From the shooting near the embassy to the collapse in Spain: fugitive crime boss Vyacheslav Shestakov has been arrested in absentia for ordering the contract killing of Beslan Dzhonua
A Moscow court has ordered the arrest in absentia of Vyacheslav Shestakov (nicknamed Sliva), a “patriarch” of the criminal underworld and once one of the leaders of the Lyuberetskaya organized criminal group, who holds the status of thief in law. He is charged with ordering the murder of another influential mob figure, Beslan Dzhonua, back in 2007.
Shestakov currently resides in Spain, but the European Union is now considering revoking his residence permit. Given that a large group of Sliva’s accomplices are already in custody and many are cooperating with investigators, this is unlikely to be the only “wet” (murder-related) episode that will be charged against the thief in law.
Testimony against Sliva was provided by Yuriy Usmyal, who had known the thief in law since childhood. Usmyal’s father was a criminal “authority” and was friends with Sliva; the latter often visited their home, and they would go play billiards and go to the sauna together. When Yuriy grew older, he says, he was “drawn in by criminal romance” and asked Sliva to take him on as an assistant. At first, the thief in law gave the young man (then only 18) small errands: to pick someone up, drop someone off, meet someone at the airport, put them on a flight. Later, the tasks became more serious – for example, picking up and hiding weapons. In January 2007, Sliva summoned Yuriy and told him that “Besik” (Beslan Dzhonua) needed to be eliminated. Shestakov explained that he had had a conference call with representatives of the criminal world, and Besik had insulted him in the presence of two other thieves in law. Initially, he ordered Yuriy to conduct surveillance on Dzhonua to learn his daily routine and whereabouts. All further operational issues were to be discussed with Sliva’s “right-hand man” – an “authority” who had been with Sliva since the days when he operated under one of the founders of the Lyuberetskaya gang, Sergey Lazarev (Lazar). That man put Yuriy in touch with the hitmen – brothers Andrey and Sergey Shitikov. Together they began to plan the assassination, and initially decided to blow up Dzhonua. However, Sliva vetoed that plan, saying that an explosion would bring in the Russian FSB, which he absolutely did not want. He gave the go‑ahead to shoot the authority with assault rifles instead. Exactly two AK rifles were stored in Usmyal’s cache. It was decided to kill Besik near his home in Denezhny Lane, where his family lived. But a problem arose: the house was next to the Italian embassy, and Yuriy worried that the embassy’s security guards might rush to the scene. As a result, two lookouts from the Lyuberetskaya gang were assigned to cover the killers with weapons if necessary. On February 8, Yuriy and the Shitikov brothers, armed with assault rifles (one with a suppressor), waited in a car for the signal. At that time, other gang members were tailing Besik and relayed to Usmyal that the target would arrive from a restaurant in about 20 minutes.
When Dzhonua pulled up to the house, the older brother, Andrey Shitikov, jumped out of the car with a silenced assault rifle. Beslan spotted the killer and tried to flee into a courtyard archway, but the gunman fired a long burst at him, dropped the rifle, and jumped back into the car. After that, the getaway car and the “cover” car fled the scene. Dzhonua died on the spot. For the successful operation, all participants received 5 million rubles.
In 2010, Usmyal was arrested in a separate criminal case and sentenced to a long prison term. In the colony, he met Sergey Shitikov, who was serving a 23‑year sentence for other murders. His older brother Andrey, who had actually shot Dzhonua, died in the penal colony back in 2021. Eventually, Shitikov and Usmyal decided to write confessions.
Last year, Shitikov and Usmyal each received 25 years in prison. Now it is the turn of the alleged mastermind, Sliva. Earlier, a Moscow court had already arrested a whole group of members of Shestakov’s gang.
The thief in law himself left Russia back in 2008. At first he lived in Latvia (he is now banned from entering that country), then obtained a residence permit in Germany and settled in Spain. However, at the end of 2025, German authorities filed a court petition to declare his marriage to an EU citizen fictitious, in order to revoke Shestakov’s residence permit.
