GTA gang

First rumors and news

The rumors about the killer (or killers) on the M4 highway (Russia) near Moscow spread out around mid-summer 2014. It was said that the unknown criminals used to place caltrops on the motor road during the night, waiting for a car stopped then coming close to a car (pretending to help with a wheel change) and suddenly shoot a car driver and passengers from a short distance.

The first officially confirmed murder went unnoticed for some time. It happened during the night between 2 and 3 of May 2014 on the M4 highway (84 km from Moscow) - a couple of pensioners (62 and 64 years old) were shot to death. A lot of valuables were left in the car untouched, the wallet was found openly lying over the dash panel completely intact, one IPad was missing.

A 53-year-old man from Tula region was found dead (shot) 25 meters from his car on the same M4 highway (45 km from Moscow) later, 30 June 2014.

The fourth 31-years old man was found dead (three shots in the body, one control in the head) on the A-108 motorway at 18 August 2014 and then the whole story attracted a wide attention in media, since all victims were killed by 9 mm bullets and all their cars were stopped by homemade caltrops.

The criminal group soon got a nickname GTA gang because people saw the analogy between the strange actions of the gang and the crime patterns / typical missions in the video game Grand Theft Auto (shortly GTA). Police issued a warning and advised people to continue driving the car against all odds (until the police road post or gas station) if they spot the tire puncture during night time.

Unofficial attempts to stop the gang

Vigilante citizens, outraged by a lack of action from police and other authorities, soon organized armed patrols and started night raids in the areas south of Moscow, checking suspicious cars to catch a gang. This kind of reckless and unlawful activity made authorities nervous and the police plead to people to stay away from law enforcement operations.

Police eventually issued the generated picture of a suspect by a middle of September 2014: Different methods were used by police and other authorities to find the gang, including the stolen IPad signal tracking: and switching off the traffic lights.

Versions discussed in the media

Several versions about the criminals and their aims circulated in Russia:

The fight and the capture

On 6 November 2014, the news came that gang was captured after the fierce gunfight during the night of 5/6 November 2014. It happened around 3:00-3:20 in a private villa ( 55.6250354°N 38.0257228°E / 55.6250354; 38.0257228 ) situated at Gor'kov street, 39, in the village of Udelnaya, Ramensky District, 10–15 km south-east of Moscow. The gang leader was killed during fight. He had initiated the shooting by throwing a hand grenade towards the police and FSB special team crying “Allahu Abkar” and was immediately shot by a sniper (his death corpse photo: ).

The leader

His fake name is Rustam Usmanov, 32 years old, the real name is Ibaydullo Subkhanov. He was the citizen of Kyrgyzstan (from city Osh), but Uzbek by ethnicity. He came to Russia more than 10 years ago and found a place to live in a servant house by the villa in a village Udelnaya near Moscow. The old lady named Barakat Khasanova (probably his mother) already lived in the house by that time. Later a younger woman Ranohon Khasanova moved in to live with him as a couple. She supposed to be his unofficial wife (accompanied by her two daughters from her former affairs). But Ranohon Khasanova with her kids disappeared before or after the firefight on the night 6 November and still listed internationally. Rustam Usmanov (Ibaydullo Subkhanov) became a radical Islamist at his home country year 2011 and later fought in Syria on the ISIL side. Then Usmanov (Subkhanov) came back to Russia and met some Tajiks, members of extremists pan-Islamic organization “Hizb ut-Tahrir” which is prohibited in Russia. Later Usmanov (Subkhanov) had been working as a house/villa servant for a top official in the federal Office of Prosecutor General of Russia Alexei Staroverov who owns the villa since 2010. Usmanov's (Subkhanov's) mother also reportedly worked in the top official's home.

Aftermath

Around 60 units of weapons were found on the place after the gunfire was stopped and fire in a house was taken under control by firefighters. Most of the firearms were gas pistols (non-lethal weapon for self-defense) remade to fire live bullets from standard 9mm ammunition rounds. All such pistols had stickers with numbers. Experts found that one of these pistols was used in 6 murders.

Another 10 persons were captured in other places of Moscow region: 6 November the main bunch of GTA gang was captured at Dmitrovskoe highway, north of Moscow, two Kalashnikov submachine guns (AKS type) with 100 rounds were confiscated. and some gang members were under run until the 16th of November.

List of suspects (Surname, First Name) - 7-8 males, 2-3 females (according to different sources):

Males: Absmatov Rashid, Okhunov Nematjohn, Rakhimov Abnunakhob, Ibragimov Dierbek, Akhmadjonov Alerbek, Sultanov Tolibjohn, Mamadchonov Abdumukim, Fazalitdin Khasanov. Khazratkhion Dodokhoev and Zafarjohn Guljamov got arrested later?

Females: Sultanova Khosiyat, Sultanova Markhabo, Chekushina Maria (Russian citizen, later released as wife of other labor migrant, not connected with gang)

Later two other persons were arrested in Tajikistan by local police: main ideologist of the gang Bair Gulomov (around November 2015) who is an uncle to another gang member Zafarjohn Guljamov and IS recruiter 38-years-old Farrukh Azamjohn (information came 28 June 2016). The Russian authorities are still (by June 2016) in consultations with authorities of Tajikistan about getting both suspects under Russian justice.

President's congratulations

Russian President Vladimir Putin himself congratulated the minister of internal affairs Vladimir Kolokol'cev with a success of investigation against the gang. Putin mentioned that gang's action can be counted as a terrorist crime. He also cheered the cooperation between the police and Federal Security Service (FSB) during the investigation and said: Hope you will get it (investigation) to the end.

ISIL connected terrorist group

Later the information about GTA gang connected with ISIL leaked into mass-media both in Russia, even in Islam news: and abroad: The gang leader Rustam Usmanov (Ibaydullo Subkhanov) was probably previously personally connected with ISIL, and kept a contact with ISIL after his participation in the Syrian war. He got help from the main ideologist of a gang - Bair Gulomov (Tajik) - who found, encouraged newcomers. Meanwhile, war-experienced Ibaydullo Subkhanov trained and ruled over all other GTA gang members, planned and executed most assaults with at least one newcomer as an "entrance exam" to the gang.

The gang members, mainly Tajiks and Uzbeks by ethnicity, citizens of Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, labor migrant mainly occupied as unofficial illegal taxi drivers, called themselves as «jaamat» (Jamia is a group in Arabic) and is on a mission to hunt down "infidels" on the motor roads as a fast and efficient way of training the future Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant fighters.

A few kilos of RDX (hexogen) explosives were found in the GTA gang hiding places which indicated that the “jaamat” was ready to make a terror acts later.

Just lucrative murders or ?

But 12 November the head representative of Investigative Committee of Russia (IC or SK in Russian) Vladimir Markin suddenly said: “Version that the gang members played like the heroes of the computer play GTA has no grounds. Our investigation team found out that the aims of the murders did by the gang members were just lucrative, they rob the money of victims”. But he didn't specify when and how much money they took. These discrepancies in the gang's motives were widely discussed in Russia and abroad but not in official mainstream media in Russia, except this article: - there the connection between the labor migrant hate (caused by their low and unstable salary, slave-like working conditions and unprotected semi-official half-illegal life in Russia) towards the Russian citizens and their eager willingness to serve ISIL was discussed. The reasons for such sudden and unsupported discrepancies between initial and later information about the robbery and property of the victims, between the Putin's and Markov's definitions of the gang's activities and aims, can be caused by hidden political issues:

Top functionary from Prosecutor Office involved

Alexei Staroverov, head of the Prosecutor General of Russia Office administration, has been suspended temporarily while an internal investigation is carried out, his office confirmed 12 November 2014. One day later, head of IC Markin confirmed that Alexey Staroverov from Prosecutor General Office was questioned by IC as a witness regarding GTA gang. The criminal case about illegal possession of weapons and ammunition found in his villa (article 222, Criminal Code of Russia) was initiated against him 13 November.

Alexei Staroverov was number 4 on a list of richest Russian enforcement chiefs (“siloviki”) according to newspaper Forbes. His own and his wife's income was on total more than 21.419+26.6=48 million rubles, but the villa (273 sq. meters) itself and the land around it (1110 sq. meters) officially belongs to their underage son (typical way to hide capital and realty) from the purchase year 2010. Deputy Prosecutor General Viktor Grin had briskly intervened, issuing a personal order to close the criminal case against Alexei Staroverov as a harsh move in a long-running conflict between the Russian Investigative Committee and Prosecutor General's Office. Alexey Staroverov became ill and was hospitalized with cardiology problems around 20 November (quite a typical trick for Russian officials under investigation). He had also applied for resignation. Surprisingly, the head of the Cardiology Department (where Staroverov spent some time recovering) «by pure coincidence» was Dr. Konstantin Lyadov, who were also included in the list of witnesses questioned about GTA gang by IC. Konstantin Lyadov owns a villa at village Pozdnyakovo, Krasnogorsk district, where another member of GTA gang, Fazalitdin Khasanov (a brother of gang leader's wife) made a weapons (remade a gas-pistols) and caltrops for his friends. Russian opposition activist Alexei Navalny used the GTA gang connection to Staroverov to blame the corrupted prosecutors with cover-up of ISIL terrorists in his famous anti-corruption video named “Chaika” (which means "gull" in Russian) after the acting Prosecutor General of Russia Yury Chaika:

The official report

Official report of IC is here:

Here again, SK / IC failed to provide any kind of list of these «valuables» which suppose to be a lucrative aim for the murders. The leader of Russian IC Markin a year later (21/10/2015), during the interview to TV channel “Russia 24” officially said again that the aims of the gang were purely lucrative: «For a long time could not understand the reasons for a long time there were a lot of rumors about what they were guided. But the motives were commonplace – a seizure of property and money» - but failed to mention any amount of money and/or valuable property.

He also stated that the 17 victims were killed and that 4 more gang members disappeared abroad and still in search (internationally listed).

A few previous murders dated 2009 in Moscow (but not on the highway) and November–December 2013 in Ryazan region were found to be connected with GTA gang and now under investigation.

28 of June 2016 the criminal case came to Moscow region high court.

Sessions of the court

6 of July Moscow region court settled the preliminary hearing date: 13 July, some news leaked into media.

The preliminary hearing started 13 July in secret mode/closed session and the next session date was decided: 19 July. All videophoto recording was banned on the first session 19 July because accused asked for this ban (jury personnel checked the public to prevent the mobile camera recording). There are 3 prosecutors acting from the state side. Some of the defense lawyers reported that they had no time to read all 170 volumes of the case. Because of that the judge Natalia Valikova just verified the personality of accused and decided to move all other actions to the next session on 1 August 2016.

Other hearings/sessions went on according to the updated schedule here:

One lawyer has been changed during the start of the next session dated 1 August (new defendant lawyer said that he caught in time and really managed to read all 170 volumes of the criminal case but still reading some of them). All 9 charged offenders listened to the accusation red by the state prosecuting attorney during that session 1 August 2016. The formal accusation text took more than 2 hours to read it out. The gang members, their cars, home addresses were named, the weaponry list took about 10 minutes of the talk (two Kalashnikov different caliber submachine guns were mentioned, one TT pistol and numerous self-made pistols were named too, but no hand grenades information were given). The 15 crime episodes were mentioned (some of them completely unknown by media) - two first victims killed 2012 were also guest-workers from abroad working as illegal taxi drivers personally known by perpetrators (they were killed by the gang just because of the cars). The homicide crime episode without any robbery or other criminal income was named: Vladimir Kirillyuk (the head of the supervisory council from "Flora-Moskva" private bank: http://www.florabank.ru) was killed bicycling on the side-road during one night of 2014. The investigators suspected that he was killed because he had witnessed something dangerous for the gang members (but accusation failed to mention what exactly he has seen). All charged offenders partially admit their guilty but decided to give their statements later during each criminal episode hearings.

Next hearing was settled on 8 August, then 19th and 24th. Long break then followed (caused by a defendant lawyers vacations).

Several hearings went on (4, 6, 12, 19, 26, 27 October) then few interesting statements were canceled on the hearing dated 31 October: Anvar Ulugmuradov gave his statements about one homicide and one homicide attempt (victims were completely unknown to the gang, no robbery attempt, no lucrative motives at all). The crime was committed on the night of 11–12 June 2013 in the car parked in forest/park near Mendeleevo settlement, Moscow region. Perpetrator Ulugmuradov gave confession during the investigation that the leader of the gang forced him to kill absolutely unknown persons for the training purposes. The leader said that the revolution soon will start in Uzbekistan and to check the quality of the gang members (future militants) they should prove their commitment and dedication to the gang and to the underground by killing somebody. But Ulugmuradov denied his own confessions about purposes on the court session (just during the current hearing). He confirmed that with yet unknown gang member "Kirgiz" they found a car by laughing and music played in it. The man and woman in the car supposed to be killed inside the car by point blank shooting through windows (pistol with the self-made suppressor in a form of plastic bottle) but 38-years-old Yulia Baranova managed to survive after two wounds (breast and shoulder) made her unconsciousness. She called her friends just after she regain consciousness that morning and they called the police. She again gave her statements on the hearings: nothing was stolen, the purposes of the crime were non-lucrative.