Samara taxi driver dead in Moscow after Rublyovka shootout

A nationwide story is unfolding about a shootout between security forces and armed bandits in Moscow on Rublyovskoye Shosse (Rublyovka). Now, a Samara connection has emerged in the high-profile incident.

The second victim of the two bandits, whom security forces detained on Rublyovka, may have been 34-year-old taxi driver Vladimir Terentyev, who had driven the armed men from Penza in Samara Region to Moscow. The first victim, according to investigators, was a 39-year-old resident of Penza, whom the bandits first kidnapped and then killed.

Recall that the two armed suspects, Mikhail Leontyev and Alexei Lanchikov, were found the previous evening in the stairwell of a residential building on Rublyovskoye Shosse in Moscow. During the arrest, one of them opened fire and was killed in a shootout with officers from the MVD (Ministry of Internal Affairs) and Rosgvardiya (Russian National Guard). The second was neutralized and detained.

According to investigators, before arriving in Moscow, the Penza bandits had been hiding in Samara Region after kidnapping and killing a fellow countryman. In Samara, they found a taxi driver — Vladimir Terentyev — who agreed to drive them to Moscow for 85,000 rubles (approximately $850 at current rates). On 31 January, the taxi driver stopped responding. Vladimir’s relatives raised the alarm.

“We first filed a report with the police, and they contacted the search-and-rescue group ‘LizaAlert’ ... Today, he was found dead,” the deceased driver’s mother told MSK1.RU.

Upon arrival in Moscow, the bandits refused to pay for the trip. The driver’s relatives suspect that Vladimir heard or saw something that made him a dangerous witness to the criminals.

“He probably heard something he wasn’t supposed to, and they got rid of him,” Vladimir’s mother speculated in a conversation with MSK1.RU.

As official MVD spokesman Irina Volk reported, these two bandits were wanted for the kidnapping and murder of a Penza resident in late January. According to sources from ‘112,’ one of the detainees had previously been convicted of a double murder.

Authorities are now checking their possible involvement in other crimes across Russia.

The body of the deceased taxi driver was found in a white Lada in western Moscow, not far from the site of the previous day’s shootout. Forensic experts are currently working there to establish all the details of what happened.

According to Moskovsky Komsomolets, the bandits’ first victim was the husband of a woman with whom one of the killers was involved.