Pichugin is suspected of plotting contract murders, some of them abortive.
The story, as investigators have it, goes back to 1993, when Menatep Bank was authorized to rebuild two houses in Moscow's heart with prospective lease and purchase rights. The bank went on with rebuilding one of the houses even after these rights were cancelled, three years later.
Owning a part of the house was Valentina Korneyeva, Phoenix Co. manager and teashop proprietress. She flatly refused to sell the premises for a token price imposed on her. Sure that her stance was to bank detriment, Pichugin plotted Mrs. Korneyeva's murder with Leonid Nevzlin, big Menatep group holder. He involved Sergei Gorin and several others in the plot, said Ms. Veshnyakova.
Vladimir Shapiro shot the business lady dead before her husband's eyes, January 1998. Each plotter-Gorin, Shapiro and Mikhail Ovsyannikov-got five thousand dollars, and Shapiro, the killer, also a jeep.
Evgeni Rybin, East Petroleum Handelsgas m.b.H. manager, brought several lawsuits the same year on Yukos underhand moves damaging his company. Nevzlin hit back by ordering Pichugin to kill the plaintiff. The same Gorin and Shapiro were involved in the plot, plus Gennadi Shevtsov, alias Tsigelnik. The murder, of November 1998, flopped.
Nevzlin ordered another attempt, December. That time, Rybin's car was blasted while he was out. Grenades were thrown at the car after the booby trap went off. Rybin's chauffeur died, and two policemen, who were with him in the car, were badly injured. One of them was disabled. The crime brought the killers $100,000.
Vladimir Shapiro and Gennadi Shevtsov are in detention and will be indicted, within a few days,for the two Rybin murder attempts. The Nevzlin case is being investigated.
There are other suspects on the case-Reshetnikov, previously convicted for another crime and now in jail, and Goritovsky, who died a violent death. Sergei Gorin was also killed, while Leonid Nevzlin emigrated from Russia and is presently in Israel, said Ms. Veshnyakova.
