Russian police in the Krasnodar region of Russia near the Black Sea formulated an elaborate ruse to arrest members of an anti-Semitic criminal gang by faking the murder of a rabbi, the UK’s Times reported.

In order to monitor the activities of the Citizens of the USSR group, a pro-communist group that believes that the Soviet Union still exists and still hasn’t accepted the demise of the communist Russian regime, undercover policemen infiltrated the group.

One of the undercover policemen, who presented himself in the gang as a hitman, was asked by two members to murder a local rabbi, Rabbi Yury Tkach. The undercover cop agreed on the condition that he would be appointed as the head of the group’s “KGB” directorate for Krasnodar.

Instead of carrying out the “hit,” the policemen asked Rabbi Tkach to assist them in framing the criminals by “starring” in a staged murdered scene. The photo of the “murdered” rabbi would then be shown to the criminals as proof that the “hitman” had fulfilled their request.

Rabbi Tkach agreed and was “murdered” via professional make-up artists with realistic-looking wounds and copious amounts of blood on his body and clothing. A photo of him covered in blood slumped in the stairwell of his building convinced the gang that the hitman faithfully fulfilled his job.

“I was asked not to call anyone, not to get in touch with anyone, because [the organizers of the murder] could have some kind of informants,” Tkach told the Russian newspaper MediaZone.

“They asked me not to appear anywhere and to be at home, because they have been following me for a long time, they know where I go…where I live – all the details. The law enforcement authorities established this during the investigation.”

Police then arrested the two suspects, Alexander Dudarenko, 60, and Zoya Malova, 70, who were the ringleaders of the gang, and their trial is currently underway.

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)