MOSCOW, September 30 (RIA Novosti) – Russian police have detained the head of a Urals city administration for his alleged role in the killings of business rivals carried out by local crime gang members, the Investigative Committee said in a statement Monday.
Viktor Ardabievsky, head of the city administration in Miass, a city in the Chelyabinsk Region, is suspected of having masterminded the killings of two local businessmen in 2005 and 2008, the statement said. The businessmen, Andrei Paduchin and Pavel Sidorov, were killed by members of the notorious Turbazovskiye gang, investigators said.
Ardabievsky arranged the murders and knew that the crimes were to be carried out by the gang members, and therefore he is also suspected of being a gang accomplice, investigators said.
Chelyabinsk.ru news agency reported Monday that Ardabievsky previously had business ties with the Turbazovskiye gang leader, Sergei Chashchin, who was charged with heading the criminal gang in November 2012.
The Turbazovskiye gang, which police say carried out 30 contract killings between 1999 and 2011, took its name, which means “holiday village” in Russian, from the Kedr holiday village in the Chelyabinsk Region where the gang members used to gather. The complex was opened jointly by Chashchin and Ardabievsky, the Chelyabinsk.ru report said.
