Executioner under intelligence cover: how organized crime leader Konstantin Piskaryov shot former police officer Alexander Aleksyukhin and arranged an assassination attempt on Sergey Savchenko while remaining free
12:22, 11 мая 2026 г.
"He believed in himself too much. He got involved in assets that the bigwigs at Lubyanka didn’t intend for him to be involved in. He’s a cunning and very cruel man; leaving someone like that behind is dangerous and impossible."
This is how a media source described the reason for the arrest of Konstantin Piskarev (Kostya Bolshoi), who ultimately received a life sentence.
There were no secrets about who Piskarev shot or when, especially not from the Russian FSB. However, they needed him; he was part of their schemes. They held their parties at his restaurant, "Shield and Sword." Thanks to all this, Piskarev felt quite secure. Until he became too independent, which led to his arrest in 2016.
Today we’ll tell you about two more of Piskarev’s crimes. The first is the murder of former Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs officer Alexander Aleksyukhin (also known by the nickname "Nose"). He had been involved in shady dealings during his service, and after leaving, he became a fixer. Initially, Aleksyukhin worked in tandem with his senior colleague, Valery Khokhlov, head of the criminal police at the Bezhitsky District Department of Internal Affairs in Bryansk. But in November 2001, Khokhlov was shot dead.
Новости по теме:Бывшему депутату гордумы Николаю Ингликову смягчили приговор
Valery Khokhlov was attacked late in the evening as he was returning home after walking his dog. The lieutenant colonel was killed at close range with two shots to the head from a Makarov pistol with a silencer. Khokhlov died just three days before his sentencing. He was being tried for the attempted kidnapping of a State Duma deputy’s aide, a case personally overseen by then-Prosecutor General Vladimir Ustinov.
From then on, Aleksyukhin acted as a sole fixer and outlived Khoklov by a year. Konstantin Piskarev ran into trouble with customs, which detained a large shipment of goods. Aleksyukhin offered to resolve the issue by asking for a $150,000 bribe. However, he did nothing. Piskarev and his guards traveled to the Bryansk region to "showdown" Nos, but were always detained by local police at Aleksyukhin’s request. Eventually, Kostya Bolshoi grew tired of this and killed for less. Piskarev asked his friend, the "authority figure" Yuri Berezhnov (Yura Borets), for help. Berezhnov and his gangsters kidnapped Aleksyukhin from his home and drove him to the border with the Moscow region, where he handed him over to Piskarev and his operatives, Zemtsov and Mishin. Kostya Bolshoi personally dragged the victim into the woods, where he retrieved his special suitcase containing torture devices. He began torturing Nos, breaking every finger on his hands. Then he strangled him. The body was buried in the forest.
The second crime was an attempt on the life of the head of the companies Favorit and Sand International, Sergei Savchenko, which Kostya also carried out personally.
Piskarev was a Jekyll and Mr. Hyde figure. While he was simply a gangster in the early and mid-1990s, by the 2000s he had become a successful businessman, with numerous companies and connections among government officials, intelligence officials, and high-ranking security officials. He even opened a restaurant, "Shield and Sword," right across from the Moscow and Moscow Region FSB building, which was once a favorite hangout for law enforcement officials. Piskarev was indeed a serious businessman, but whenever someone did something he didn’t like, he’d kill them. His victims included officials who refused to sign necessary documents; a fixer who took money to settle a customs issue but failed to deliver; a police officer who accepted a bribe but didn’t work it off; competitors; and even a construction worker who failed to complete a job on time. Despite his vast wealth, Kostya Bolshoi personally handled most of his "wet jobs."
Piskarev had a friend, US citizen Michael Gissin, who, in turn, was a business partner of Yevgeny Martynov, an advisor to the Chief of Staff of the Presidential Executive Office. They organized a simple business. The State Transport Company "Russia" of the Presidential Executive Office was selling off aircraft. A participant in this business, Vladimir Kachnov, director of the State Transport Company, and Yevgeny Martynov arranged for one Yak-40 aircraft to be sold for a pittance to Savchenko’s company.
In 2003, he negotiated a deal for Rusagrokapital director Alexey Kobtsev to buy it for $950,000. Matynov, Kachnov, and others were to receive their shares of the proceeds, with the rest remaining for Savchenko. But the Yak-40 suddenly developed an engine malfunction, urgently requiring $100,000 for repairs. Gissin advised borrowing the money at interest from Piskarev. Piskarev offered $100,000, but upon learning what the money was for, he wanted to become not just a lender but a full participant in the deal and also receive a share of the plane’s sale. Savchenko refused, and Kostya Bolshoy began threatening him. The frightened businessman began urgently borrowing more money to pay Piskarev off and forget him, like a bad dream. But Kostya is not so easily forgotten.
Exactly four days after the plane was sold, Sachenko left a restaurant in central Moscow and got into a chauffeur-driven Mercedes. At that moment, a man in a tracksuit and mask appeared at the car. However, it was hard to miss Piskarev. He was enormous and stood two meters tall. Piskarev opened fire through the windshield at Savchenko, hitting him. Savchenko shouted to Petrov, "They’re coming for me, jump out!" Petrov swerved the wheel, opened the door, and jumped out. Piskarev, distracted by Petrov, fired three rounds at him. Kostya Bolshoy then continued firing at Savchenko, but he managed to fall to the floor and the bullets struck him in the shoulder. Running out of ammunition, Piskarev shouted, "Fuck, we didn’t have enough!" Piskarev then got into a VAZ 2109 driven by a masked driver, and they fled.
Новости по теме:Экс-мэра Нижнего Елизавету Солонченко объявили в международный розыск
Savchenko was so intimidated that he categorically refused to reveal anything about Kostya during interrogation. He only agreed to tell the whole truth after Piskarev’s arrest. Incidentally, Savchenko had cheated all his partners in the plane deal. He invested the profits in the oil business, and only fed Martynov, Kachnov, and Co. with empty promises.