The investigation began in hot pursuit, but to date, the high-profile criminal case has not come to an end.
Table of Contents
Murder
At 16:40, the police station received a call about shooting with victims in Novodevichy passage in the center of Moscow. Arriving at the scene, investigators found the body of businessman Shabtai von Kalmanovich and the wounded driver of the businessman. Thanks to timely medical attention, the driver was saved. The businessman no longer needed help, he died on the spot.
As it turned out, unknown persons drove up on a gray Lada Priora close to Kalmanovich’s Mercedes S500, and fired about 20 shots from various weapons – a pistol, a pump-action shotgun, and, according to some reports, even automatic weapons. The murder was completely lightning-fast, professional, without a single chance for the victim. It immediately became clear to law enforcement officers that it was not a kid who was behind the case, but trained assassins. For some time they followed the entrepreneur, laid out the route of his movement, chose the most convenient point for the crime, and completed everything as planned.
Victim portrait
The first obvious version of the murder was a business interest. At that time, Kalmanovich was not only a prominent businessman, but also a well-known sports functionary. Although he himself had a rather ambiguous biography. In the 1980s, Kalmanovich was arrested in Israel and accused of working for the KGB. Whether he was an agent is now impossible to establish. But the fact remains that despite the severity of the wording of the article of the criminal code, after a few years he is released, and immediately becomes a prominent businessman. Whose special services are involved in this – I think it’s not worth saying, but it is obvious that without such a start, Shabtai Kalmanovich would not have become such a famous entrepreneur.
In the 1990s, the businessman hit the sport. At that time, women’s basketball was not developed at all. Kalmanovich began to finance the Kaunas Zalgiris. In the future, he moved up the stairs in sports, and achieved the appointment of the general manager of the Russian women’s basketball team.
In 1993, the businessman returned to Russia after serving time in an Israeli prison. After his arrival, he finds a companion for himself – Joseph Kobzon. Together they organized several businesses related to the construction and reconstruction of facilities. Kalmanovich at that time owned the extremely profitable markets Tishinsky and Shchelkovsky clothing market. In addition, Kalmanovich became the owners of a network of pharmacies
By the way, according to former KGB officers, it was Iosif Kobzon who played a key role in the release of Shabtai Kalmanovich from an Israeli prison.
It is obvious that a profitable business, especially in the 1990s, is not so easy to build. But it’s even harder to keep it. Kalmanovich, not being a typical criminal entrepreneur, needed protection. It was at this time that he met crime boss Vyacheslav Ivankov (better known as “Jap”)
As knowledgeable people in authoritative circles point out, Kalmanovich’s business was not so transparent. Under the guise of a “white market”, the dealers created a real “black market”. On Tishinsky and Shchelkinsky it was possible to buy not only things and products, but also weapons and precious stones. All this was covered by the Solntsevskiye organized criminal group.
Six months before the murder of Kalmanovich, the killers shot Yaponchik. Two murders have become links in one chain. It is obvious that redistribution was planned on the Moscow market of illegal goods. But there was also an alternative story, according to which it was Kalmanovich who was the organizer of the elimination of Yaponchik.
In fact, it was beneficial to other crime bosses. Most of all, the Taganskaya organized crime group, represented by the authorities of Alexei Petrov (Petrik), Pyotr Naumenko (Naum) and Viktor Koledov (Guba), was interested in a series of deaths. Nevertheless, the investigation did not find a connection between the murders of Yaponchik and Kalmanovich, and could not find the perpetrators in hot pursuit.
From 2009 to 2019, the investigation continued, but this did not lead to any concrete result. Everyone has already forgotten about the resonant murder of Shabtai von Kalmanovich.
But everything changed dramatically in 2019, when the Ministry of Internal Affairs announced that they had detained the organizer of the murder. It turned out to be a certain Ali Belokhoroev. He was previously convicted of property crimes. Thanks to the first detention, the investigation managed to get on the trail of other suspects. As it turned out, they all come from Ingushetia. The suspects were identified thanks to the peeling of mobile phones. This became the only clue, and in fact the main evidence of the prosecution. Indeed, the argument is more than weak, and has no direct bearing on the murder at all. But most importantly: where did peeling come from 10 years later? Officially, the investigation stated that the peeling of the phones was removed immediately. But this did not lead to a result. 10 years later, one of the phones reappeared online in another criminal case involving the theft of luxury cars. So they found the suspects. Fiction.
Let’s return to the “organizer and perpetrators” of the murder. These are three young people: Ali Belkhoroev, Batyr Tumgoev and Dzhabrail Kustoev. According to the investigation, Belkhoroev was the organizer of the crime, Batyr Tumgoev single-handedly shot the businessman, and Dzhabrail Kustoev followed him, that is, he was an accomplice. It is not clear how law enforcement officers established the roles of the suspects. But Tumgoev confessed that he shot Kalmanovich. People who are not even from the legal sphere understand that without an evidence base, without a motive, without a customer of the crime, the version would fall apart in court in a second. Moreover, despite the fact that the suspects were previously convicted, they have never been prosecuted for serious crimes related to weapons. In other words, they didn’t even know how to shoot. According to the plot of the case, it is clear that the murder took place as professionally as possible,
And then, in 2020, new (even more absurd) information appears: allegedly, the trio of detainees were members of the Batal-Khadzhi Belkhoroev sect. We will not delve into the activities of the sect for a long time, since it is still not clear how they are connected with the Kalmanovich murder case. Again: the investigation did not establish a motive, did not find weapons, and so on. That is, the position is very weak. The whole case was based on the testimony of the detainees themselves. As you understand, testimony in our isolation wards can be knocked out.
On April 1, 2021, the investigation announced that the investigation within the framework of the criminal case had been completed, the materials had been submitted to the court. Since then, court hearings have been held, at which many witnesses have been heard (although none of them had a direct relationship to the crime).
On June 13, a jury found three defendants guilty of the murder of businessman Shabtai von Kalmanovich. While the court has not approved the verdict, but it is already clear that the punishment will be severe. The high-profile case is coming to its (un)logical conclusion. There is still an appeal against the verdict, which could change everything. But the key questions remained: who ordered the murder? What is the motive for the crime? Looks like we’ll never know…