act provocatively in court
On April 6, the Novosibirsk District Court convicted members of the Semenovskie gang. This name – after the name of the leader – was given to the group by law enforcement agencies during the investigation.
There were four criminals on the dock. In total, they received almost 50 years in prison.
Gang leader Mikhail Semyonov was sentenced to 15 years and 1 month, Vladimir Sheidel 13 years and 1 month, Valery Panyushkin 12 years and 1 month, and Viktor Katkov 7 years and 9 months. All four will serve their sentences in a strict regime colony.
In total, investigators managed to prove 19 crimes committed by the gang in six months – from October 2019 to April 2020. The convicts were prosecuted for theft, robbery, robbery, extortion, fraud, banditry, arms smuggling, theft and damage to documents.
At the trial, the gang members acted boldly, trying in various ways to delay the judicial investigation. Thereupon, Semenov said that he had bleeding in his mouth and asked him to call an ambulance. The leader of the organized crime syndicate later admitted to the guards that he had loosened a broken tooth. His accomplice was supported by Sheidel, complaining of high blood pressure. The sentencing process lasted two days.
Prison accomplices found
The leader of the group is 25-year-old Mikhail Semenov. It is known that he was born and raised in the city of Krasnokamensk in the Trans-Baikal Territory and has a criminal background. As a teenager, the young man was found guilty of theft – he was later sentenced to a suspended sentence. Then Semenov was caught for fraud, robbery, deliberate destruction of other people’s property – this time they gave a real time.
He served his sentence in a colony in the Novosibirsk region. There she met Vladimir Sheidel and later agreed not to lose touch after her release.
The prosecutor’s office said that on October 11, 2019, Semenov was released, and the next day, according to the investigation, he began to take action to organize a criminal community. Semyonov and Sheidel took Valery Panyushkin from Novosibirsk to their group – his role was to look for potential victims, as he was very knowledgeable in the city.
Initially, the gang planned to attack drug addicts and pawnbrokers, the points of which should be calculated only by artillery Panyushkin. The logic was that drug addicts and couriers did not go to the police, because then they themselves could be prosecuted for their activities.
“It was terrible”
Panyushkin suggested to his accomplices the places, mainly in Novosibirsk, where illegal drug smugglers bookmarked with drugs: in the Inyushensky pine forest, in the forest plantations near the Red Mammoth and Big Dipper TVKs, etc. The victims were sheltered while sitting in the cabin of the Toyota Harrier SUV. As soon as they saw the suitable people, they moved on to the case.
The plan was understandable and well known: The criminals introduced themselves as police officers and launched a crackdown.
“Threatening to use a gun, they put it in a car, took people’s property, found out with whom they lived, drove with the victim, if people lived alone, also under the threat of using a gun. From the apartment to the place of residence, where it is already open, they stole all the properties that were there, ”Vladimir Bondarenko, the first head of the department responsible for the investigation of particularly important cases of the Investigative Committee of the ICR in the Novosibirsk Region, told the media.
Residents of the Oktyabrsky and Dzerzhinsky districts, where the organized crime group mainly operates, tried not to walk alone at that time and return home before sunset.
“My husband always met me at work and even bought pepper spray from him because it was scary. Yes, mostly drug addicts were robbed, but the attacks did not stop. In local groups, people cooperated and helped each other,” said local resident Anna (not her real name).
“I did not let my children go for a walk, then they were still small and could have been victims. When these people were finally caught, we and the neighbors literally sighed, but for the first few months we still walked and looked around, just in case, ”said Mikhail from Novosibirsk.
They beat and took everything
Later, the Semenovski’s targets were not only loan sharks and drug addicts.
In March 2020, Semyonov, Panyushkin, Sheidel and another accomplice, Viktor Katkov, who later joined him, were on duty at the Mira Terma spa complex. They saw two teenagers on the forest road. The criminals got out of the car and moved towards them. The hijackers introduced themselves to the victims as usual – police officers. They immediately aimed guns at the victims, then beat them and put them in a car, demanding they empty their pockets.
The victims were a Novosibirsk businessman and his relative, they gave mobile phones to the criminals. On the entrepreneur’s smartphone, Semyonov saw that he had recently posted an advertisement for the sale of a ready-made business – a hookah bar. Later, the perpetrators went to the victims’ homes, but no valuables were found there.
From the apartment they took everything that could later be pawned to a pawnshop: a TV, a laptop, a computer system unit, a monitor, a coat from a hanger in the hallway, and toilet water.
Also, as the victims said, gang members gave them packages of drugs and filmed them – this was done so that the victims did not dare to call the police.
However, “Semenovskie” did not stop there. After putting the businessman in the car, Semyonov and his accomplices went to hand over the loot – the cost turned out to be insignificant, only a few thousand rubles. Angry, they took the victims to a deserted place and continued to beat them.
Trying to escape, the businessman promised to give the hijackers a Subaru car. The second victim endured the last. Then Semyonov took him out of the garage and began to frighten him by shooting into the air. Fearing for his life, the man gave up – he called his relatives in another city and asked them to transfer money to him. Hearing the voices of usurpers at the buyer, who promised to take care of her stepson, the stepmother transferred 100 thousand rubles.
Then the businessman showed where the Subaru car was parked, wrote a sales and purchase agreement to the thugs without specifying his full name in the buyer column, and the criminals fled, taking the victim’s passport.
A few days later, the victim wrote a message to the hijackers asking them to hand over the documents. They agreed and agreed to meet. But in exchange for a passport, Semyonov asked the entrepreneur to rewrite the business for himself – he agreed, but asked for a few days to prepare the documents, after which he turned to the police.
“I did a lot, I don’t remember how much”
“Semenovsky” managed to hide for almost half a year. Largely due to their experience from their criminal backgrounds, they handled the evidence carefully and cut off the ways the police could reach them: they constantly changed phones and cars, making it difficult for law enforcement to identify them.
One way or another, April 22, 2020 was the last day they committed the crime.
“The suspects, who threatened a 25-year-old man with a gun in the parking lot of one of the shopping malls in Oktyabrsky district, seized a Honda Civic brand car, a mobile phone and 5 pieces of cash. thousand rubles. The Novosibirsk Ministry of Internal Affairs said that the victim reported the incident to the police.
After this robbery, one of the gang members was detained by the police in “hot pursuit”. In a short time, law enforcement officers identified the other members of the group and detained them. Stolen items were found in a search of the Toyota Harrier.
Semyonov answered the question of the police officer with whom he was detained during interrogation: “He was arrested for robbery. I did a lot, I can’t remember how many. The last – they took the car, documents, keys from the boy. They had a cold pistol with them.” Members and accomplices of the organized crime group were later found only partially guilty.