknown (to me) web site called PrimeCrime.ru.

The web site details the legal tribulations faced by Russia's colorful crime bosses known as vory-v-zakone, or "thieves-in-law," a notorious fraternity that has its own behavior code, laws, courts, leaders, initiation rites and bitchin' tattoos.

According to PrimeCrime.ru, 30-year-old thief-in-law Dzhemal Mamoyan, known in the criminal underworld by the nickname "Jacko Tbilisi," was detained by Moscow police early in the morning on Feb. 27 on Ulitsa Udaltsova, near the Prospekt Vernadskogo metro station in western Moscow.

Police patted Jacko down, discovered 33.4 grams of hash on him and hauled him into the Prospekt Vernadskogo police precinct, the web site said. After the police report was written up, a couple of officers escorted Jacko to the bathroom.

After the officers left him alone in the bathroom to tend to his business, Jacko pulled out a pocket knife and, in an apparent crude attempt at Seppuku, jammed it into his abdomen, PrimeCrime.ru reported.

He was hospitalized at Moscow's Sklifisovsky clinic, where he is in stable condition.

Jacko Tbilisi is, unsurprisingly, a native of the Georgian capital of Tbilisi. According to PrimeCrime, he was initiated into the thieves-in-law brotherhood last November, on the eve of Police Day, the nationwide holiday for Russia's Finest. He became a thief-in-law thanks to a personal recommendation from purported mafia don Aslan Usoyan, an ethnic Kurd also known as "Grandpa Khasan."

Attentive readers may recall that Grandpa Khasan was one of dozens of suspected crime bosses detained on a yacht on the Pirogovskoye Reservoir, several kilometers northeast of Moscow, in a dramatic July 2008 helicopter raid by police.

A city police spokeswoman said Monday she knew nothing of Jacko Tbilisi's supposed ritual suicide attempt, nor did a spokesman for the Moscow police's criminal investigations department, whose officers, PrimeCrime reported, detained Jacko.

Repeated calls to the Moscow police's western district branch went unanswered Monday.

For those of you interested in news on thieves-in-law, I highly recommend PrimeCrime.ru. Also, for a fun list of colorful thief-in-law nicknames, check out this old list of crime bosses from Compromat.ru.

A few of my favorites:

- Alexander "The Boar" Zagorodnikov

- Yevgeny "Zhenya the Asian" Dmitryev

- Yevgeny "The Pawn" Pershin

- Pavel "Bonzai" Romanov

- Soslanbek "The Mexican" Apayev

- Ruslan "Ruslan the Gray" Gulariya

- Rostan "Ronny-Boy" Iyubidze

And, finally, this guy from a recent PrimeCrime report:

- Gennady Romanov, a.k.a. "The Elephant" or "Chamomile".


The Moscow Times by Carl Schreck

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