Moscow shootout gangster burned body, robbed priest
Yesterday, a shootout occurred on Rublyovskoye Highway between police and criminals. Two men kidnapped and killed a person, as well as possibly the taxi driver who had driven them to Moscow. When police attempted to detain the criminals, they opened fire. One of them was shot dead, the other was eventually captured.
The kidnappers were 39-year-old Alexey Lanchikov and 41-year-old Mikhail Leontyev. An alert for their capture was published by RIA Penzenskoy Oblasti (RIA of the Penza Region). According to media reports, Leontyev was killed. MSK1.RU found out what both were known for.
What is known about Mikhail Leontyev
According to information from open sources, the deceased Mikhail Leontyev was a repeat offender. He had been convicted several times before.
Burned the body of a murdered woman and appeared on ‘Battle of Psychics’
As Penza publications wrote, in 2010 he was tried for the murder of a female student in the Penza region.
According to the official version, his acquaintance strangled Irina Aleshina, an employee of an advertising agency, and Leontyev helped cover up the crime. Together they took her body to a forest belt and burned it. As a result, his friend received 9 years, and Mikhail received 1 year and 3 months.
As Komsomolskaya Pravda wrote, they knew the victim and her family well. The criminals comforted the missing girl’s mother and even participated in the search — her body was found only a month later.
The story of the disappearance and, as later turned out, murder of Irina Aleshina received widespread attention. It was even ‘investigated’ by psychics. At that time, Nonna Khidiryan, a star of Battle of Psychics, stated that after Leontyev’s release, blood would be shed again.
“If they release him, he will kill,” the fortune teller said on the show. “I am telling you this with one hundred percent certainty!”
Robbed a priest’s home
The criminal was released in 2011, got a job at his brother’s private security company, and later invested in his father’s fish farming business, wrote the publication Penza-Press. Later, Mikhail began having money problems — he went into debt together with his wife.
According to local journalists, in 2013, when money became very tight, he returned to crime. As the Investigative Committee (SK) wrote, he robbed a priest’s home — taking from there “jewelry and religious items” worth 100,000 rubles ($1,100 at current rates).
This theft became known later when he was arrested for another case. By that time, his previous conviction had already been expunged.
‘Find Leontyev, find the second pistol’
In the spring of 2014, Penza was shocked by a new high-profile crime. On 8 May 2014, 30-year-old Maria Lipilina and 29-year-old Ramil Kadyshev vanished without a trace. The missing persons were well acquainted. The search for them lasted about a month but remained fruitless.
Another event shed light on the case. Passersby noticed a man with a weapon in Penza who was behaving strangely. Police arrived at the call and demanded he hand over the weapon. He refused, stated that “he had two dead bodies on him”, and demanded that Mikhail Leontyev be brought to him.
“Find Leontyev, find the second pistol,” he told the police officer and drew a diagram indicating where they had hidden the bodies of Lipilina and Kadyshev.
After this confession, at the same meeting place with the police, 30-year-old Sergey Kosolapov committed suicide. Leontyev was immediately put on the wanted list.
As the court established, they committed the murder out of greed. Kosolapov and Leontyev stole a phone, jewelry, and a Kia car from them. The victims’ bodies were thrown into a ravine.
Mikhail himself was hiding from the police; he was detained “as a result of a special operation,” wrote the regional Investigative Committee. A pistol was found on the man, during the investigation he denied guilt and refused to undergo a polygraph.
In 2015, Leontyev was sentenced to 23 years in a strict-regime penal colony. In 2016, the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation refused to reduce his sentence. How he ended up free is unclear.
Outlived his accomplice
Probably, the arrested Alexey Lanchikov also has a criminal record. In 2011, he or his full namesake requested parole — the petition was granted. In 2023, Alexey Alexandrovich Lanchikov sought to have the Pervomaysky District Court of Penza replace the unserved part of his sentence with a milder punishment. The judge refused.
MSK1.RU found the man’s page on social networks. In July 2024, he published a selfie in a camouflage-pattern hat — it is this photo that is used in the wanted notice. The man has only two community subscriptions: he is interested in movies and military lawyer advice.
MSK1.RU could not contact the kidnappers’ relatives. We reported what is known about the taxi driver who gave the criminals a ride and was killed in a separate article.
