Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, December 28, 1993 TAG: 9312280072
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: MOSCOW LENGTH: Medium
Police and commandos from the former KGB captured the four kidnappers a day after the men freed their last hostage and fled with $10 million ransom.
Authorities said the kidnappers of a dozen teen-agers may have tossed handfuls of $100 bills from their explosives-laden helicopter before trying to flee on foot through snowy mountains. "I guess it was too much for them to carry and still run through the mountains," police Col. Yuri Reshetnik said.
Police said they recovered about $9.4 million.
The kidnappers' ringleader reportedly told investigators they threw the rest of the cash out of the helicopter Sunday night.
"They thought the money was marked and wanted to mislead the police, so that people would pick up the money and be mistaken for kidnappers," said Andrei Kokoshin, a first deputy defense minister.
The callousness of the crime - a dozen teen-age girls and boys held for ransom - shocked Russians brought up in a police state that imposed order while keeping the outside world at bay.
"Life is becoming increasingly scary," Nadezhda Karvashkina said, pausing on a snowy Moscow sidewalk with her grandson. "It's dangerous just to walk down the street."
The collapse of the Soviet Union has led to a stunning increase in crime in former Soviet republics. Russia has become a haven for a motley collection of local and foreign swindlers and con men, gangs and mobsters.
Law enforcement agencies have been overwhelmed by the rapid growth of increasingly brazen organized criminal groups. In addition, the breakup of the Red Army has flooded the black market with stolen weapons, from handguns to grenade launchers, that end up in the hands of criminals.
The children and pilots in the kidnapping apparently were physically unharmed, but the mental trauma was harder to assess. Two 15-year-old boys who were among the last hostages whiled away the time inside the helicopter playing tick-tack-toe.
Authorities said the pilots were under particular strain because of the hazardous flying conditions, lack of sleep and constant orders to change course in flight.
One pilot said the hijackers' escape plans were frustrated by engine trouble. Smoke poured into the cabin in the minutes before the helicopter was forced to land.
Even the hostage drama's happy ending did little to allay the fears that have flourished in the chaotic and increasingly lawless transition from communism to capitalism.
"I'm afraid for my two children," said hotel maid Svetlana Ganzey, 38. "This kidnapping may encourage similar attempts."
For many Russians, the kidnapping of the students was the last straw.
"The government must be tough on criminals," said Valentina Fomenko, 56. "They should shoot them on the spot."
Adding to the unease and repulsion were reports that the kidnappers said they had AIDS. It sharpened Russians' growing sense that they are besieged by uncontrollable outside forces: foreigners, foreign ideas, foreign diseases.
Vladimir Zhirinovsky, winner of this month's parliamentary elections, made crime his rallying cry and wooed voters with assertions that dark-skinned people from former Soviet republics in the Caucasus are to blame for the crime wave.
Caucasians are a favorite scapegoat, and news reports repeatedly described the kidnappers as Caucasian. In reality, one was Russian, and the others were from other former republics.
Yevgeny Ryabtsev, an Interior Ministry spokesman, said the kidnapping could inspire copycat crimes. "The top echelons of power should draw a lesson from this crisis," he said. "We need serious measures . . . We can't back down. We've reached the limit."
by CNB