RUSSIA’S most notorious mafia king has been quietly released from prison four years earlier as an alleged gesture of goodwill from Putin.
Crime boss Shakro Molodoy, 71, was freed from the maximum security colony after reportedly not ordering prisoners to boycott’s Putin’s war.
East2WestRussia’s notorious crime boss was released four years earlier on parole[/caption]
East2WestHe was seen leaving the prison in a white Gazel truck accompanied by bodyguards[/caption]
East2WestThe mafia boss was arrested in 2016 after a shootout that killed two[/caption]
East2WestThe FSB forces raided his £20 million mansion when detaining the thief in law[/caption]
The leader of the Russian criminal underworld served six years of his 9 years and 10 months prison sentence in the Krasnodar region.
He left IK-2 jail in the back of an unmarked Gazel truck, with an accompanying limousine crammed with bodyguards dressed in black, SHOT media reported.
Prison wardens were reportedly sad to bid goodbye to the crime lord who gave them “good tips”.
Molodoy, real name Zakhary Kalashov, is considered one of Russia‘s most influential “thieves in law” – a status assigned to respected inmates of organised crime.
The court cited deteriorating health issues as the reason for parole with reports saying the crime boss has lost much of his sight in jail.
But the criminal might have been pardoned as a “thank you from Putin”.
It appears that the dictator is grateful that Zakharov chose not to order prisoners to boycott the meatgrinder war.
Tens of thousands of jail inmates have fought – and many have died – since the Kremlin has waged the war in Ukraine.
The crime boss has been nicknamed “gangland’s Putin” for the substantial underworld power he has held since 1990s.
In 2016, he was arrested on charges of extortion with the use of violence after a shootout in a Moscow restaurant which killed two.
He was detained in his gaudy £20 million mansion by heavily armed FSB officers as some claimed that Putin was worried about Zakharov’s sway over the police and Interior Ministry.
Molodoy’s army of bodyguards were forced to the floor and later lined up against a wall.
The godfather—who mocked the detaining officers—went by 23 different aliases, name variations, or pseudonyms, US official documents claim.
He was previously convicted of money laundering and organising criminal enterprises, having served eight years in a Spanish prison.
This came after the country’s ex-Soviet crime groups were the target of an operation known as Red Marble.
2014 saw him return from Spain, and he was reportedly greeted at Moscow’s Domodedovo airport by senior law enforcement authorities, followed by talks.
One account reported: “”Immediately after the meeting, Kalashov (Shakro) went home and celebrations began to mark the return of the ‘godfather’ who had spent seven and a half years in a Spanish prison.”
Shakro – a citizen of the former Soviet republic of Georgia – was also sentenced in absentia to 18 years in prison for murder in Tbilisi.
The underworld boss was also allegedly in charge of a “criminal congress” with 150 delegates in the Armenian capital of Yerevan in January 2015.
“This was the largest congress of leaders of the criminal world in the last 20 years,” said an official source.
Molodoy may have been released early in a Putin attempt to meddle in the politics of Georgia, claimed former president Mikheil Saakashvili, who is currently serving a jail sentence for “abuse of power”.
He claimed that the crime lord had lost a vast 76-room palace in Tskneti, a suburb of Tbilisi and “didn’t dare” to return to Georgia during his presidency.
“The Russians still believe they can get big surprises in the elections and put Kalashov [Molodoy] in charge of the Georgian underworld,” he said.
Reports say the crime boss will make his future moves “gradually”.
Molodoy admitted his status as a “thief in law” with a smile when asked if he considers himself one.
He replied: “They call me that.”
At the time, Glavred website in Ukraine reported: “Among those [crime’ ‘lords’], Shakro Molodoy is not just a general but a generalissimo, a real Putin of the gangland.”
East2WestCourt cited that Molodoy is losing his eyesight and was granted parole on health basis[/caption]
East2WestA limousine full of bodyguards dressed in black reportedly escorted Molodoy[/caption]
East2WestHis bodyguards lined up on the floor of his mansion’s yard during the raid in 2016[/caption]