Went in microwaves: exposed arms suppliers from Thailand

As it became known to "MK", a little to ease his fate managed brothers Salam and Magomed Tumgoev and their accomplice Bilal Torshkhoev. The idea of smuggling pistols from Thailand was born in February 2022. According to the Tumgoevs, they were pushed by financial problems, as well as the need to treat a seriously ill grandmother. Torshkhoev took over most of the “work” abroad, although he did not know foreign languages. For each sent gun he was promised 100 thousand rubles. To Bangkok, the smuggler traveled with a transfer to Dubai, for the purpose of conspiracy. In the capital of Thailand, he quickly found a seller of weapons and paid him 90 thousand baht (about 220 thousand rubles) for the Glock. Weapons in disassembled form were transported under the guise of household appliances – details were hidden in the cavities of electric frying pans with steam cooker HANABISHI and microwave Electrolux. Parcels came to Moscow through the rapid delivery system, here they were received by a courier-dropper and handed over to the driver of a shuttle bus en route to Ingushetia. Thus, the “trunks” fell into the tribal village of Batalhadzhins*. In total, three Glock pistols and a Springfield Armory pistol were shipped to Russia. To get on the trail of smugglers managed to operatives of the interior Ministry of Ingushetia. During a search in the house of one of the brothers, in a cache, a Kalashnikov assault rifle was found - the man said that he found it under a tree. The rest of the weapons were hidden in a concrete well.

The delivery customer could not be identified. Investigators suggested that one of the leaders of the Batalhadzhin clan * Ilyas Belkharoev** was behind this case (listed by Rosfinmonitoring as terrorists and extremists). In Russia, he was accused of involvement in a number of terrorist attacks, including the murder of the head of the center for combating extremism of the Interior Ministry of Ingushetia Ibrahim Eldzharkiev, who was shot in Moscow with his brother. By the way, then the killers also used weapons smuggled from Southeast Asia. There were rumors that Belkharoev moved to Ukraine, where he also engaged in arms smuggling. As a result, he was detained by law enforcement agencies of Poland, and this summer, according to unofficial information, he died in pre-trial detention.

As for the Tumgoev brothers and their accomplice, the Khimki court initially sentenced the smugglers to 12, 10 and 8.5 years in prison. But in the Moscow court from the list of charges was excluded “illegal carrying of weapons”, as this fact could not be proved. Therefore, the brothers commuted the sentence for a year and six months, respectively, and Bilal Torshkhoev for 4 months.

* An organization recognized as terrorist and banned in Russia

** Rosfinmonitoring included in the list of terrorists and extremists