vlad.tribnet.com / Issue #548 / Crime watch / Reading article...

A Land Cruiser Prado off-roader belonging to a businessman running a number of markets in the town of Artyom, 50 kilometers from Vladivostok and Nadazhdinsky County, was blasted to pieces on December 8, as a warning, prosecutors said.

“The explosive device was attached under the front seat of the jeep belonging to Valentin Pak and it was activated when Pak had already left his car and was heading toward his office,” a senior aide to Primorye prosecutor Irina Nomokonova reported on Monday.

Pak did not suffer any injuries but his jeep was completely destroyed. Experts said that the remote-controlled explosive device contained no less then 200 grams of TNT.

Investigators regard this case as a warning to Pak since the attackers waited until Pak had left the vehicle before detonating the device. The prosecutor’s office of Artyom on Tuesday launched a criminal investigation into the intentional damage of Pak’s personal property.

Pak, 56, heads the board of directors of Artyom’s central market, as well as the local Korean Association in the Primorsky region. Pak is also the lead representative of the Union of Entrepreneurs of Nadezhdimsky County. Investigators think the explosion may be connected with Pak’s professional activities.

The Russian Far Eastern Federal District holds the second highest crime rate among the districts. Crimes committed by organized groups doubled and drug-trafficking crimes increased two and a half times in 2006.

In Vladivostok statistics of reported street crimes grow rapidly. In 2004 there were registered 17,000 such cases by the Vladivostok police, rising in 2005 to the tune of 23,000 cases and in the ten months of this year police have already received 32,000 reports. Meaning that by the end of 2006 it can be expected that the instances of street crimes in Vladivostok will have risen nearly twofold in only three years.