vlad.tribnet.com / Issue #167 / Crime watch / Reading article...

An alleged mob boss was shot and killed recently near the Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk railway station, police reported.

The slaying was yet another episode in the ongoing fight between two major organized crime groups on Sakhalin, police reported.

The slain man, nicknamed "Gera", 33, was gunned down early May 8 in a crowded market. Police heard the shots and chased the assailant. Eyewitnesses said a police jeep finally knocked the man down, and he was apprehended.

According to Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk Police Chief Yury Gorlov, the hitman, a 28-year-old Romanian, was hired from Moldova. Gorlov said another Sakhalin mob group contracted the hitman for the job.

"These groups have long been warring between themselves for leadership and greater areas of influence," Gorlov said. "They have their firms that deal in gasoline, fish and many other things. The group that ordered the killing is controlled by gangsters from Komsomolsk-na-Amure, while Gera's is run by Moscow people."

But local prosecutors said there was not enough evidence to substantiate such claims.

"We don't have any proof as yet that this was a hitman and that he was contracted by the Sakhalin mob," said City Prosecutor's Office Investigator Alexander Samakhovets.

Samakhovets also said a professional hitman would have killed the victim with one or two shots. Gera was killed with five.

According to Samakhovets, the murderer has not yet been identified. The man has a variety of pseudonyms, none of which has been confirmed, Samakhovets said.