Gang of Sergey Danilchenko

The founder of the gang and its permanent leader was 22-year-old Sergey Leonidovich Danilchenko, nicknamed "Sledgehammer". He received this nickname because he practiced karate and knew how to deliver a very strong blow. Danilchenko dreamed of a luxurious life since childhood. He began to take the criminal path after graduation. He started with petty thefts, then decided on robberies and murder. Got two criminal records. After his release, he decided to engage in criminal activity again. To do this, created a gang. In addition to him, the gang also included previously convicted Gennady Zhitnik nicknamed “Whip” and Valery Sinilov. All three worked in the fire department of the city of Gorlovka in the Donetsk region of the Ukrainian SSR , where they were taken because of the negligence of the personnel department, who missed that they had a criminal record ^[1] .

In the late 1980s, the gang committed a large number of crimes both on the territory of the Donetsk region and beyond. The scheme of their activities was as follows: finding out who could have large enough funds, bandits came to their home and, using cruel torture, got money and valuables. Moreover, they almost always committed murders ^[2] .

The first crime Danilchenko and Zhitnik committed in Adler , having brutally tortured an old woman 2700 rubles and strangled her after that. During the second Adler crime, only 60 rubles became their prey. This time it was not possible to kill the mistress of the house in which they climbed, as her neighbor prevented. The gang continued to rob and kill in Sochi , Moscow , the Uzbek SSR , and then in the Donetsk region. The latest killings were accompanied by brutal torture with red-hot irons, heated by boilers. In one case, the victim was, in addition to the landlady, her 10-year-old son ^[1] .

The gang committed the last murder in Gorlovka - they killed one of the leaders of the Lenin Rafal mine. A short time later, Gorlovka police officers detained Valery Sinilov, who in a cell told about his involvement in a gang crime with a cell neighbor who turned out to be an informant. Sinilov soon wrote a confession. Following him were arrested and Danilchenko with Zhitnik. The Donetsk Regional Court sentenced all three gang members to capital punishment - execution . The bandits took the death sentence of the court very hard. Hoping for mercy. But the Supreme Court of Ukraine upheld the verdict. The executed death sentence in respect of Danilchenko, Zhitnik and Sinilov was the last in Ukraine ^[1] .

• “Mask of Death” - a film from the series “Investigation Waged,” aired on April 3, 2009.