In the Rostov Regional Court, the prosecutor requested terms of imprisonment for members of the criminal group, which is called the “Amazon gang” in the media. Earlier, a jury found the defendants guilty of murders and robberies committed in 2007-2013 in the Rostov Region and the Stavropol Territory. The representative of the state prosecution suggested that the defendants be given maximum sentences: life imprisonment for Sergei Sinelnik and 25 years in prison for Anastasia Sinelnik, Inessa and Victoria Tarverdiev. Mother and daughter Inessa and Victoria Tarverdievs fully admitted their guilt, the Sinelniks insist on their non-involvement in the crimes committed.
The Rostov Regional Court discussed the legal consequences of the jury’s verdict in the case of the so-called “Rostov Amazons” gang. The state prosecutor asked to appoint Sergei Sinelnik a life sentence in a special regime colony, Anastasia Sinelnik, Inessa and Victoria Tarverdiyeva – 25 years in a general regime colony with restriction of freedom for a period of two years (this is the maximum possible punishment for women, provided for by criminal procedure legislation). This was reported to “Kommersant” in the press service of the court.
The “Gang of Amazons” operated on the territory of the Stavropol Territory and the Rostov Region from July 2007 to September 2013.
Its participants are accused of murder and attempted murder, robbery, 60 thefts, as well as crimes related to arms trafficking.
Law enforcement officers consider Inessa Tarverdiyeva to be the founder of the gang. She lived with her husband and daughter Victoria in the Stavropol Territory. In the late 1990s, the woman’s husband was found dead. According to investigators, the murder was committed by Inessa Tarverdieva and Roman Podkopaev, who became her roommate. In 1998-2003, the couple, according to investigators, killed five people in the Stavropol Territory and Kalmykia, including two underage girls.
According to investigators, later Podkopaev’s sister Anastasia and her husband, a traffic police officer Sergei Sinelnik, joined the activities of the spouses.
According to the prosecution, the gang members attacked citizens, and the Sinelniks assisted them, covered up crimes, and in some cases took part in the theft of the victims’ property.
Roman Podkopaev was liquidated during his arrest in 2013. The rest of the alleged members of the “gang of Amazons” became defendants in criminal cases.
In December 2017, the Rostov Regional Court recognized Inessa Tarverdieva, her daughter Victoria, as well as Sergei and Anastasia Sinelnik as members of a gang that killed ten people. The Sinelniks, as accomplices, were sentenced respectively to 19 and 20 years in prison, the mother and daughter of the Tarverdievs to 21 and 16 years in prison. Sinelniki did not plead guilty, and Inessa Tarverdieva entered into a pre-trial agreement, actively cooperating with the investigation.
The second criminal case was received by the Rostov Regional Court in March 2020. 98 people were recognized as victims of it.
The accusation is based, as in the first case, on the testimony of Inessa Tarverdiyeva. She and her daughter Victoria fully admitted their guilt.
The Sinelniks, accused of complicity, deny their involvement in the crimes imputed to them and call the evidence in the case falsified.
On November 29, 2022, the jury found Inessa and Viktoria Tarverdiev and Sergei Sinelnik guilty of all the episodes of the charges brought against them, one episode was removed from Anastasia Sinelnik.
Among the victims of the gang are Dmitry Chudakov from Nizhny Novgorod, his children, 11-year-old Veronika and 6-year-old Alexander, and his wife Irina. The lieutenant colonel’s family was killed while returning home from the Black Sea coast in July 2009. The officer’s car was found on the M4 highway near the village of Rassvet: adults were shot dead, and 37 stab wounds were found on the girl’s body.
Initially, Aleksey Serenko, a resident of Aksai, was accused of murdering the lieutenant colonel’s family and other crimes incriminated to the “Rostov Amazons”.
After four years of illegal criminal prosecution, the Prosecutor General’s Office apologized to Alexei Serenko, and the treasury paid him compensation of 300 thousand rubles.
The victim in the case, Valentina Chudakova, the mother of a colleague, did not acknowledge the involvement in the murder of her son’s family, neither Alexei Serenko, nor the “gang of Amazons”, believing that the crime was committed by other people not established by the investigation.
