While the Red Army was fighting the Wehrmacht at the front, the criminal underworld was becoming more active at the rear. The authorities and law enforcement agencies were weakened: many employees left for the front. Hard life, progressive poverty of the population, lack of food and the most necessary things also led to the growth of crime. In addition, during the war years, trade and subsistence exchange in the markets flourished. And where there are spontaneous markets, there is crime.

And today we will talk about the forgotten topic of crime during the Great Patriotic War.

“Zigzag”

Not everyone in besieged Leningrad suffered from hunger. Some had plenty of food and alcohol, and their money capital was growing like yeast. The organized criminal group “Zizag”, which operated in the Northern Capital from November 1941 to March 1942, stole or robbed 17 tons of foodstuffs during that time.

The head of the organized crime group was 25-year-old criminal Vitaly Kosharny. He was in jail for forging a payment order for a large sum, but managed to escape with two friends, Baskin and Kirillov, during a German air raid.

In addition to theft and robbery (including murders), the gang was engaged in forging food cards. The stolen and looted goods were sold in the markets. The gang consisted of 15 people.

The store manager helped to detain them. On February 21, 1942 she reported to the police that one woman brought 550 coupons for sugar and 176 coupons for bread, stating that all this was for babies. She offered the head of the school 8 kilograms of bread and 1.5 kilograms of sugar for “trading” the coupons.

In the apartment of this woman, who turned out to be a saleswoman of another store, recruited by the bandits, an ambush was organized. The operatives took the men who came for groceries and, without hesitation, untwisted the whole “string” leading to the ringleaders.

Vogel and Kozlova's crime group

Sanitary train No. 51 ran along the Leningrad front during the entire blockade. Its chief physician Kozlova and the head housekeeper Vogel (he did all the work) set up a large-scale business. In the districts, not affected by military operations, he bought potatoes, meat products, cereals, bread with his friends. He also traded them for condensed milk, stew, medicines, sugar intended for the wounded (!).

When they came to Leningrad, they sold products to the blockade survivors at speculative prices; they exchanged them for jewelry and other valuables.

During the next visit to the city the police raided the train. They found 3 tons of unaccounted food, 500 thousand rubles, a lot of gold and jewelry.

In addition to criminal offenses, they were charged with treason: that Kosharny and his associates had made contact with Abwehr spies and distributed anti-Soviet leaflets. The punishment for Kosharny and the other bandits was as severe as possible - execution by firing squad.

Gerasim Okunev Group, Moscow

Gerasim Okunev, a 45-year-old engineer at a defense plant, forged grocery cards. But it was greed that ruined him. Having lived a well-fed life with his family and getting a taste for it, he began forging other documents - not for himself, but for sale. Passes, certificates of deferment and exemption from conscription, travel orders and even passports - all this Okunev stamped in abundance at his underground printing plant.

This was already a serious big business, in which many friends and colleagues of the unscrupulous engineer were involved. Up to a time the group felt unpunished, despite the large scale of its activities.

Only in the fall of 1943 the police received a signal from “vigilant citizens”: Okunev's wife was seen selling grocery cards in a store located suspiciously far from their home. The police rushed to the enterprising family with a search, and immediately received irrefutable evidence of their criminal activity.

Okunev and 2 of his main accomplices were shot, the rest went to jail seriously and for a long time. Even the wife was given 25 years, and the 14-year-old son - 10.

Vaska Graf's gang

In Kuibyshev (Samara), the “reserve capital” of the USSR, Vasily Agrafenin's gang, nicknamed Vaska Graf, was operating. Having started with apartment burglaries, put literally on a stream, the criminals retrained as real militants. They committed armed raids not only on citizens, but also on stores and warehouses of the city. Sometimes people died in these robberies - these criminals also did not stop before killing.

The organized group consisted of 9 to 12 people. During the capture of the ringleader and his closest friends was killed 24-year-old operative Georgy Skornyakov. But Agrafenin was also fatally wounded. Two bandits of Vasky Graf were sentenced to execution, the rest went to camps.