MOSCOW, December 30 (RIA Novosti) - One cash courier was killed and another injured by armed robbers in the south of Moscow on Tuesday evening, police said.
"Unknown assailants opened fire on the cash couriers when they were leaving a commercial company with money on them. One died immediately, the other was seriously injured. The robbers took the money and escaped," a police spokesman said.
Investigators said there were at least two attackers, and they took from 2 million to 5 million rubles from the couriers ($68,000-170,000).
Police stations and patrols have received information on the car in which the robbers fled. Investigators are looking into the incident, and the amount stolen is yet to be established.
This was far from the first attack on cash couriers in the Russian capital this month. Unidentified assailants attacked cash couriers on December 9 near a bank in downtown Moscow, killing one of them and stealing around 20 million rubles ($715,000).
On December 19, a security guard turned on his colleague after collecting cash from a supermarket in the southeast of Moscow. The guard pointed a gun at his partner and made off with some 6 million rubles ($213,000) and the delivery vehicle. The delivery van was discovered the next day in the outskirts of Moscow with some of the money still inside.
A total of 92 attacks on cash couriers have been reported in Moscow this year, of which 22 have been solved. Police have broken up six criminal groups and detained 30 people, involving 18 Russians and 12 foreign nationals.
Police say Russia is likely to see a growth in organized crime amid the rapidly spreading economic crisis.
