Vladimir Kumarin

Vladimir Kumarin, aka Vladimir Barsukov, aka "Kum" 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
Saint Petersburg, Russia
OccupationBusinessman, Gangster, boss of Tambov Gang
Criminal chargeFraud, Money laundering
Penalty24 years

Biography

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 racket.[1]

In 1989 multiple Kumarin's gang members 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 the unknown persons during the investigation. After having completed a short sentence, Kumarin's gang has swiftly taken over racket all across the North-Western region of Russia - Leningrad, Pskov, Novgorod, Karelia - challenging the business affairs of his former 'host gang'. A bloody skirmish with 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 mid-1990-ties Kumarin attempted to legalize the criminal earnings of his gang using the extensive contacts with the government of St. Petersburg city 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 late 1990-ties few senior members of Kumarin's structures as well as of its adversaries were killed and a row 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] Russian co-owner of the SPAG's joint venture was the government of Saint-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 to 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 celebrity 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 the "perfectly clean person" and invited Kumarin to play the role of King Louis XIV in his film.[16] During the 1990-ties, however, Nevzorov covered multiple raids of Kumarin's gang in 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 racket, 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 of Kumarin's affairs starts. Kumarin was accused of contracting a killing of Galina Starovoitova. Main witness against Kumarin was Mikhail Glushenko a.k.a. Misha-Khokhol, who in turn was in 2015 sentenced for 17 years in prison 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 creating The Tambov Gang.[17]

See also

Notes
  1. ""Тамбовская" ОПГ: как они подмяли под себя весь Петербург?". russian7.ru (in Russian). Retrieved 2019-05-29.
  2. The Times - Russia's 'Al Capone' sneers at his trial
  3. Jürgen Roth, Die Gangster aus dem Osten, Europa Verlag Publishers
  4. "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). p. 17-20. Archived from the original (PDF) on 20 January 2012. Retrieved 16 January 2020.
  10. "Барсуков (Кумарин), Владимир". lenta.ru. Retrieved 2019-05-29.
  11. Березовский, Борис (Berezovsky, Boris) (24 June 2003). "Новый передел. Что делать?" [New redistribution. What to do?]. Коммерсантъ (in Russian) (№129 (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 2007-08-30. Retrieved 2007-08-27.
  13. "Ю.Чайка: Преступная группировка под руководством арестованного в Петербурге В.Барсукова действовала около 10 лет". Archived from the original on 2011-07-25. Retrieved 2007-08-27.
  14. Генпрокурор Чайка: «Перед Кумариным все делали «Ку»
  15. "Владимир Барсуков-Кумарин встретил спецназ расслабленно". www.mk.ru (in Russian). Retrieved 2019-05-29.
  16. "Почему арестовали "ночного губернатора" Санкт-Петербурга". Радио Свобода (in Russian). Retrieved 2019-05-29.
  17. "Четверть века для Кумарина. До встречи в 2030-м, ночной губернатор" (in Russian). www.fontanka.ru. 2019-03-20. Retrieved 2019-04-08.
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