Ukrainian kidnapping

An outstanding state of emergency was declared in the Ukrainian city of Vinnitsa seven months ago, when a six-year-old boy disappeared from school. This boy was not a common kid; he was Yury Ivanov’s grandson, the head of the regional state administration (like a governor). The little boy, named Andrey, asked to go to the toilet and never came back. The phone rang in the house of Andrey’s parents in the evening, and a woman said that the boy had been kidnapped with the goal of ransom. She asked for $50 thousand for the return of the boy.

The phone call was surely tapped, but there were no results: further calls came from different street phones. However, it was determined that it was the same woman talking, a young woman. The woman set the time and the place of the meeting several times. Andrey’s mother went there with a bag of money, but it seemed that there was no one hurrying to take that bag: either the money did not work, or the criminals were very careful and experienced.

Some time later, the mysterious woman called back and said to go to the bus station and to put the pack near one of garages that were nearby. The condition was always the same: no shadowing at all. Andrey’s mother, Yulia, went to the bus station alone, and she soon returned alone as well, without the bag. The place was checked in ten minutes – the money was not there. Blind redemption took place, the criminals had both the money and the child. However, there was nothing in return.

Several minutes later, Yulia went to the garages near the bus station, a woman came up to a cab in the bus station (the cab driver was a policeman) and asked to drive her to the center. As soon as she started talking, the cab driver recognized her voice. The woman was nabbed right away, the bag of money was with her. Then came the surprise. The whole operation was conducted by one woman only (38 years old).

She developed the plane to kidnap the kid to the smallest detail. She said that the whole thing started when she brought her eleven-year-old daughter to the hospital, in which Andrey’s mother worked as a nurse. Larisa incidentally heard the conversation between Andrey’s mother Yulia and a friend. The women were talking about their children. Larisa remembered the names very well, and she soon learnt that Yulia was the daughter-in-law of the “governor,” Yury Ivanov. Larisa figured that Yulia was not poor and that Andrey’s father was a businessman. She decided to kidnap the kid.

Larisa had a lot of free time: she was unemployed, her husband left her, and her daughter was rather independent. Every morning, Larisa went to Andrey’s school to study his schedule; she learnt that his father drove him to school every morning and his mother picked him up each afternoon. During a break, Larisa came up to Andrey with a parcel in her hand and asked him,if he would like to go to his grandfather Yury to give him a present. She told him to ask his teacher for permission to go to the toilet, come back in a minute, and never say anything to anyone. Larisa put a jacket on the boy, sealed his mouth with adhesive tape (saying that it was necessary for the surprise), put a hood on, and off they went.

She took the kid to her apartment building, and, when they entered the apartment, she gave him a sleeping injection. When her daughter came back home from school, Larisa told her that her friend’s son was going to live at their place for a while. She forbade her daughter to come into the room, and she brought him food herself, gave him books to read, and toys to play with. Larisa tried to entertain him with stories and tales.

When Larisa was detained, it became known that she worked like a pro: she made phone calls, asked for money, but she did not take it deliberately: she needed to study the situation first. The criminal case continues.

Alexander Gorobets PRAVDA.Ru Ukraine

Translated by Dmitry Sudakov