USA extradites Ivankov to Russia

The US authorities will hand over notorious criminal Vyacheslav Ivankov, known as Yaponchik, to the Russian law enforcement bodies.

On Tuesday, July 13, Ivankov was released from the federal prison in Pennsylvania after spending there ten years and was handed over to the American immigration authorities. As has become known to RIA Novosti, a special task force of the Russian Ministry of Justice and staff members of the Main Department for Combating Organised Crime of the Russian Interior Ministry have arrived in the United States to take Yaponchik. Vyacheslav Ivankov will be extradited from the USA to Russia on Friday, July 16, a source from the Russian Interior Ministry said on Tuesday.

"As is expected, Yaponchik will be brought to Moscow on a military transport aircraft of the US Air Force with the observance of heightened security measures," an informed source in New York said.

Ivankov served his sentence in the USA for the fictitious marriage with an American citizen with the aim of legalising his presence in the country and for extorting 3.5 million dollars from two Russian emigrants, Alexander Volkov and Vladimir Voloshin, who had allegedly stolen this sum from his acquaintances. He was arrested by the FBI in New York in June 1995 and in 1996 was sentenced to nine yeas and seven months of imprisonment. The time in custody after the arrest was taken into consideration.

The release of the prisoner number 30219048 could have taken place earlier if not postponed several times because of the violent behaviour of the prisoner.

The Russian authorities accuse Ivankov and his "colleague," criminal, known as Sliva, of killing two Turkish citizens in a Moscow restaurant in 1992.

In June 2004, the Russian Prosecutor General's Office sent an inquiry to the United States about the extradition of Ivankov. The US authorities took a positive decision on his extradition to Russia.

In theSoviet times Ivankov was sentenced to 10 years of imprisonment, but was released ahead of time in 1991 at the request of a number of well-known artists and variety actors. In 1993 he appeared in New York.