Fear, mercury, burning. According to the indictment, the Luhansk Brigade blackmailed entrepreneurs
The head of the infamous Luhansk Brigade, Pavel Vasiljovič Nykoljuk, nicknamed Pasha Luhansky by his cronies, has been a well-known figure among the Ukrainian mafia since the 1990s. However, the police only managed to catch him in 2007.
The head of the thirteen-member gang, which ran rampant mainly in southern Moravia, was then sent to prison for eight years by the Brno court for dealing in fake dollars and euros and illegal possession of weapons. Nykoljuk was finally released from prison after five years, which were obviously not enough to correct him.
On Monday, he appeared before the Municipal Court in Brno again. He, along with six other people, faces charges of participating in an organized crime group that he once again led, according to the filing. According to the prosecutor, the Luhansk brigade, whose members now face six to eleven years in prison, betrayed many businessmen this time.
Nykoljuk is also accused of illegally storing two submachine guns and three kilograms of mercury in his warehouse. It is known from the mafia environment as a cruel tool for settling scores – even one gram of the substance can be fatal.
“Can you explain to me why you had such a large amount of poisonous mercury in storage? Did you make thermometers?” the president of the court panel, Aleš Dufek, asked the accused during the interrogation.
The mob boss kept repeating that I had no idea whose mercury it could be. When the chairman demands an explanation as to why he has a photo of a mercury bottle on his phone, Nykoljuk retorts that the photo is circulating on the Internet. “I think everyone has that photo, someone sent it to me,” he defended himself. “Well, I’m not supposed to respond to the photo,” Dufek.
Threats in Russian
However, the main charge is extortion. The brigade allegedly demanded a so-called burning fee from Ukrainian businessmen in Brno and other places in the Czech Republic.
“From 2007 until September 2021, Nykoljuk surrounded himself with people, approached entrepreneurs with help. They offered them protection, for which they had to pay regularly into the common treasury,” explained prosecutor Tereza Paseková. In total, according to her, the Luhansk Brigade earned more than two and a half million crowns.
The current trial is a follow-up to last October’s raid by police officers from the National Headquarters against Organized Crime. Seven people were detained during the operation codenamed Brigade.
Among them is Oleg Kalashnyk, who, according to the prosecutor, took over the leadership of the organization during Nykoljuk’s arrest. Two women also stood before the court – Kalashnyk’s wife and the only Czech woman, Nykoljuk’s friend. They are accused of money laundering. Blackmailing entrepreneurs sometimes sent money to their account.
“Members of the criminal organization asked the victims to start paying a ransom for protection against other groups. The victims called the men who helped them in Russian and threatened them. It was to this fact that the brigade referred. When one victim refused, they threatened to take him to the forest, where they would break his arms and legs,” Paseková read from the file, adding that there were sixteen cases of such threats in total.
Punctured tires and molotov
They intimidated the victims with threats and coercion. “They punctured their tires or threw a lit bottle into the house. They said he knew where they lived and the daily schedules of their wives and children. During a visit to the office, one of the extradited was told that if they become friends, everything will be fine, but otherwise he may not leave alive,” continued the representative in an almost hour-long list of deeds from the mafia’s repertoire.
However, all the members of the brigade denied in Monday’s court that they reduced themselves to these activities. “I don’t want to find out, I didn’t blackmail anyone. My childhood friends sent me the money as a loan, it’s not a crime,” Nykoljuk defended himself.
The claim of his party members was identical. If they acknowledged that they had received the money in several cases, they explained that it was a loan. The same story did not surprise the head of the senate Dufek. “It is absolutely clear to me that they all know very well what they have to say in the courtroom,” he noted.
Pay or die. The dreaded Luhansk Brigade blackmails and sells weapons in the Czech Republic |
Some of the businessmen refused despite the threats, others handed over money in cash or sent it to the account of the accused women. Some “retaliated” with a chosen return service, such as paying off leases for cars for group members or their children.
According to Nykoljuk, everything is again just the assumptions of the police and the court, on which he was also convicted in the previous case of currency forgery. Others see it the same way. In the hall, Valentyna Kalašnyková even accused the police of being a police conspiracy.
“It was our friends who turned against us. All they testify to are unreal lies. I was completely shocked,” the accused woman testified, adding that they had gone on a joint family vacation with the victims. “Part of the money our acquaintance sent to my account was for our daughter’s birthday because he was her godfather. He then sent another for a job my husband did for him. He even brought me flowers. That’s not what the victim’s behavior looks like. The court should rather turn its attention to them. They are not honest, and the police are now pressuring them to testify against us because of their misdeeds,” Kalašnyková pointed out.
The trial continues on Tuesday. Some businessmen who will testify against the criminal group are to appear.