Salem (organized crime group)

It was formed in 1988 in Simferopol from the Ai-Petri cooperative. The name of the group was borrowed from the Salem cigarettes popular in the 1990s ^[1] .

The founders were Oleg Giraffe Slatvinsky and Eugene Zhid Khavich. In 1991-1992, a major war broke out with the Bashmaki organized crime group , since then these two organized crime groups are irreconcilable enemies. The second wave of the war began in 1995 after the transfer of interests to the South Coast of Crimea (South Coast). Currently, a high percentage of the leading nucleus is made up of Jews and Armenians, who have extensive, including criminal, ties outside the Crimea, in particular in Israel , Armenia , and Nagorno-Karabakh ^[2] .

OPG "Salem" was considered the richest organized crime group in Crimea, it had the most extensive ties in government and local governments. Over time, the “Salem” Party of Economic Revival was even created (the leader of which was Vyacheslav Sheviev), this party included prominent Salemites, also directors of large enterprises and businessmen.

In the police operational bases of the mid-1990s, Sergei Aksyonov , nicknamed Goblin, was one of the participants in the Salem organized crime group. This version was widely disseminated by local media, in particular, “New Region” ^[4] (later information with details appeared in the reports “ Crimea.Realities ” ^[5] , Charter'97 ^[6] , Radio Liberty ^[7] ) Besides operational materials, the same information was voiced in an interview with a local communist newspaper by Russian lawyer Nikolai Polozov ^[8] and Crimean politician Leonid Grach , indicating that according to his data, Aksyonova noticed and “picked up” V. Dzharty , who was the actual creator of the party “ Russian Unity ”in Crimea ^[9] .

After the events of the spring of 2014, a number of OCG participants relocated to Kiev, but at the same time retained their assets and real estate on the Crimean peninsula and still receive dividends from their business, now located in the Russian Federation ^[10] .

In October 2006, the Permanent Representative of the President of Ukraine to the Autonomous Republic of Crimea Gennady Moskal recalled: “I arrived in Crimea in 1997 ... The entire Crimean public knows who was in charge of the Crimea then, and what cadres Sheviev, Danelyan and Voronkov (“ Voronok “) ...” ^{[ 11]} .

The organized crime group was considered the Salem restaurant. In the best of times, the number of militants of the group was about 1000 people, about 50 resonant murders were charged with this organized crime group. The "Salem" in 1992 came into conflict with the Greeks, a rather influential ethnic organized crime group at that time, as a result of which the latter was defeated.

• Oleg “Giraffe” Slatvinsky (1964 Simferopol - 1992 Lodz / Warsaw , Poland / (?) Is probably still alive ^[12] .)
• Alexander “Ponomar” Ponomarenko (born 1964) is a major Russian businessman ^[13] .
• Eugene "Zhid" Khavich (1944 Omsk - December 12, 1995 Simferopol) - previously convicted.
• Sergey “Voronok” Voronkov (born 1961) - President of the Boxing Federation of the Republic of Crimea ^[14] . Judge, served time from 2001 to 2008