As VChK-OGPU and Rucriminal.info have learned, on Friday a Moscow court extended the pretrial detention of Vladimir Danilenko, the right-hand man of Ilya Traber (Antikvar, whose arrest was extended the day before). A source for our project, who is well acquainted with Traber, talks about Danilenko, his relationship with Kumarin, and what other high-profile murders Antiquarian and Danilenko may be behind:
"Danilenko was born in Kazakhstan and, while studying at a veterinary technical school, landed his first prison sentence. He got out and went back there again. That's how his life went. During one of his stints in prison, he met Lykov (one of the main prosecution witnesses in the murder of Vyborg owner Alexander Petrov - ED.). Danilenko was the barracks supervisor. He had everything organized there. And then suddenly a new detective showed up in the zone. He begins imposing new rules on the prisoners, and naturally, they don't like it. The detective is also persistent. And Danilenko befriends Lykov, who also doesn't want to accept the new rules in the barracks. Lykov beats the detective over a carton of cigarettes. Lykov gets three years added to his sentence, and Danilenko is transferred to another prison zone. But if Volodya weren't who he is... He managed to reach an agreement with the prison commander and stayed to finish his sentence in Yaroslavl. Then Danilenko comes to St. Petersburg. He wants money, entertainment, and romance. Danilenko is ready for any adventure.
It was at this time that the historic meeting between the ever-ready Danilenko and Traber, who was recruiting a team, took place. Traber was already quite well established. It took some time before the Antiquarian allowed him to get too close. They had been together since around 1995 or 1996. He became especially close after the murder of Manevich (the vice-governor of St. Petersburg, shot by a sniper in 1997 – EDIT).
At the time of Traber and Danilenko's meeting, Traber was quite close with Kumarin. The latter didn't like Danilenko's appearance. Danilenko didn't like Kumarin either. He said, "We're not friends, he just kills people for no reason..."
By the way, Antiquarian also had a relationship with Shutov. Then they had a falling out. I don't know what the argument was about. But I suspect he had a hand in Shutov's arrest. He later said what a storyteller and senile Shutov was. He really wasn't a very nice person. His right-hand man, Airat Gimranov, is a different story. He's a very interesting man, well-rounded, literate, gallant, and... a killer. He's currently serving a life sentence in the White Swan.
Getting back to Danilenko, everything was going great for him; he'd made a lot of money. And then, bam, he got into trouble with the watermelon king (an antique dealer sent Danilenko to intimidate a businessman who controlled the watermelon supply, and the businessman tortured him to death – EDIT). He was caught and sent back to prison.
Traber worked very hard to get Danilenko transferred to the penal colony in Knyazhevo after several years of imprisonment… a super-privileged place at the time, where convicts lived at home for money and only came to report for duty occasionally – once or twice a month.
Soon after his release, Danilenko received a gift from Traber – several hectares of land in the Pskov region on the border with Latvia. I suspect the gift wasn't for his release. He was arranging someone's execution. In my opinion, the deaths of Manevich, Kapysh (head of the BFPG – ED.), Zyuzya (Vitaly Ryuzin, who became head of the BFPG after Kapysh's murder and was found dead in 2001 in the village of Balsovo in the Pskov region at a recreation center – ED.), and Petrov are definitely signs pointing the finger at Traber. He positively savored it when he recounted how wonderful they were. With one caveat: wonderful, but stupid… And he smiled.
