Александр Медведев (Медвежонок Гомельский). Фото: "Прайм Крайм"
The Strategic Investigations Department of Ukraine’s National Police said that Belarusian “thief-in-law” Aleksandr Medvedev, known by the nickname “Medvezhonok Gomelsky”, took part in at least 14 criminal gatherings at which the formation of a criminal “common fund” was discussed.
As reported by Radio Svaboda, more than 700,000 hryvnias (about $16,000) collected from the distribution of drugs among inmates at the Khmelnytskyi pre-trial detention centre had been transferred to the “common fund” in recent months.
In addition, investigators documented numerous cases of extortion. Victims were allegedly forced to hand over between 30,000 and 80,000 hryvnias.
The activities inside the detention centre were overseen by two “thieves-in-law”, including the Belarusian national. Operations inside the detention facility itself were carried out by an Azerbaijani citizen known as “Ramin Ganjinsky”, who had repeatedly served prison sentences in Russia and was detained in Ukraine last year. The gatherings took place in the form of audio and video conferences between inmates in different institutions, as well as individuals who were free and located outside Ukraine.
“During these gatherings, participants discussed the distribution of spheres of influence, coordination of criminal activity, collection of money for the ‘common fund’, drug trafficking, organisation of gambling activities and mechanisms of pressure on other detainees,” the police department said.
During searches of prison cells and the residences of suspects, police officers together with the Security Service of Ukraine seized mobile phones, bank cards, handwritten records and cash. Five participants in the gatherings were formally notified of suspicion under six articles of the Criminal Code of Ukraine, including organising criminal gatherings, extortion and illegal drug trafficking. No in absentia suspicion against the Belarusian “thief-in-law” has been reported.
Aleksandr Medvedev was born in Homiel in 1970. He was first imprisoned in 2006. He was crowned as a “thief-in-law” at a criminal gathering in Dubai in 2012. He served sentences in various Belarusian penal colonies. After one of his releases, he left Belarus for Russia, but in March 2013 he was detained in Moscow as part of a joint Belarusian-Russian special operation. A year later, after serving a sentence in Murmansk Region for drug distribution, he was transferred to Belarus.
In 2014, he was sentenced in Homiel to seven years in prison for extortion.
In March 2024, the head of Belarus’s Main Directorate for Combating Organised Crime announced Medvedev’s latest release and suggested that he had once again left Belarusian territory.