This year, several thieves in law will be detained for organizing contract killings and kidnapping. This is reported to Realist by Deputy Head of the National Police of Ukraine Vyacheslav Abroskin.
According to him, work is under way to set up a special subdivision for combating organized crime, which should replace the inefficient Directorate for Combating Organized Crime.
He noted that one of the main problems so far is the lack of evidence base for charging the thieves, whose names are known to everyone. For this purpose, it is assumed that employees of the new department will be infiltrate into gangs and work under cover.
This fact prevents the case of thief in law Vladimir Dribny aka Poltava from being terminated. Last year, a thieves ‘common fund’ worth more than $1 million was found in his house. And now some forces are trying to put pressure on law enforcement agencies demanding to return money, since there is no evidence of its criminal origin. His lawyers say he had received it in parts from a friend from the US.
In addition, an intensive cooperation with colleagues from the US and Europe is underway. Its first result was the Ukrainian thieves in law making it on to the black list. Now, according to Abroskin, they cannot go to their expensive villas in Greece, Austria, and Czech Republic. They are banned from entering the EU. In Spain, operations are carried out to apprehend Russian and Georgian thieves in law.
Abroskin called thief in law Nadir Salifov (aka Guli), who has been recently released in Azerbaijan, a new challenge for Ukraine. He described him as one of the most violent criminals on the territory of the post-Soviet area. He once again pointed out that the recent cases of kidnapping of Azerbaijanis, Armenians, and businessmen from other ethnic groups, who trade in the vegetable markets in Ukraine, are made on the orders of Guli, who is currently in Turkey. Extortionate amounts from $1 million and more are demanded in exchange for their release. Abroskin added that the activity of this thief in law in Ukraine has already been discussed by other criminal world representatives, however, nobody dares to openly oppose him.
The National Police head noted that thieves do not have such concept as “homeland”, but only spheres of influence. After the beginning of the armed conflict in Donetsk region, the local thieves did not resist the external aggression in any way – they simply moved from Donbass to other regions of the country. However, this does not prevent them from monitoring the 19 colonies in the anti-terrorist operation zone and appointing their ‘enforcers’. Moreover, many Ukrainian thieves in law were crowned with the participation of Russia thieves, and the ceremony was even held in Russia for some of them.
Besides, there are few truly authoritative ‘old school’ thieves in law, who are even treated with some respect, Abroskin admits. Among them is Lera Sumskoy, Poltava, and Antimos. Their complete opposite is the so-called ‘oranges’ – i.e. thieves who bought their title. According to the police officer, they include Andrey Nedzelsky (Nedelya) and Sergey Oleynik (Umka), who have only been held accountable for document forgery.
In total, Abroskin provided the names of eight Ukrainian thieves: Antimos, Lera Sumskoy, Nedelya, Vasya Ushaty, Armen Khokhol, Umka, Poltava, and Khmelo. The sphere of their interests does not only include the traditional ‘protection’ of prostitution, drug and arms trafficking, theft and robbery, illegal migration, but also amber mining, deforestation, construction business, land issues, and public procurement.
