Villajoyosa (Alicante, 36,000 inhabitants), where the Russian pilot Maxim Kuzmínov was murdered on February 13, is not the first time that it has been marked on the international map of crime carried out by citizens of the former Soviet republics.
In March 2003, several members of organized crime met at the Montíboli hotel in the Alicante town to celebrate the birthday of
vor v zakone
(literally, law thief, the Slavic equivalent of the Italian
capo
) Zakhar Kalashov, a Georgian of Kurdish origin. who had lived south of Alicante and who was known by the nickname
El Fantasma
, since “no one gave him a face,” remembers journalist Alejandro Riera, an expert on the Russian mafia.
The Civil Guard managed to record the elusive criminal during that party, during Operation Wasp, one of the biggest blows to the ex-Soviet plot dealt in Spain.
Kalashov managed to escape to Dubai, where he was arrested in 2006 and served a prison sentence in Villena prison (Alicante).
More information
A European intelligence report documented the Kremlin's attempts to interfere in the process
Riera, author of the book
La Organizatsja: Russian Mafia, Red Mafia
(Arcopress, 2008), considers that Alicante is “a magnificent settlement” for members of ex-Soviet organized crime.
“First, because of the climate and the quality of life,” he maintains, “but also because many foreigners live here, because no one interferes too much in the lives of the neighbors” and, finally, because there is available “an international airport with flights straight to Moscow.”
The colony of Eastern citizens settled in the province is very numerous, with Russians and Ukrainians in the lead, since both nationalities add up to about 30,000 registered residents, so “any compatriot can go unnoticed.”
Torrevieja, with more than 8,000 residents including Russians and Ukrainians, Orihuela Costa, and the 50 kilometers of coastline that separate El Campello from Altea, including Villajoyosa, with the exception of Benidorm, are the main settlements for these nationalities.
This is, perhaps, the reason why Kuzminov chose to settle in the residential area of La Cala, in the house where he was finally shot on February 13.
And it may also have been his biggest mistake.
“Apparently,” Riera continues, “he did not change his appearance, so someone could have recognized him” and notified the Russian authorities, instigators of the murder, according to Spanish intelligence sources.
According to these same sources, two gunmen shot half a dozen times and ran over the Russian pilot in the garage of his home in Villajoyosa.
At first, his passport indicated that he was a 33-year-old Ukrainian, but investigators soon discovered that the documentation was false.
Almost a week later, it was revealed from kyiv that the victim was actually a Russian soldier who had defected in Kharkov in August and whom Moscow had targeted.
Kuzminov's presence in Spain, which the Spanish authorities were unaware of, was a thorn in the side of the organized gangs based in Alicante.
“There are areas of great proliferation of this type of criminals,” point out sources from the National Police specialized in international crimes, “who usually hide in coastal and small places and urbanizations.”
To get them out of their burrows, in addition to the classic “surveillance and monitoring”, “the implementation of new technologies” is essential, explain the same sources.
Scams and crimes are committed with computers, “we have to have undercover agents or even sneak Trojans into their devices,” they reveal.
Shooting several shots in a private parking lot is not the
Vor
style .
“They try to avoid blood crimes, which attract too much attention,” says Riera.
The pilot Maxim Kuzminov during his appearance before the media last October in Ukraine after deserting the Russian Army.
Police specialists in this type of crime point out that law thieves use their powerful checking accounts to look for “a trusted law firm and a tax advisor” in the areas where they set down roots and, with this mediation, locate “interesting investments” and fill your contact book.
They buy luxury hotel complexes, houses and apartments.
And, if they can, political officials and law enforcement officials, as demonstrated by Operation Testudo, of the National Police, which last year brought Alexey Shirokov, a Russian lawyer and “PP lobbyist,” to the bench, according to a Benidorm judge. .
Shirokov, along with other Russian businessmen living in Alicante, maneuvered from Altea, where he had managed to gain the favor of councilors and agents thanks to favors and bribes.
Izgilov, alias 'La Fiera'
Events like that of Kuzminov once again put the focus of the security forces and the media on the Eastern groups, as happened with Operations Wasp and Troika, the latter developed from the Balearic Islands in 2008, but also with implications in Alicante.
Both shook the foundations that organized crime had built on the Spanish coast.
Vitali Izgilov, known as
La Fiera
, was involved in both plots.
From his residence in El Campello, he acted as a liaison for Kalashov and pulled the strings of various organizations spread throughout Europe.
In 2015 he was sentenced by the National Court to five years and nine months in prison and a fine exceeding 700,000 euros, but he escaped prison after agreeing to leave Spain immediately.
Kuzminov's murder is exceptional, the first that, according to Spanish intelligence, Moscow could have allegedly ordered on Spanish soil.
The percentage of law thieves residing in Alicante is also minimal, in a census population of 17,500 Russians throughout the province.
And extraordinarily infrequent was the last crime committed in Alicante and related to a citizen with a passport of that nationality.
This is the serial killer Nikolay T., accused of the murder of a lawyer in the district of La Hoya, Elche, and of a farmer in Los Montesinos, in addition to the attempted murder of a woman in Torrevieja, all of them in 2020. The work of the Civil Guard and National Police, who even broadcast a video with images of Nikolay in case someone could recognize him, linked the three cases, with no obvious connection in principle.
Finally, he was found in 2022 in a Moscow psychiatric center, where he was admitted by the authorities of his country after committing another homicide.
Nothing to do with organized crime.
According to the investigators, this serial killer returned seriously disturbed from his time in military service, to which he was called up despite the fact that he had lived in Torrevieja since his adolescence.
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