Advertiser Wasn't Burned for Advertising
// Investigation
Yesterday the prosecutor for Moscow's Southwest District initiated criminal proceedings in Monday's murder of Boris Goldman, president of the NFQ advertising company, and two of his employees (Kommersant reported on the crime on April 13). There have still been no arrests or suspects in the investigation. However, at the prosecutor's office, they are hoping to be able to locate the people who ordered the murder by reproducing the dead killer's communications at the time of the explosion and going over data obtained during the investigation of the first attempted murder of the businessman.
A Shaped Charge
We remind our readers that Boris Goldman, his bodyguard Mikhail Tarasov, and driver Sergei Shkadin died in the explosion of an armored Volvo on Monday evening. Twenty-four-year-old Maksim Konkov pulled up to the armored vehicle on a Suzuki motorcycle and tossed a bomb onto the limousine's roof. Although the bomb was a directional device, the explosion was still powerful enough to kill Konkov on the spot.
– The most interesting thing is that no serious injuries were discovered on Konkov's body during the initial examination,” they told Kommersant at the Criminal Investigation Department. “Not even his helmet flew off. All he had were abrasions on his arms and legs as a result of falling off the motorcycle.”
An autopsy has still not been carried out, but the investigators know that Maksim Konkov, like the passengers in the Volvo, died from barotraumaan abrupt pressure drop caused by the impact of a blast wave. Experts believe that the killer killed himself and the people in the limousine with a homemade bomb with a shaped charge. The bomb consisted of a plastit charge enclosed in a cylindrical or conical metal container. It was placed upside down on the car's roof; therefore, the interior took the main impact of the blast. Jets of flame caused a fire that spread through the blast-shattered roof.
Employees of OOO Armortech, the firm that prepared and leased the armored Volvo to Mr. Goldman, are also convinced that the charge was shaped. “We don't usually lease cars, we armor them and sell them,” the company's specialists told Kommersant. “We offered to sell Mr. Goldman a limousine for $150 000, but he preferred to lease one with an option to buy. That was two months ago.”
The identities of the people killed in the Volvo were not established immediately, as the bodies were severely burned. The killer was identified from a motorcycle license the investigators found in the pocket of his leather jacket. As Kommersant reported yesterday, four people were quickly arrested, one of whom, like the killer, had an unregistered walkie-talkie. However, they were released for lack of evidence of their involvement in the murder.
Nothing was known of the results of questioning Maksim Konkov's relatives yesterday. The investigators are obviously interested above all in what he was doing on October 20 of last year, the date of the first attempt on the businessman's life. When Kommersant contacted Maksim's relatives for comment they would say only that they didn't believe he was guilty.
Konkov's neighbors are also of the same opinion. In their words, the young man bore no resemblance to a killer. “I don't believe he could kill a person,” neighbor Anna Kosenkova in particular told Kommersant. “I know his parents well, and I feel badly for them. His mother and father are fine people. They couldn't have raised a murderer.”
Yesterday, the prosecutor for Moscow's Southwest District initiated criminal proceedings on charges of the murder of “two or more persons”. Employees at the prosecutor's office believe they have every chance of uncovering this crime, since a data base for future investigations was set up at the office long before the triple murder. The fact is that senior investigator Pavel Naidenov, who is in charge of investigating the explosion on Vavilova Street, has been studying the structure of Mr. Goldman's business and his business connections and problems and meeting with the advertiser's clients and partners for the six months, that is, since the first attempt on the life of NFQ's president last October. Thus, the investigators may already know where the strike on the businessman came from, but they are not jumping to conclusions. There has to be proof of a connection between the killer and the contractor, and this will not be easy. The point is that the people suspected of ordering the killing also knew about the prosecutor's suspicions of them; so before giving the order to the killer, they probably took care to cover their tracks. Specifically, they probably kept Maksim Konkov in the dark and constructed the bomb in such a way that it would kill both the victim and the killer.
Advertising Couldn't Have Been a Motive for Murder
Until 2001, NFQ advertising agency was among the largest Russian companies on the advertising market. The company, founded in 1992, had been growing steadily since the mid-1990s. In 1995–1996, the agency, together with Gleb Pavlovsky's Effective Policy Foundation, took part in Boris Yeltsin's election campaign; and at the end of 1996, NFQ acquired its own printing office. The agency's clients in recent years have included DaimlerChrysler, which produces Merecedes Benz A-class cars for the Russian market, the first Ramstore hypermarket, and companies like Oriflame, Jacobs, Renaissance Capital, Aeroflot, and Allied Domeca (Baskin Robbins, Dunkin' Donuts, and John Bull Pub brands).
In 1999, NFQ began working with Krasny Vostok, one of Russia's largest brewers. The agency's most publicized work is connected with this client. NFQ developed the Solodov brand for Krasny Vostok, and in November 2001, Solodov won the gold medal in the Brand of the Year/Effie 2001 competition as the most successful brand creation and promotion project on the Russian market in the beer category. In the estimation of market participants, the agency's net annual income in this period may have been as much as $5 million.
However, the company was unable to consolidate these successes. In spring 2001, a dispute flared up between NFQ's chief shareholders, Boris Goldman and Aleksandr Spektor. As a result, most of the employees led by Mr. Spektor left the company and set up a new advertising agency, Ad People. After that, NFQ's business declined rapidly. Krasny Vostok turned down NFQ's services last year. The agency's only remaining important client was Mercedes Benz. Market participants estimate that the total advertising budget of NFQ's present clients is no more than $10 million. This means that the agency's earnings from advertising services to clients are about $1–2 million per year. Experts estimate that turnover from NFQ's printing office could be on the order of another $6–10 million per year.
In other words, NFQ's advertising business in its present form could not have been the motive for Boris Goldman's murder. “It's like entering an apartment and killing the owner for a used VCR,” says Sergei Krivonogov, head of the DDB advertising group. “I don't think NFQ's present-day advertising business could have been a motive for murderit's just not big enough.”
Therefore, the main theory being discussed on the advertising market today is that Mr. Goldman's murder was connected with the three-year-old dispute. “Everyone working on the advertising market knew Goldman, and they have no doubt that the murder was a consequence of a dispute with one of his partners. It's very likely that this was not only a business dispute, but a personal dispute as well,” a market participant told Kommersant yesterday.
However, there is another theory. “I'm not ruling out the possibility that this was a fight for NFQ's printing assets,” says Vadim Kulikov, head of the Vitrina A advertising group. “Promotional printing, that is, production of brochures, catalogs, and ad fliers, is a very profitable business these days; its profitability is on the order of 50%.”
Aleksandr Spektor refused to answer Kommersant's questions yesterday, saying that he didn't want to talk to the press. NFQ also refused to comment. The agency's employees were in no state to speak with the press, because officials from the prosecutor's office had been questioning them and removing documents.
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How They Kill Advertisers in Russia
On January 25, 1996, Oleg Slabynko, director of the advertising agency Vremya, vpered! and producer of the TV program Moment of Truth (Moment istiny) was killed by shots in the chest and head in his apartment on Klinskaya Street in Moscow. The crime has not been solved.
On February 21, 1997, Artem Vagin, general manager of the advertising agency Blick Communications, was wounded on Kubinka Street in Moscow. Two bullets from a Walter pistol hit the businessman in the thigh. The criminal has not been found.
On May 26, 1999, Lev Topper, business manager of the advertising firm Evropa, was shot and killed in the entrance of his apartment house on Griboedov Canal in St. Petersburg. The killers have not been found.
On October 29, 1999, Oleg Chervonyuk, general manager of the advertising agency Metropress, and his younger brother Sergei who worked with him were shot and killed on Moskovsky Prospekt in St. Petersburg. The crime has not been solved.
On February 4, 2002, Vladimir Kanevsky, director of the advertising agency Ator, was shot and killed on Konyushkovskaya Street in Moscow. Neither the contractors nor the murderers have been found.
On May 19, 2002, Aleksandr Plotnikov, one of the founders of the advertising newspaper Gostiny dvor, was killed by a shot in the head at his dacha near Tyumen. Shortly before this, Mr. Plotnikov's business partners had tried to remove him from the business, but he won the court case. Neither the murderers nor the contractors have been found.
On June 3, 2002, Maksim tkachev, president of the advertising agency News Outdoor, was shot and wounded as he left his office in the Almaz Central Design Bureau (TsKB Almaz) building on Leningradsky Prospekt in Moscow. On August 5, 2003, five home forces servicemen were arrested on suspicion of the attempted murder.
On October 6, 2002, three people wielding knives attacked Sergei Bondarchuk, general manager of the advertising agency Premier SV, in the town of Nargorny, Mytishchinsky District in Moscow Region. The businessman was wounded in the chest and back. The attackers have not been found.
On February 12, 2003, Mikhail Zinchenko, director of the Alfa television company and an executive of the advertising firm Enercomservice, was wounded by gunfire in the entrance of his apartment house on Lenin Street in Surgut. The criminal has not been found.
On June 19, 2003, Aleksandr Bazhenov, director of the advertising agency Media Center, was knifed to death in Dzerzhinsky District in Perm. The murderer, a friend of the dead man, was arrested several days later and confessed to the crime.
On October 20, 2003, there was an attempt on the life of Boris Goldman, general manager of the NFQ group of advertising companies, on Dmitriya Ulyanova Street in Moscow. His Toyota Land Cruiser exploded, wounding his driver, but the businessman was unhurt. Mr. Goldman said that instead of investigating the crime, the prosecutor accused him of staging the murder attempt. A second attempt carried out on April 12, 2004, succeeded in killing him.
Sergei Dyupin, Aleksandr Zheglov, Andrei Salnikov, Timur Bordyug, Konstantin Vorontsov
All the Article in Russian as of Apr. 14, 2004
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