The case against St. Petersburg native Ilya Traber, a reputed organized crime boss and confirmed attendee at Vladimir Putin’s birthday parties, has been closed, the city outlet Fontanka reports. The murder charge against Traber, which was brought in connection with the October 2020 assassination of businessman Alexander Petrov, has been dropped due to Traber’s purported “complete lack of involvement.”
On Aug. 27, sources interviewed by Fontanka and the independent outlet Agentstvo reported that Traber had been released from pretrial detention. According to those reports, an investigator had issued a ruling to release Traber from custody because of a sharp deterioration in his health. Fontanka writes that since Aug. 29, Traber has been holding “a series of meetings with government and business figures in Moscow and St. Petersburg.”
Ilya Traber was detained in mid-June after being named as the person who ordered the murder of Vyborg City Council deputy and crime boss Alexander Petrov, who was shot dead in the Vyborg area in 2020. Also arrested along with Traber were his business partner Vladimir Danilenko, former professional boxer Alisultan Nadirbegov, and Said Saladinov. Investigators consider Nadirbegov and Saladinov to be the perpetrators of the murder.
After his arrest, Traber began transferring the stakes he held in various companies.
As The Insider reported earlier, Traber was part of Vladimir Putin’s inner circle and even attended his birthday celebrations. More about the ties between Putin and Traber can be found in the following articles:
- Putin's 4 percent: How criminal kingpins with Kremlin connections launder oil money in Monaco
- “He used to work for them”: What wiretapped calls of the Tambovskaya gang reveal about Putin's role in the Russian mafia
- “If I destroy the prosecutor, I'll do good for my country”: How Ilya Traber and his sidekicks from the Tambov Gang launder their past
