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The 29th of November 2004 in the Supreme Court of Tatarstan a criminal hearing started that almost had no analogs in the national juridical practice.
33 defendants, accused of 21 murders, kidnappings and robberies, 5 state prosecutors, 30 defense lawyers, 14 jurors, 60 aggrieved parties ready to testify and almost 400 witnesses
The trial in Kazan (capital of Tatarstan) gathered people involved in the activities of the biggest criminal group in the city of Naberezhnyje Chelny.
For almost 10 years a ramified gangster network that was based in their native town and had created branches in Moscow and Odessa
was active on the territory of Tatarstan, Udmurtia and Ucraine.
For many years not only many businessmen, state structure dependants, members of rival criminal groups, but even its own members did continuously fear for their lives.
At the beginning of the new 21th century the abbreviation OCG (Organized Criminal Group) gave way to a new name -
- OCA (Organized Criminal Association)
The activity scale of the criminal aggregations identified in Russia, their numbers, spheres of influence, forms of organization, level of financing,
all of this made people talk about a gangster association which constituted an alternative to the official authorities.
A big number of cases that should unravel the tangle of criminal connections of an enormous number of gangsters
who acted well organized and systematically, waited for its turn.
The trial that began in autumn of 2004 became the first battle in the large-scaled war declared by the state to the gang rule.
The criminal association, most of the members of which ended up in the prisoner's box,
was known in the republic and far beyond its limits as "The 29th Complex"
The octopus of the Kama river
The name of the gang "The 29th Complex", which sounds strange, had a simple explanation: it had origins in the history of the construction of Naberezhnyje Chelny
In 1978 in Moscow, in the Central USSR Building Institute, a new city on the Kama river was planned.
According to the plan, it should be divided in so-called building numbers - complexes.
With the bulding of a new micro-district, which was separated from the others by thoroughfares and avenues on all 4 sides,
it received a number that became an official postal delivery code.
The inhabitants of Chelny, unlike in other Russian cities, rarely called the places of residence after the names of the streets.
Albert Gibadullin: in 2001-2003 Chief Investigator of the *** and Gang Investigation Team of the Tatarstan Republic Public Prosecutor's Office They were named after the complexes at the time, when the KAMAZ (KAMA Heavy-Duty Truck Production Plant) was built
It's due to KAMAZ that Naberezhnyje Chelny started to develop so rapidly.
At the beginning of the 70s the country desperately needed heavy trucks,
The CPSU declared plant construction a top-priority projet that should make a breakthrough in this sector of the national automobile industry, so a large number of Komsomol volunteers (Komsomol - The Communist Union of Youth) went there,
but not only them were destined to become pioneers.
At that time, not only Komsomol enthusiasts came to the KAMAZ construction site, but also different people who had the work at the KAMAZ assigned to them as punishment, swindlers, adventurers
people on license in the community, construction batallion soldiers, adventurers, Komsomol members and experienced specialists. Such a mixed society was normal for the majority of important construction sites at that time,
but in Naberezhnyje Chelny such a criminogenic situation developed immediately that the police couldn't always perform their duties.
That's why the authorities were forced to organize in the city the so-called Komsomol Fighting Squad almost simultaneously with the construction of the first KAMAZ objects.
Its members patrolled the streets, controlled the dormitories, were on duty in public places,
but this was also not enough in the beginning to maintain the calm and order.
In the meantime the limits between different social groups got gradually erased.
Like many voluntary builders, convicted people who completed their terms also became KAMAZ workers.
Both the children of those people who weren't friends with the law from the beginning and the children of ordinary people who worked here at the KAMAZ building,
communicating with such a kind of people, started to acquire criminal habits and towards the beginning of the 80s street gangs were born.
The street brotherhood was formed according to the laws of life.
Joint studies at school, close connections with neighbours, common worries for the older ones, common spare time for the youth.
Many clandestine gyms, bred everywhere at the end of the 80s, strengthened the new generation's opinion that
their rights on the territory where they spent their childhood is completely lawful.
Renat Timerzyanov: first Deputy Interior Minister in the republic of Tatarstan The groups of teenagers who fought for their turf... like, you know... somebody went where he shouldn't, somebody spoke to another in a wrong way or offended somebody from another group,
so these fights start.
The entrance to the complex was, of course, free, but the exit required skills, because an outsider dropped in on the territory,
not only gave the "owners" the chance to demonstrate the physical force and the strength of the "boyhood" friendship,
but also the real possibility to get hold of some foreign sneakers or a stylish jacket.
The only way to avoid trouble was only the answer to the direct question of the owners "whom do you know?".
If he didn't know anybody and just happened to drop in, he could be beaten up, be stripped of everything valuable and be left to go home half-naked
if he managed to go home by himself, sometimes he had to be brought to the hospital.
Robberies, extortions became a serious reason for getting into arguments between the gangs from neighbouring complexes.
The conflicts often transformed themselves into mass fights where cold arms were used.
Knives, sharpened metal bars, sticks, crow bars, chains, stones were used -
- everything that happened to be at hand when what was prepared beforehand wasn't enough.
After such bloody battles, it happened that tens of people found themselves in hospitals.
As for the "29th Complex" gang, it manifested itself as one of the most united, one of the most sporting and well-prepared gangs.
At the time it was headed by Mansur Safin.
Mansur Safin and his friends united around themselves fellow students from the 15th school.
Not all of them, though. The weak and defenceless were assigned the part of "devils", from whom Safin's "boys" regularly got protection money.
Every decent hunk should have his own "devils" and regularly contribute to the "common fund" with a sum of money established by the older ones.
The "common fund" didn't disdain even 3 Rubli from students.
It wasn't so much of a material necessity as it played an educational role.
The youth was trained to "share" and by finding feet maintained the contribute to the "common fund" with what they stole and took from others with force
and later with what they got from "protected" companies.
But the group was united not only by the common money, which one could always rely on, if arrested by the police,
if there was need of a parcel to prison or a lawyer.
The "29th Complex" members enhanced physical endurance since the school box section.
It was forged in gyms, during the athletic gymnastics lessons, in the hand-to-hand fight section
and almost from the beginning of the education principles were adopted in the gang, which not every young group could boast:
drugs were banned and the use of alcohol was minimized.
The "29th Complex" members were united by an idea. The idea was very simple though: leadership
Airat Galimardanov: in 2001-2003 Major Crimes Investigator of the Naberezhnyje Chelny public prosecutor's office The group became leading in their territory. Being a criminal group, they of course committed crimes for which they were brought to trial.
The district courts of law convicted the participants of the mass fights and individual robberies more than once .
Already at the end of the 80s a fact established by the courts was fixed in these verdicts:
the actions of the defendants and other individuals were a planned beforehand action of revenge by the "29th Complex" teenagers on the teenagers from another micro-district.
Anvar Akhmedzyanov: in 2001-2003 Major Crimes Investigator of the Tatarstan republic public prosecutor's office This gang brought at the end under complete control many other, smaller groups,
forming already in the middle of the 90s a very large criminal association. According to different calculations, this group numbered more that 1000 members.
Mansur Safin didn't escape punishment with a real term.
The prison term costed him the leadership he had conquered.
During Safin's absence new people got first positions in the group and one Adygan Salyakhov became the main person.
Alik or "The big one", like he was called in different brigades, was a bit older than the majority of gang members.
He joined it as almost a 25-year-old.
In due time this big, about 1,9 meter high, strong guy was brought to the "boys" by Safin himself,
and from the very beginning all of them understood that Alik could get rid of any enemy of his even alone.
Why did he become the boss? It's simply explained by the personality characteristics of Salyakhov himself:
firstly, he is a man with a tough character, an intelligent one, and is resolute in his decisions.
He literally conquered the leadership in the gang with his fists.
After the release Safin, the formal leader of the gang, found himself at playing supporting roles, and after losing the crown, he soon lost his head as well.
Mansur Safin was killed in the city of Naberezhnyje Chelny, shot with a machine gun in his cottage under construction.
Some years later, Salyakhov was accused of this *** among many other grave offences that had power and money as their aim.
Alik obtained what he wanted then: he became the sole leader of the criminal association.
He was a merciless and hard-*** leader, it didn't matter who was it that displeased him, members of other groups or members of his own one.
A wry glance towards "The big one" was enough to find oneself in a hospital, and no investigator could make the victim give Salyakhov's name.
The sentence about "unknown individuals who beat the aggrieved party up at the public transport stop" was entered in the reports unavoidably.
Another answer would cost the beaten-up man his life.
"The big one" rarely acted by himself:
after having practiced the karate techniques on his accomplices in the first years of conquering the power, later he just gave orders.
They are smart enough not to do things with their own hands. They have enough "soldiers" with whose hands they commit crimes.
towards the beginning of the 90s, this division of functions became one of the principles of the formation of the "29th Complex" gang,
the interests of which went in various directions. After subjugating the gangs that existed in Naberezhnyje Chelny,
the members of the "29th Complex" took control of prostitutes, drug dealers, dealers of spare parts for cars, currency exchange points, car parks, night clubs,
all kinds of market trade.
I think that at the time every citizen who reached the age of reason knew that the "29th Complex" got protection money from the automobile plant market.
The businessmen from the automobile plant market tried to resist the racketeers from time to time, usually unsuccessfully,
but one such episode laid foundation to a new phase of the gangster expansion.
It happened when one of the businessmen managed to put up a tough team which physically interferred with the collectors of protection money.
Guarding the territory of the marketplace, they just didn't let them approach the salesmen,
but the odds were not in favour of the honest businessmen.
They did have neither enough forces nor possibility to put up a large-scale war against the "29th Complex".
The gangsters established connections in political and law enforcement structures and from "protectors" of the market they became its owners,
becoming"legal" racketeers in such a way .
But it was just the beginning.
They penetrated the KAMAZ sales network successfully enough and had a profit from the sales of every truck on the territory.
To put it simply, when a person from another region came there and tried to buy a KAMAZ truck or a party of them
they were told they had to agree with the guys from the "29th Complex" first.
The financial base of the "29th Complex" grew stronger every day.
Strong flows of money came not only from illegal activities, but also from legal commercial activities.
Every commercial direction was assigned to an "older one", a "watcher" or a "brigadeer".
The structure of the criminal association has always distinguished itself by a clear hierarchy and strict rules of division of power and wasn't stiff.
Rapidly changing conditions of life forced the gangsters to make new administrative decisions.
They created a so-called "group of three" which made all the decisions collectively.
They were people who acquired an enormous authority in the world of crime. They were well known by criminal gangs around whole Russia.
The famous "group of three" included, apart from Salyakhov, Yuriy Yeryomenko nicknamed "Yeryoma" and Alexandr Vlasov nicknamed "The brother-in-law".
The monthly income of their firms, which sold KAMAZ trucks and alcohol and made exchange deals, amounted to hundreds of thousands of dollars.
But the ambitions of the gangster leaders required more.
They assumed the measures to take over the meat-packing plant of Yelabuga: a rather big enterprise.
They assumed the measures to get under their control the big stock breeding complexes in Udmurtia, linked to the same meat-packing plant of Yelabuga.
So the plan was to create a powerful infrastructure which would work for the gangster "common fund".
Vlasov went to Moscow for exploration and returned from there full of plans showing great promise,
and at the end of 1993 Alik, Yeryoma and the "brother-in-law" decided to move to the capital.
The members of the "group of three" understood well that it would be not simple at all to conquer there a place in the sun,
so they took a part of "older ones" and a large group of "soldiers" with them.
Ruzal Asadullin was left at Naberezhnye Chelny as a "watcher". He had it's own brigade at the time, which was named after its leader - the "Ruzalik's brigade".
Asadullin got protection money from companies under his control and send it to the capital to Salyakhov every month.
The accumulated sums were quite big.
Just in the following year about a billion of rubli (about 35 millions of dollars in 1994) was sent to Alik.
The money was transported simply in sacks, driving up to the ramp of the airplane by car.
With this money Alik and his "comrades" bought in Moscow accomodation, commercial property and insered their tentacles in the legal business
by investing funds in some commercial firms.
Their main brainchild was the security company "The snow leopard".
The leaders of the criminal association in Moscow founded a private security company, occupying a mansion in the center of Moscow.
This allowed them to move legally around Russia with firearms. They had security guard licenses.
"The snow leopard" actively hired former policemen, FSB (Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation) agents, other former power structures' and special services' members.
The firm really provided services stated in the official certificate,
but very soon the famous gangster meetings of Moscow started also to take place under the armed guard by "the ones from Kazan" - so were called in the capital the members of any criminal gang from Tatarstan.
The connections of the Moscow security guards with other cities, even with other nearby countries were also established.
So it was decided to meet the new 1994th year in Odessa.
Salyakhov spent more than 100000 dollars for the feast in the local restaurant "Astoria" for the "older ones" with their wives and girlfriends.
Towards the end of the 90s the authority of the "Big one" became indisputable.
Everybody knew that, if he ordered any member of the "29th Complex" to kill his best friend, that one wouldn't think two times.
For Yeryoma and the "brother-in-law" that in fact meant a reduction in rank, even though their official status increased.
Now the "group of three" from Naberezhnyje Chelny constituted a close corporation "Akbars-holding".
By that time they took over more than one big enterprise:
the meat-packing plant "Modul" of Yelabuga, the pig complex "Vostochnyi" of Izhevsk, they also aimed for the meat-packing plant of Bugulma.
For the meat industry the holding had a special individual - Sergey Petrovich MIronov.
His connections and fraud skills opened for the mafia from Chelny the way to the Savings Bank of Russia,
and the bank opened a credit for the false businessmen: 60 millions of rubli.
Akmaletdin Valeyev: Deputy Chief of Criminal Search Division of inter-district department under Interior Ministry in the Tatarstan Republic That money, the 60 milions they got in the Savings Bank, was distributed among the directors of the close corporation "Akbars-holding":
the leader of the criminal gang, Adygan Akhtanovich Salyakhov, Sergey Petrovich Mironov, Vlasov and Yeryomenko, these 4 people.
They distributed the 60 millions among them.
Asadullin who remained in Naberezhnyje Chelny still ruled the local criminal world.
He sent money to Moscow with enviable regularity, even though he didn't stick to the strict rules established by Salyakhov anymore.
Ruzalik started to drink, to use drugs, allowing such weaknesses to his underlings too.
This couldn't help but bring to a big mistake.
Once, when he was in a state of light euphoria, the "watcher" of Chelny started a banal bar fight
after which he, who ruled the income of many millions of the clan, was sent to the "zone" ("prison" in Russian slang) for hooliganism.
Aidar Salimullin: in 2001-2003 criminal prosecutor of the Tatarstan republic public prosecutor's office Asadullin was convicted and Salyakhov put in his place his distant relative, Valiyev ("Ramushkin")
Ramil Valiyev nicknamed "Ramushkin", clearly instructed by Salyakhov, immediately performed a purge among the members of the "29th Complex".
He removed from the business and the "common fund" everyone who acquired inclinations towards drinking and using drugs during Asadullin's reign.
Ramushkin took the criminal power in the city in his hands so firmly that not only the brigades from other complexes, but also law-abiding young people went under his wing
and the new "watcher" knew he would have a use for them.
He pulled to himself the more or less reasonable people who just wanted to engage in legal business, maybe even not entirely legal,
but in business, in raising money from buying and selling.
The "common fund" remained the main goal for Valiyev, considering the fact that, apart from the regular money sacks for Moscow,
he also had to raise considerable sums for the support of Ruzalik who languished behind the bars.
The former leader of Chelny had his reasons for counting upon help, but he didn't expect just a material demonstration of loyalty
and probably that's why he suspected something was wrong when at the day of his release at 10th of May 2001 he didn't see in front of the gates of the "zone" even one person come to meet him
After he was released, Asadullin, the leader of the criminal association, who was in fact removed from the leadership of the gang and the money flow, from the influence on the other members of the gang by Salyakhov,
he practically became a nobody.
Ruzalik took offense, not so much on Valiyev as on Salyakhov because he understood that it was this "Moscow tzar" who was the real boss in Chelny,
and the "tzar" didn't miss an opportunity to show his strength and power, but with this he clearly lost the sense of reality.
For example, in one of the Moscow restaurants Alik shot in the head a high-ranked military officer who had an argument with him in front of the shocked public.
The whole "29th complex" took the rap for this shot, they had to raise a round sum and there was no criminal proceeding,
a fact that raised Alik's authority.
But, stronger became the "Big one", weaker became the power of his deputies.
Finally, in the famous "group of three" split up. Yeryomenko and Vlasov united themselves against Salyakhov.
They decided that Salyakhov went too far, almost all the flows of money went to him, he disposed of them alone,
he did almost nothing to support the gang and they simply decided to get rid of him.
Alik's confidants decided to get rid of him using Asadullin who was offended by him.
At the time Ruzalik gathered an army of gangsters from Chelny who weren't happy with the new order established by Valeyev.
Yeryoma and the "brother-in-law" who stayed in Moscow conducted a double play:
they allegedly followed Salyakhov's orders, but in reality they started to destroy his defenses, becoming Ruzalik's informants.
The boil matured quickly and bursted at the end of summer 2001.
At about 10.40 near the house n.4508 one of the leaders of the gang - Ramil Valeyev nicknamed "Ramushkin" was killed with a single shot from a machine gun.
At the 30 of August the Tatarstan Republic celebrated the Day of Sovereignity
while the policemen and the public prosecutors started one of the most large-scaled investigations of the organized criminal association activities.
Days and nights of work expected them, that ended in 250 tomes of the criminal case
behind each episode of which there were fear, greed, meanness, betrayal and death.