Russian Business Tycoon killed

10 November, 2009 11:19:00 editor

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Shabtai von Kalmanovic

Russian business tycoon Shabtai von Kalmanovic was killed on Monday, the 2nd of November, near Moscow’s Novodevich monastery when unidentified gun men opened fire at his black Mercedes Benz. He died instantly while his driver was injured.

The place where the shooting took place is a few hundred yards from Prime Minister’s office and close to the spot where Ruslan Yamadayev a former member of Russian Duma (lower house of Parliament) was assassinated in September 2008.

Typical of the life stories of Russian mafia and oligarchs, Kalmanovic, has had a chequered history. Born in Soviet Lithuania in 1949, his moved to Israel in 1962 with his family. In 1988, he was sentenced to 9- year in jail for spying for the Soviet Union. He returned to Russia after his release in 1993.

Like many of his Russian Jewish oligarchs, Kalmanovic climbed up his way up to being one of the richest men through a series of questionable financial activities. One of his first enterprises was reconstruction of Tishynksiy Rynok (market) into a massive shopping centre. Russian Rynoks are highly criminalised and are dominated by sellers from Central Asian States or Chinese suppliers.

He was also among the pioneers who found rich dividends in cultural activities as well as sports events. Kalmanovic organised tours in Russia of such artists as Michel Jackson, Liza Minnelli and Jose Carreras. He invested large amounts in Spartak, the Moscow region Women’s basketball team. He hired American and European stars like Tina Thomson, Diana Taurasi and Sue Bird at very high wages to play for his team. His team won the Euro-League Women’s title for the last 3 years.

The other Russia oligarch who had invested into sports clubs was Roman Abromovich who bought the English Football club, Chelsea F.C. in 2003 and spent record amounts on players’ salaries.

The attack on Kalmanovic bears all the hallmarks of a contract killing. The people behind the killing are not identified yet and it is unlikely that they would ever be brought to the book. None of the previous cases of such contract killings was ever solved.

Kalmanovic reportedly had close links with various mafia leaders. One of his business partners in the 1990s was reported to be Iosif Kobzon, who was refused entry to the US in 1995 due to concerns over alleged mafia links.

Kalmanovic is also said to be close to the late crime boss, Vyacheslav Ivankov, better known as Yaponchik, who died last month of injuries sustained in an attack in July last. The attack took place as he left a restaurant in northern Moscow.

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