In August 2001, Interior Minister of Russia Boris Gryzlov said that the Tambov Gang controlled up to 100 industrial enterprises in Saint Petersburg, including PTK, the leading fuel retailing operator in the city, as well as four main sea ports of Northwestern Russia, Saint Petersburg, Kaliningrad, Arkhangelsk and Murmansk.
[1][24] On 16 January 2007, the Prosecutor General of Russia Yury Chaika announced that the Tambov Gang had recently forcefully taken over 13 large enterprises in Saint Petersburg and was being investigated.
[31] In connection with the raid Russian politician Vladislav Reznik was investigated[32] A money laundering scheme involved Vera Metallurgica, a subsidiary of Ural Mining and Metallurgical Company (UMMC) which Oleg Deripaska and Iskander Makhmudov were the main owners in the early 2000s.
[4] Alexander Malyshev, apparently having resolved his feud with the gang, joined with them instead and moved to Spain to continue operations after several attempts on his life in Saint Petersburg.
Arrests were made in Berlin as well, where a member of the organisation, Michael Rebo, was involved in laundering the proceeds of drug trafficking and other illegal activity.
The criminal investigation of 2008 led to further arrests and a major Russian mafia (the Tambov Gang) money laundering scheme be revealed.
According to the Bulgarian prosecutor more than one billion euros of Russian money had been laundered through a series of financial transactions in Bulgaria and Estonia.
The laundered money was, according to allegations, part of the Saint Petersburg Tambov gang's proceeds from drug trafficking, prostitution and protection rackets.
The alleged Tambov Gang money laundering operation was coordinated by Elizabet Elena Von Messing and Svetozar Milter.
[33] According to the sources, about a billion euros of Russian money were first transferred to a real estate and financial services company in Bulgaria, called Optima Ca.
[39] After a ten-year trial the Third Section of the Criminal Chamber of the Spanish National Court has acquitted all 17 defendants on October 18, 2018, on all accounts.
Vladislav Reznik, Michail Rebo, Juri Salikov, Diana Gindin, Andrey Malenkovich, Leonid Khazhin, Svetozar Milter, Leocadia Martin Garcia and Ignacio Pedro Urquiujo Sierra and others are among the acquitted.