Arsen Bayrambekov

Arsen Salavatovich Bayrambekov (; born 30 August 1978) is a Russian serial killer and contract killer who murdered six people in the Sverdlovsk Oblast in 2014. Despite the severity of his crimes, he managed to avoid a life term and was instead sentenced to 13 years and 2 months imprisonment.

Early life Very little is known about Bayrambekov's early life. Born in 1978 in Makhachkala, Dagestan ASSR, and from the age of six, the young Arsen was engaged in sports such as Muay Thai, which he eventually got the title of master. In the early 1990s, he dropped out of school due to military operations in Chechnya and the border regions of the North Caucasus, but later acquired a fake school certificate and diploma. According to Svyatoslav Ivanov, an investigator for the Sverdlovsk Oblast Investigative Committee, they were able to uncover said certificate and diploma after Bayrambekov's arrest, but were unable to uncover in what field he actually graduated in.

In 1999, Bayrambekov took a job in the border security of Makhachkala's Department of Internal Affairs, and in the same year, he took part in a counter-terrorist operation in Kadar. However, a photograph dating back to the mid-2000s depicting Bayrambekov was displayed at the Russian Muay Thai League's website. That same year, a local businessman involved in the trucking industry paid Bayrambekov to kill a competitor. He agreed, and after borrowing an AK-47 from an acquaintance, he shot the victim near the entrance to a shopping centre.

Two years later, Bayrambekov was arrested on charges of illegal arms trafficking for attempting to sell two Kalashnikovs. He was convicted of this charge and received 4 years imprisonment, but was paroled in 2007.

On 17 November 2010, Bayrambekov committed his second contract killing. In 2014, Bayrambekov got acquainted with 43-year-old Tatyana Solovyova, a fellow practitioner of the occult whom he later realized shared his views and philosophy. And so, with her help, he eventually decided to start sacrificing human beings.

Not long after, Bayrambekov found the third victim on a street in Yekaterinburg. He was a 36-year-old man who lived with his mother, led a marginalized lifestyle and had a small income. After encountering the man, Bayrambekov picked up Solovyova, who helped load the drunk man into the car. They then took him to the forest, where Bayrambekov tied him up and stabbed him to death in a ritualistic manner.

The fourth and final victim was a resident of Yekaterinburg whom Bayrambekov came across at a public transportation stop. He offered the man a ride, and during the conversation, Bayrambekov offered the victim a drink, which he accepted. Along the way, Bayrambekov picked up Solovyova and then drove to the ritual site, where they killed the man in a similar manner to the previous victims. During investigations, some of the officers received a tip about one Tatyana Solovyova, who had told one of her acquaintances that the boys had been killed in the woods outside the city. Solovyova was then detained and soon cracked under pressure, admitting complicity and implicating Bayrambekov, who in turn was arrested on 1 August 2015.

Sentence and imprisonment On 10 March 2017, Bayrambekov was found guilty of six murders and sentenced to 13 years and 2 months imprisonment. As his verdict was read out, he sat in silence and listened without eliciting any strong reaction, prompting a public outcry. However, the prosecutor's office and the local press service reiterated that this was all according to the plea deal he had made in exchange for revealing crucial information for the solving of the murders.

Bairambekov's accomplice Tatyana Solovyova was placed under house arrest after the criminal case was initiated, but after the verdict was announced to Arsen Bairambekov, she hid from the investigation and was put on the wanted list. In December 2017, law enforcement officers detained her at the airport while trying to cross the state border. In March 2018, the Verkhnepyshminsky City Court of the Sverdlovsk Region sentenced her to 12 years in prison, finding her guilty of aiding in the murder of four men.