The leader of the Sertolovskaya organized crime group with a roof in the St. Petersburg headquarters of the Ministry of Internal Affairs was convicted of robbery, kidnapping and extortion

In St. Petersburg, a gang was sentenced, which, according to the prosecution, had been operating on the territory of St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region since 1994. Most of the defendants were found guilty of creating and participating in a gang, murder and attempted murder, kidnapping, robbery, robbery, extortion, possession of weapons.

Judge of the City Court of St. Petersburg Nikita Suvorov read out the verdict to 14 defendants for more than 10 hours. The main charge – banditry (Article 209 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) – was considered by the court to be proven. Nine suspects, whose participation in the gang’s activities was confirmed in the verdict, received from 9 to 17 years in a strict regime colony. The organizer of the gang, according to investigators, 65-year-old Leonid Kolesnikov, was sentenced to 20 years in prison. Four more defendants got off with suspended sentences.

How the criminal gang, which began its activities in 1994, managed to avoid the attention of law enforcement agencies for so long, tried to figure out Novaya Gazeta.ru. Europe”.

But as soon as we tried to be interested in this, we were immediately ordered not to interfere in our own business. Like, weapons are the prerogative of the FSB and the military, not the police. Although it was on the arms trade that Kolesnikov and his people could be developed since the late 90s. If we had been allowed to do this then, this organized crime group would have been liquidated much earlier.

According to a former employee of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs for St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region, Kolesnikov’s organized crime group remained untouchable for the police, because someone in the police headquarters covered them.

And this “someone” can still hold a serious position in the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

“When that photograph appeared on the Internet after the arrest of Leonid Kolesnikov, we cannot say that we were very surprised,” the interlocutor shared. – Yes, our chief immediately stated that he was only the namesake of the detained bandit, and in the photo it was not him, but someone who looked like him, but it did not sound very plausible. Yes, and this story with cars also suggests thoughts. Where could an ordinary cop get a Porsche from?

The photo, which the former employee of the Criminal Investigation Department of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of St. Petersburg and the region is talking about, appeared on the telegram channel “VChK-OGPU” almost immediately after the arrest of Leonid Kolesnikov. And on it in the foreground is very similar to the head of the CID of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs for St. Petersburg and the region, police colonel Oleg Kolesnikov, a man hugging a neighbor who looks like Leonid Kolesnikov. As you can see from the photo, they have a very friendly relationship.

But the story with the cars, to which our source refers, took place four years after the arrest of the alleged leader of the Kolesnikovskaya organized criminal group.

At the end of 2021, an inspection from the Ministry of Internal Affairs came to St. Petersburg. It was rumored that clouds had gathered over the head of the St. Petersburg headquarters, Roman Plugin, and ministerial officers had come to shoot him. Plugin held his seat. But the check itself caused a lot of panic in his entourage. Oleg Kolesnikov, who then acted as head of the UUR, began to come to work in a modest Hyundai. Although I used to drive a Porsche Cayenne or an Audi Q7. Moreover, the numbers on the “Korean” were the same as on the “Porsche”.

Restaurant wars for the watermelon market

If we assume that Kolesnikov from the Ministry of Internal Affairs protected Kolesnikov from Sertolovo, then the question arises why the first allowed the arrest of Leonid? The answer is quite simple: the Kolesnikov gang was developed not by employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, but by operatives of the FSB of the Russian Federation. Moreover, the beginning of the work of the FSB-shnikov over the Kolesnikovskaya organized criminal group falls on 2016. The same one when the former “Watermelon King” of St. Petersburg, Ilham Aliyev, was sentenced to 10 years in prison, including for preparing the murder of Leonid Kolesnikov.

– Friction between Aliyev and Kolesnikov began with the fact that the latter decided to help Aliyev’s former partner and countryman Islam Sadygov, – told Novaya Gazeta.ru. Europe” former employee of the Ministry of Internal Affairs for the Vsevolozhsk district Sergey Makarov. – Sadigov and Aliyev started together. In addition to the traditional Azerbaijani trade in vegetables and fruits, both were also engaged in the restaurant business. In 2012, Sadygov decided to work independently. And his interests did not coincide with Aliyev’s interests.

The confrontation quickly escalated into hostilities. First, in September 2012, Sadigov’s Mercedes burned down, parked on Bryantsev Street in St. Petersburg. Two months later, the car of Sadigov’s wife burned down on Northern Avenue. And a couple of days later, the Flamingo restaurant on Olga Forsh Street caught fire. It also belonged to Sadygov. It was then that the latter turned to Kolesnikov for help, who liked the idea of ​​entering the St. Petersburg vegetable market.

On the night of December 5-6, 2012, two bottles with a Molotov cocktail flew into the Chinar restaurant on Lunacharsky Avenue in St. Petersburg, which belonged to Ilham Aliyev. According to one version, this could be Sadigov’s answer to Aliyev, and his subordinates Kolesnikov organized it. However, this episode did not appear in the criminal case against Kolesnikov’s gang.

In 2013, the name of Leonid Kolesnikov appeared not only in official reports, but also in news channels. On the morning of April 8, 2013, an assassination attempt was made on the head of the Council of Entrepreneurs of the city of Sertolovo (as Kolesnikov was then called in the media). The killer acted like the hero of Bodrov in the film “Brother”. A plastic bottle was used as a silencer, and the gun itself was hidden in a plastic bag. The first bullet hit Kolesnikov in the shoulder, and then the gun jammed. The killer fled, but was soon identified and detained. And a little later, the Investigative Committee for the Leningrad Region named the name of the alleged customer of the assassination – Ilham Aliyev, nicknamed “The Watermelon King.”

Aliyev’s guilt was subsequently proven in court. In July 2016, the Vsevolozhsk City Court of the Leningrad Region sentenced Ilham Aliyev to 10 years in prison for the murder of businessman Sarkis Petikyan and the attempted murder of Kolesnikov. Five of his accomplices were sentenced to terms ranging from 10 to 14 years in prison. At the end of 2016, the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation upheld Aliyev’s sentence. And just three months later, Kolesnikov was arrested, who was accused of robbery and attempted extortion.

Immediately after Kolesnikov’s arrest, officers of the Federal Security Service for St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region conducted a series of searches at the premises of alleged members of the organized criminal group. They knew where to look. Two weapons depots were found containing more than four thousand rounds of ammunition, one grenade launcher, 10 grenades, an improvised explosive device with a capacity of at least 800 grams of TNT, 18 pistols and submachine guns, six machine guns and one foreign-made rifle.

“Since the development was carried out by the FSB, we knew little,” said a former officer of the Vsevolozhsk police. – But we had persistent rumors that after the sentence to Aliyev remained in force, he was taken into circulation and offered parole by the FSB officers.

And he, being a prominent member of the Azerbaijani diaspora, helped the FSB officers find a person from Kolesnikov’s inner circle, in whose “team” there were many people from the Caucasus. And that person, either a relative, or a fellow countryman, or just a debtor to Aliyev, handed over Kolesnikov’s organized criminal group. Whether this was really so, I can’t say, but in time and logically everything converges.

Initially, the defendants in the Kolesnikov case were charged not only with banditry, but also with the creation of a criminal community (Article 210 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation).

“The 209th and 210th articles of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation actually duplicate each other,” lawyer Dmitry Gerasimov comments on the situation. – Only the terms differ there: according to the 209th – up to 15 years of imprisonment, according to the 210th – up to 20. In the comments to the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, a sign of Article 209 is the creation of a criminal group – not to be confused with organized crime groups, this is an operational term, not a legal one , an organized crime group can be a gang, it can be a criminal community, or it can simply be an organized group, which is an aggravating circumstance, but does not have its own expression in a specific article of the Criminal Code, to commit unlawful acts. The gang must have a strict hierarchy, the presence of weapons, subordination to the leaders of the gang. The same signs are indicated in the 210th article. An additional sign of the creation of a criminal community, and not a gang, is the merging of criminals with government agencies. That is, a representative of the authorities must be present in the gang, and this makes the gang no longer just a gang, but a criminal community. As practice shows, for some reason the investigation constantly duplicates these articles (209th and 210th). Apparently, in the hope that at least one will stand in court. And since it is easier to prove banditry than the creation of an organized criminal group, it is usually the 209th that remains.

The St. Petersburg City Court acquitted the defendants in the Kolesnikov case of committing a crime under Article 210 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (organization of a criminal community). But he left the 209th article (banditry), which made it possible to condemn Kolesnikov on the basis of the totality of imputed articles for 20 years in a strict regime. In addition, the court satisfied civil claims for a total amount of more than 15 million rubles.