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Vladimir Kumarin

Vladimir Kumarin, aka Vladimir Barsukov, aka "Kum"[citation needed] is a Russian businessman, former deputy president of the Petersburg Fuel Company (PTK) between 1998 and 1999, and the boss of the criminal Tambovskaya Bratva (Tambov gang) of Saint Petersburg.

Vladimir Kumarin
Born
Vladimir Vladimirovich Kumarin

(1956-02-15) February 15, 1956 (age 68)
Leningrad, USSR
Occupation(s)Businessman, Gangster, boss of Tambov Gang
Criminal chargeFraud, Money laundering
Penalty24 years

Biography

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Kumarin was born in Tambov, after compulsory military service he came to Leningrad to study. In the 1980s he served his first sentence for possession of arms and forged documents. Thereafter he met a compatriot from Tambov, Valery Ledovskikh with whom he founded a gang. The gang initially invited only persons from Tambov region (thus its name, Tambovskaya). Being not yet strong enough to operate independently, the gang merged into the large criminal group Velikolukskaya (from Velikie Luki, Pskov region) and was engaged mostly in commercial racketeering.[1]

In 1989 multiple members of Kumarin's gang were convicted for the bloody firefight with another criminal gang, Malyshevskaya. The verdict was rather mild, supposedly because the state prosecutor was severely injured by unknown persons during the investigation. After having completed a short sentence, Kumarin's gang swiftly took over all across the northwestern region of Russia – Leningrad, Pskov, Novgorod, and Karelia – challenging the business affairs of his former 'host gang'. A bloody skirmish with the Velikolukskaya gang caused Kumarin to fall into a month-long coma.[1] His right arm had to be amputated at the shoulder and bullets pierced his stomach, chest and lungs. To this day he still has bullet fragments in his heart.[2]

During the mid-1990s Kumarin attempted to legalize the criminal earnings of his gang using extensive contacts with the government of the City of St. Petersburg headed by mayor Anatoly Sobchak (1991–1996), to whom the current Russian president Vladimir Putin served as assistant.[3] Kumarin was an investor to the Kirishinefteorgsintez (Киришинефтеоргсинтез) oil refinery and member of the Board of Petersburg Fuel Company (PTK) controlled by Kumarin. PTK became the sole supplier of gasoline to the municipal transport of St. Petersburg.[1]

Since the late 1990s a few senior members of Kumarin's structures as well as of its adversaries were killed and a list of investigations of his past criminal affairs was published. In June 2003, the magazine Der Spiegel mentioned that, according to the German ministry of criminal affairs, the German firm St. Petersburg Real Estate Holding Company (German: St. Peterburg Immobilien und Beteiligungs AG) (SPAG) had fallen under suspicion of being involved in a money-laundering scheme through the Cali cocaine cartel with connections to Kumarin.[4][5][6][7] The Russian co-owner of the SPAG's joint venture was the government of St. Petersburg, and Vladimir Putin, then the municipal official, was a member of the board from 1992 to 2000.[4][8][9][10] In April 2004 German police interrogated Kumarin but no indictments were made.[10][11] It has been suggested that Kumarin maintained good relations with Russian politicians Mikhail Glushenko and Alexander Filatov. Allegedly after refusing to back down from a business deal in favour of a politician close to Vladimir Putin, Kumarin was raided and arrested by 300 special forces officers on August 24, 2007.[2] Prosecutor General Yury Chaika accused him of banditry and organizing a gang.[12][13][14] He was also accused of the murder attempt on businessman Sergei Vasiliev, a rival in the oil business. In 2006, two men with automatic rifles sprayed Vasiliev's car with gunfire, wounding him and killing one of his bodyguards.[2]

Kumarin sought to clean up his image via donations to charities and the Russian Orthodox Church of which he was a devout follower as well as securing the release of two kidnapped children of Sergey Borodulin, Russian businessman.[2] During this period his fame grew as well; dozens of celebrities and politicians attended his 50th birthday party in 2006.[2] Kumarin was interviewed by Andrey Konstantinov, author of book Bandit Petersburg.[15] Since 2004 Kumarin-Barsukov served as assistant to the St. Petersburg municipal MP, Alexander Nevzorov, well-known Russian journalist, who endorsed Kumarin as a "perfectly clean person" and invited Kumarin to play the role of King Louis XIV in his film.[16] During the 1990s, however, Nevzorov covered multiple raids on Kumarin's gang on prime-time TV shows, making the gang notorious among the public.[1]

After the 2007–2009 investigation Kumarin was sentenced to 14 years in prison plus a fine for the episodes of racketeering, fraud, money laundering and a murder attempt. The verdict was challenged in the European Court of Human Rights and by 2011 his sentence was reduced by 2.5 years. In 2012 another long investigation into Kumarin's affairs started. Kumarin was accused of contracting the killing of Galina Starovoitova. The main witness against Kumarin was Mikhail Glushenko, a.k.a. Misha-Khokhol, who in turn was sentenced to 17 years in prison in 2015 for arranging of the murder of Starovoitova.

In March 2019, he was sentenced by the Court of St. Petersburg to 24 years in prison for founding The Tambov Gang.[17]

See also

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Notes

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  1. ^ a b c d ""Тамбовская" ОПГ: как они подмяли под себя весь Петербург?". russian7.ru (in Russian). 11 February 2017. Retrieved 29 May 2019.
  2. ^ a b c d e The Times - Russia's 'Al Capone' sneers at his trial[dead link]
  3. ^ Jürgen Roth, Die Gangster aus dem Osten, Europa Verlag Publishers
  4. ^ a b "Spuren in den Kreml? Die deutsche Immobilien-Firma SPAG soll der russischen Mafia als Geldwaschanlage gedient haben. Jetzt schlugen hiesige Ermittler erstmals zu. Das Netzwerk zieht sich bis nach Moskau" [Traces in the Kremlin? The German real estate company SPAG is said to have served the Russian mafia as a money-laundering system. Now local investigators struck for the first time. The network extends to Moscow.]. Der Spiegel (in German). June 2003. Archived from the original on 18 April 2016. Retrieved 16 January 2020.
  5. ^ Hosenball, Mark (2 September 2001). "A Stain on Mister Clean". Newsweek. Archived from the original on 21 December 2013. Retrieved 16 January 2020.
  6. ^ "Newsweek Details Putin's Alleged Organized Crime Ties…". Jamestown Foundation. 27 August 2001. Retrieved 16 January 2020.
  7. ^ Milov, O.; Nemtsov, B.; Ryzhkov, V.; Shorina, O., eds. (2011). "Putin. Corruption. An independent white paper". putin-itogi.ru. Translated by Essel, Dave. Retrieved 16 January 2020.
  8. ^ Belton, Catherine (7 October 2003). "New Book Poses Question of Putin's Links with Underworld". The St. Petersburg Times. Archived from the original on 30 September 2007. Retrieved 16 January 2020.
  9. ^ J.V. Koshiw (12–13 October 2007). "Kuchma's 'Parallel Cabinet' – The center of President Kuchma's authoritarian rule based on the Melnychenko recordings" (PDF). pp. 17–20. Archived from the original (PDF) on 20 January 2012. Retrieved 16 January 2020.
  10. ^ a b "Барсуков (Кумарин), Владимир". lenta.ru. Retrieved 29 May 2019.
  11. ^ Березовский, Борис (24 June 2003). "Новый передел. Что делать?" [New redistribution. What to do?]. Коммерсантъ [Kommersant] (in Russian). Vol. 129, no. 2732. Archived from the original on 16 June 2011. Retrieved 16 January 2020.
  12. ^ ""Эрмитаж отдыхает": в Петербурге изъяли 50 антикварных предметов". Archived from the original on 30 August 2007. Retrieved 27 August 2007.
  13. ^ "Ю.Чайка: Преступная группировка под руководством арестованного в Петербурге В.Барсукова действовала около 10 лет". Archived from the original on 25 July 2011. Retrieved 27 August 2007.
  14. ^ Генпрокурор Чайка: «Перед Кумариным все делали «Ку»
  15. ^ "Владимир Барсуков-Кумарин встретил спецназ расслабленно". www.mk.ru (in Russian). 20 March 2019. Retrieved 29 May 2019.
  16. ^ Резунков, Виктор (31 August 2007). "Почему арестовали "ночного губернатора" Санкт-Петербурга". Радио Свобода (in Russian). Retrieved 29 May 2019.
  17. ^ "Четверть века для Кумарина. До встречи в 2030-м, ночной губернатор" (in Russian). www.fontanka.ru. 20 March 2019. Retrieved 8 April 2019.
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