Exactly 15 years ago, the thief in law Radik Shafigullin, aka Chicha or Tatar, fell into the hands of law enforcement officers.
thief in law Radik Tatarin
One of the first Tatarstan racketeers Chicha became almost the youngest thief in the country. But everything turned against him. Now he is serving a 20-year sentence for an attempt on the Nizhnekamsk authority Mamsha and the murder of two of his bodyguards. While behind bars, he fell under a new criminal offense for occupying the highest position in the criminal hierarchy. About the details of the thief’s adventures – in the material “BUSINESS Online.
Tried at 16, crowned at 28
Radik Shafigullin was born in Nizhnekamsk in 1970 and started his criminal biography there. In 1986, at the age of 16, he first became acquainted with the colony, having got there for three years for robbery. Radik “Tatarin ” (as he was sometimes called) was freed, already an adult, and he tried not to shine in the operational reports of the police.
However, by the 1990s, he had mastered a criminal “innovation” for the republic – Tatarin began to engage in racketeering in Zakamye. Already in Naberezhnye Chelny, he put together his group, began to put under the roof of the motor city merchants, earning authority. At the same time, he actively promoted thieves’ laws and concepts in the organized criminal group, while supporting the thieves’ common fund. This went on for several years. Such warm-ups and the desire for the highest strata of the criminal hierarchy did not go unnoticed by thieves in law. For Tatarin, this was a kind of success, which will enchantingly affect his future.
True, in 1997, Tatarin fell into the hands of operas for forging documents. The court sentenced him to almost two years in prison, where Shafigullin met the thieves personally. These were representatives of the Rostov lads, it was they who made the thieves’ approach to him, crowning Tatarin on November 1, 1998. Here he was given the thief’s name Chicha. Shafigullin was crowned by such thieves as Remena , Dato Kutaissky, Mamuka Kutaissky, Senka Samara, Gizhua, Gocho, Edik Krasny and Boot .
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“Special Operation Tolyatti”
After the coronation, Chicha was released from the colony and began to choose a place for himself where everything could be taken under criminal protection. Tatarstan had its own thieves at that time, so Chicha decided to take a closer look at other cities in the Volga region. The choice fell on Tolyatti, in those days there was not a single significant thief in law . Yes, and the motor city is close in spirit, because Chicha began his journey in the Tatarstan motor city. But there were many uncrowned authorities in the city who needed to present their claims to patronage.
Shafigullin was supported by other major thieves, who staked on him in the “capture” of the city. Arriving in Tolyatti, Chicha was introduced to the local organized crime groups, who protected AvtoVAZ offices and other businessmen. In general, they were not opposed to “walking” under Chicha: in the 90s, in some cities it was considered prestigious if the boys were supervised by a thief.
But the criminal authorities who fought for AvtoVAZ were outraged, they say, why was blood shed then, for a thief alien to the region? In general, there was once a lawyer in the city – Yablochko. He did not climb into the section of the organized asphalt. But he died in 1992. After Yablochko, thieves Yakutenok and Sibiryak were appointed in Togliatti . But the criminal authorities offered tacit resistance, because of which both thieves left the Volga land. Chicha, in turn, was not afraid of anyone.
Shafigullin brought up to 30 of his militants to Tolyatti. He walked around the city with a bodyguard, tried to squeeze enterprises under him. But he did get a warning. On October 21, 1999, right in the middle of a residential courtyard, Chichi’s protégé and bodyguard were shot dead . This did not frighten Chicha at all – the war was not lost. No one knows how the fate of Chichi and the criminals of Togliatti would have developed if the security forces had not intervened.
Six months have passed since the “warning shot” and Chicha is being detained for illegal possession of weapons and drugs. The thief spent several months in a pre-trial detention center, and during this time Togliatti lost two crime bosses. Rumor has it it was retaliation for Chichi’s people. Shafigullin eventually ended up at large, without receiving a sentence. The amnesty worked.
After the pre-trial detention center, Shafigullin decided to transfer part of the obshchak to Moscow. But he could not get out of the territory of the motor city. On January 25, 2001, he went to the capital together with the security car. Entering the local gas station, the guards got out of the car, receiving a burst of lead.
A foreign car with a thief inside rushed off, but another militant blocked it, firing at it point-blank. Chichi’s driver died on the spot, and the car went into a ditch. Chicha hid behind the body of the driver, which saved the thief – he received several wounds. Three people died in that shootout.
Homecoming and hard time
After the assassination attempt, Chicha decided to follow the example of Yakutenok and Sibiryak and left the city, returning to his native Nizhnekamsk. But here’s the bad luck – the city has long been held by the “Mamshovskys” with the leader of the organized criminal group Alexander Mamshov (Mamsha).
The resistance of the organized crime group was not as strong as in Togliatti. Therefore, Chicha decided to act proactively by ordering the murder of Mamsha. The implementation was entrusted to members of the Tatars organized crime group. On May 20, 2003, the killers of this group came to kill the leader of the opposing organized criminal group and opened fire on his car. But Mamsha survived, only two bodyguards were killed. All participants in the attack were detained, and the killers unanimously named the customer – Chicha. The operatives had only to detain him, but there was a nuance – the trace of the thief caught a cold.
We found Chicha by chance, in Samara in October 2007. During a routine inspection of one of the baths, investigators discovered a criminal gathering there, where Chicha was. All were arrested and taken to the police station. The next day, the opera from Tatarstan came for the thief.
After almost two years of judicial investigation, Chicha was sentenced to 20 years in prison for two murders and one attempt. Since then, he has not seen freedom.
Shafigullin is serving most of his term in Irkutsk. Prior to that, he was transported from zone to zone in stages so that he would not linger in one place. In 2014, Chicha was taken to the pre-trial detention center in Novosibirsk, where he allegedly began to act out of order: there were rumors that the thief collected money from the prisoners, but they did not reach the obshchak. Moscow thieves found out about this, and they decided to bring Chicha to clean water, but Shafigullin did not pay attention to them.
Then a gathering gathered in Moscow, where a mass of thieves deprived Chicha of the title. “Hello, vagrants and all worthy prisoners. Peace and prosperity to our home. We inform you that at the moment nothing has changed in the fate of Radik, who was called Chicha. How to treat Radik as a thief before a thief’s decision, about which we will put you in the know, ”read the“ run ”
However, no less weighty authorities responded (Pichuga, Vasya Vokres, Dato Kutaisi). They made a run, under which they signed that Shafigullin was still a thief in law.
The status of the thief was confirmed by the investigative committee . In 2020, Chicha was attracted under article 210.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (Occupation of the highest position in the criminal hierarchy). In 2021, he went on trial, which is still considering the case. According to investigators, Chicha led Russian groups from the zone. At the moment, there are more than a hundred witnesses in the case.