In Odesa, criminals held people hostage and demanded money

In Odesa, the case of five members of a criminal group who blackmailed wealthy people and extorted money from them was sent to court. During one of the attempts to obtain a ransom, they illegally detained a man and seized his car.

This was reported by the press service of the Prosecutor General's Office.

The Odesa Regional Prosecutor's Office, together with the Kyiv District Prosecutor's Office of Odesa, sent an indictment to the court against five members of an organized criminal group that extorted money from citizens under false pretenses.

The investigation established that a 29-year-old resident of Sumy, using his criminal connections, organized a group with a clear division of roles. They operated in Odesa and Kyiv, covering their crimes with so-called "assistance" in settling debt obligations.

In fact, the group sought out wealthy people, collected personal data about them, and demanded that they pay non-existent debts in the amount of 5 to 50 thousand US dollars. In case of refusal, they threatened the victims, followed them, beat them and took away their property.

In one of the episodes, the group members illegally detained a 23-year-old man, demanded $50,000 and took his BMW M5 worth more than UAH 2.2 million.

The suspects were detained in April during another extortion attempt. During the searches, two members of the group were found to be carrying weapons without proper permits.

Investigators recorded five episodes of criminal activity - extortion, illegal imprisonment, seizure of transport and carrying cold weapons (Part 4 of Article 189, Part 3 of Article 289, Part 3 of Article 146, Part 2 of Article 263 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine). The total damage to the victims amounted to almost UAH 2.4 million.

All five suspects are currently in custody. The materials on the organizer have been separated into a separate proceeding and he has been put on the wanted list.

In September, law enforcement officers detained the commander of a line and cable department of a military unit in Odesa region on suspicion of extortion and receiving bribes from his subordinates. He demanded USD 2,000 from a soldier, promising to release him from service and not to send him to the combat zone in exchange for this amount.

Анна Бальчінос