Crime boss gets 17-year sentence for killing 'Wizard', denies guilt

The Berezovsky City Court found former crime boss Andrei Ovchinnikov guilty of murder. According to the investigation, the 59-year-old Ovchina killed his acquaintance—the folk healer Lesha Koldu (Alexei Surodeev) on January 4, 2025.

On that day, the accused went to the healer in the settlement of Kedrovka to congratulate him on the New Year and discuss treatment. A conflict arose between them, and Ovchinnikov stabbed Koldu twice with a knife, then left.

Ovchinnikov himself confirmed that he was visiting that day, but he denies guilt in the murder.

“I came to congratulate the man on the New Year, intentionally. It«s a mark of respect,” Andrei Ovchinnikov said. “He was in absolutely normal [health], came out to the car, saw me off, said goodbye, and left. I left around twelve o»clock, I think. The next morning, I get a call saying that Uncle Lesha had been stabbed.”

Taking into account the previous sentence, the ex-boss was given 17 years of imprisonment in a strict-regime colony, according to the regional prosecutor«s office.

Recently, Ovchinnikov has often complained about his health. In the fall, he was found unconscious in his cell, taken by ambulance to intensive care, and underwent heart surgery.

The murdered Lesha Koldu was highly respected in the criminal world; 20 years ago, he was closely linked to the ‘Blue’ gang and the ‘thief in law’ Trofa, but later discovered his extrasensory abilities, and many Sverdlovsk crime bosses traveled to him for treatment.

In early January, Surodeev was brought to the Berezovsky hospital with a stab wound to the abdomen, where he died ten days later. We covered the details of the healer«s murder in this article.

We wrote about how Andrei Ovchinnikov was put on trial several years ago for organizing a kidnapping and illegal possession of weapons. He himself said that his case was fabricated by an investigator who was later convicted for falsifying evidence. Initially, the court acquitted Ovchinnikov, but after a new criminal case he was sentenced to seven and a half years.

Shortly before the verdict, the former boss in an exclusive interview with E1.RU told how he embarked on a criminal path with his neighborhood friends and how he later left it, surviving four assassination attempts and serving a quarter of his life in prison, what he does now, and why he is extremely negative towards criminal romance.