The Russian media dubbed them the "GTA gang" because of the similarity between their violent robberies and the actions of characters in the Grand Theft Auto video game series.
Ibaydullo Subkhanov (also known as Rustam Usmanov) is an Uzbek and a citizen of Osh, Kan.[1] He arrived in Russia in 2004 and moved in with an older woman named Barakt Khasanova at a staff house in Udelnaya.
Subkhanov became a radical Islamist in 2011, and later fought for the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in the Syrian Civil War.
Later, Subkhanov worked as a house/villa servant for a top official in the federal office of the Prosecutor General of Russia, Alexei Staroverov, who had owned the villa since 2010.
Believing a revolution would soon take place in Uzbekistan, Subkhanov, operating under the alias Rustam Usmanov, established a self-proclaimed jamaat (gathering) in order to train soldiers for ISIL.
The following month, another man was killed near the town of Istra, and in December, the bodies of four men were discovered in a cabin north of the capital, all suffering from gunshot wounds.
On 30 June 2014, Alexei Tsyganov, a 53-year-old man from Tula Oblast, was found shot dead 25 m (82 ft) from his car 45 km (28 mi) from Moscow.
The story attracted widespread attention in the media, as all of the victims were killed with 9mm bullets, and their vehicles had been damaged by homemade caltrops.
[6][7] Vladimir Zhirinovsky, leader of the Liberal Democratic Party, theorised the gangsters were Ukrainian nationalists, attempting subversive tactics against the Russian state.
[9] The Russian media also began warning travellers about the gang in the summer of 2014,[3] comparing their violent robberies to the actions of characters in the Grand Theft Auto video game series.
Vigilante citizens, outraged by a lack of action from police and other authorities, soon organised armed patrols and started night raids in the areas south of Moscow, checking suspicious cars in an effort to stop the gang.
[10][11][1] After warning citizens not to interfere with law enforcement operations, police eventually issued a computer-generated image of a suspect in mid-September 2014.
[12][13] A variety of methods were used by police and other authorities to find the gang, including tracking the stolen iPad signal,[14] and switching off traffic lights.
[15][16] On 6 November 2014, police raided an estate on Gor'kov Street in Udelnaya, killing Subkhanov and arresting nine other gang members.
News agencies reported that the gang had been captured after a fierce gunfight around 3:00 a.m-3:20 a.m. in a private villa ( 55°37′30″N 38°01′33″E / 55.6250354°N 38.0257228°E / 55.6250354; 38.0257228 ) situated at Gor'kov street, 39, in the village of Udelnaya, Ramensky District, 10 to 15 km (6.2 to 9.3 mi) south-east of Moscow.
Most of the firearms were gas pistols (a non-lethal weapon for self-defence) remade to fire live bullets from standard 9mm ammunition rounds.
[30] Ranohon Khasanova, Subkhanov's unofficial wife, and her two daughters disappeared on the night of the firefight on 6 November and are still wanted internationally.
"[31][32][33] The information about the GTA gang and their connection with ISIL was later leaked to Russian mass media, in Arabic-language news,[34] and abroad.
[40][41] A few kilos of RDX (Hexogen) explosives were found in the GTA gang's hiding places which indicated that the jaamat was ready to commit an act of terror in the future.
There was mention in an article in which the connection between labour migrants' hate towards Russian citizens and their eager willingness to serve ISIL was discussed.
This was caused by migrants' low and unstable salaries, slave-like working conditions and their unprotected, semi-official half-illegal lives in Russia.
Alexei Staroverov, head of the Prosecutor General of Russia Office administration, was suspended temporarily while an internal investigation is carried out.
The head of the Cardiology Department where Staroverov spent some time recovering was Dr. Konstantin Lyadov, who was also included nn the list of witnesses questioned about the GTA gang by IC.
[52][53][54] Russian opposition activist Alexei Navalny used the GTA gang connection to Staroverov to blame the corrupt prosecutors with cover-up of ISIL terrorists in his famous anti-corruption video called Chaika (which means "gull" in Russian) after the acting Prosecutor General of Russia Yury Chaika.
[56] On 21 October 2015, the leader of the Russian IC, Markin, gave an interview to TV channel Russia 24 in which he said again that the aim of the gang was purely to obtain money and valuables.
[29] A few previous murders which occurred in 2009 in Moscow (but not on the highway)[58] and in November–December 2013 in the Ryazan region were found to be connected with the GTA gang and are now under investigation.
In it, Vladimir Kirillyuk, the head of the supervisory council from Flora-Moskva private bank, was killed bicycling on a side-road one night in 2014.
Ulugmuradov gave a confession during the investigation that the leader of the gang forced him to kill absolutely unknown persons for training purposes.
Approximately half an hour later, the technicians in the building[79] managed to remotely move the elevator to the upper floor where the other trial session had just ended.
The fugitives held the man as a hostage and beat and tortured the female guard, named Elizaveta Lukjanova,[80] until she fell unconscious.