A verdict has been delivered in the specialised inter-district criminal court of Almaty regarding the case of an organised criminal group of black realtors. On the defendants' bench were 22 people, including former doctors from the Centre for Mental Health on Kablukova Street, notaries, estate agents, taxi drivers, and previously convicted individuals.
According to Ratel.kz, several defendants, including former estate agent Rakhima Li-Li-Zo and Nikolai Kerov, had previously appeared in cases of property fraud. The investigation considers the gang's leaders to be 65-year-old Irina Gaparova and a 56-year-old taxi driver, a citizen of Uzbekistan, Ashiraly Boltaboev.
According to the case materials, members of the organised criminal group found mentally ill people without relatives or heirs and, using forged documents prepared by corrupt notaries, transferred the ownership of their flats to themselves, later selling them. The criminals either kept their victims locked up or murdered them.
In addition to cases involving mentally ill individuals, the gang also sought out flats left behind by deceased lonely people and sold them.
In total, the case examined 36 episodes of criminal activity. During the court proceedings, it emerged that several mentally ill individuals were not only kept at a dacha under supervision but were also fed psychotropic drugs to suppress their will. According to the prosecution, one woman was taken against her will to work on a farm.
It is reported that another male victim, who had no documents, was placed in the Talgar boarding home thanks to the patronage of one of the institution's heads, who also ended up on the defendants' bench. After it became impossible to keep the man in the boarding home, he was strangled and buried under a false name.
Furthermore, investigators had questions regarding the activities of funeral services and a forensic medical expert, who found nothing suspicious during the funeral and examination.
A particularly cynical episode involved the victim being a relative of the ringleader Irina Gaparova — 87-year-old Emilia Dolgova. According to the investigation, the elderly woman was strangled and buried, leaving her granddaughter without an inheritance. Furthermore, Dolgova's son, Yevgeny Kalinin, also lost his property and was used as a front in one of the episodes.
Another brutal incident occurred when one of the organised criminal group members subjected a mentally ill 30-year-old man to sexual assault and threatened to kill him over several months, holding him captive in his home. The young man, left without property, miraculously managed to escape by jumping out of a moving car.
Following the trial, the court found all 22 defendants guilty and handed down the following sentences to the most active members of the organised criminal group:
- Irina Gaparova (ringleader of the OCG) — 18 years' imprisonment in a general regime colony.
- Ashiraly Boltaboev (second ringleader of the gang) — 17 years' imprisonment in a general regime colony.
- Auelkhan Satayev (third ringleader of the OCG) — 16 years' imprisonment in a general regime colony.
- Takhir Urazayev (husband of Maira Urazayeva, head of a department at the Centre for Mental Health) — 16 years' imprisonment in a general regime colony.
- Rakhima Li-Li-Zo (estate agent, 'specialist' in forging documents) — 12 years' imprisonment in a general regime colony.
- Tatyana Grushina (pensioner, who acted as a guard for the abducted victims) — 11 years' imprisonment in a general regime colony.
- Yekaterina Ovcharova (assistant to a bailiff) — 11 years' imprisonment in a general regime colony.
- Khosrov Gasanov (taxi driver) — 11 years' imprisonment in a general regime colony.
- Maira Urazayeva (head of a department at the Centre for Mental Health) — 10 years and 6 months' imprisonment in a general regime colony.
The other defendants in the case received from 3 to 7 years' imprisonment. The case materials can be reviewed in detail on the website Ratel.kz.