MOSCOW, November 6 (RIA Novosti) — A special operation carried out by Russia’s Ministry of Internal Affairs has successfully captured a gang of criminals known as the ‘GTA Bandits’, who are suspected of being responsible for fourteen murders carried out earlier this year, local media reported.
The ongoing operation, carried out over the course of several months, bore fruit early this morning; ten of the bandits were captured, including eight men and two women. One man was killed while police special forces were attempting to arrest him.
Late last night ‘SOBR’, the spetsnaz Special Rapid Response Unit, carried out a raid on a house in the southeast of the Moscow region outside the city. During the course of the operation, the house was burned, and a gang member was killed after he threw a grenade at the police. The federal police found over sixty automatic weapons on the property, Russian news service LifeNews reported.
Several hours later, police captured eight men and two women without incident in the north of Moscow, confiscating two Kalashnikov automatic rifles and nearly 100 rounds of ammunition. None of the law enforcement personnel were injured during either incident.
Over the course of the operation, police checked nearly 100 addresses in the city of Moscow and the Moscow region, finding weapons and ammunition; the bandits narrowly managed to avoid capture on several occasions, local media said.
Between May and August of this year, the bandits laid traps in remote sections of two ring roads outside the capital, using road spikes to puncture the tires of passing motorists, and attacking them after they stopped to change their tires. The gang, which were nicknamed the ‘GTA bandits’, after the popular Grand Theft Auto series of videogames, appeared to commit their gruesome crimes as a hobby; money, valuables and the victims’ cars themselves were not taken.
Police investigators had earlier speculated that the gang included members of criminal gangs from the 1990s which had recently been released from prison.
The series of killings created quite a scare for drivers in the Moscow region, with local social media exploding with advice about avoiding highways outside Moscow at night, and stories from those alleging to have come in contact with the band but managing to escape. Local street racing enthusiasts announced a vigilante campaign, vowing to catch the killers, but the police appear to have gotten to them first.
