SSU detains russian racketeer who with accomplices ‘beat out’ money using hammers, victims include mobilized and cancer patients (video)
The Security Service of Ukraine has neutralized a criminal organization that terrorized residents of Ukraine’s western regions.
As a result of a special operation in Chernivtsi, the SSU detained five perpetrators, including two leaders of this crime ring and a russian citizen who was illegally staying in Ukraine.
Under false pretenses, they extorted money from victims. These included mobilized and wounded servicemen, cancer patients and their families.
The Service documented how the criminals extorted USD 40,000 from a National Guard serviceman and his friend with cancer.
The racketeers first created an artificial conflict situation with the victims and then beat them on the head with hammers just in the middle of the street. After that, the cancer patient was taken to intensive care.
In this way, the criminals tried to speed up the transfer of the entire amount of the ‘tribute’. If the men refuse to pay, they threatened to return, kidnap the victims and torture them, as well as to come to their families and use violence against their wives and children.
The Security Service detained the gang leaders and their accomplices red-handed when they came to the victims’ homes to collect money.
According to the investigation, the extortionists acted as part of a criminal organization headed by a local repeat offender. He has a criminal record for drug offences and illegal possession of weapons.
Two other criminal groups, one of which was headed by a russian citizen nicknamed ‘ruskiy’, were hierarchically subordinated to this gang’s head.
The criminal organization was trying to expand its influence to cover the whole of Bukovyna, Prykarpattia and Khmelnytskyi regions.
SSU investigators are currently preparing to notify three detained gang leaders and two of its members of suspicion under Article 189.4 of the CCU (extortion, committed by an organized group, under martial law, combined with causing grievous bodily harm).
Efforts to bring to justice all the individuals involved in the crime are underway.
The suspects face 12 years in prison with confiscation of property.
The operation was carried out under the procedural supervision of the Prosecutor General’s Office of Ukraine.
