5/ The arrest appears to be linked to law enforcement raids against alleged local members of the cemetery mafia on 23 May 2025. 10 people were arrested on suspicion of embezzlement from Vladimir's "Specialised Ritual Services Plant".
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6/ They are accused of having staged “ritual wars” at the city's Ulybyshevo cemetery, fighting with other funeral providers and driving them out of business to limit competition. They are said to have earned more than 5 million rubles ($62,000) from various scams.
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7/ Over the course of a year from May 2024 onwards, they are said to have "illegally organised more than 300 funerals, as a result of which citizens suffered material damage in the amount of at least 5 million rubles, and the municipal enterprise lost revenue…
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8/ …in the amount of more than 10 million rubles,” according to the the Investigative Department of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation for the Vladimir Region.
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9/ The Interior Ministry says that the perpetrators “under the guise of employees of municipal enterprises, which they were not, or were only formally on the staff,” scammed Vladimir residents by demanding payment for free plots in the municipal cemetery.
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10/ Among other things, they “created conditions that made it difficult for their competitors to perform similar services...”
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11/ "When citizens applied for the allocation of a land plot, they were required to purchase a combination of funeral services from a municipal unitary enterprise, which included digging a grave and installing a fence...
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12/ "In case of refusal... places were provided on newly formed plots located at a distance from the desired burial site."
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13/ "In addition, citizens were misled about the real cost of the services provided by the municipal unitary enterprise (in terms of installing fences), for which the group members charged 39,000 rubles and up, while its actual market value was no more than 20,000 rubles."
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14/ At one point, a 'cemetery war' broke out during an ongoing funeral ceremony, in which a city employee was beaten up and a man, allegedly using a gas canister and an SUV, blocked the entrance to the cemetery for other funeral services.
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15/ Several members of the city administration were among those arrested, including Nikita Petrunin, former deputy director of the Central City Department of Criminal Investigation, and several other accomplices. They have been remanded in custody.
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