Investigators have found a sixth victim linked to a series of killings in the southern region of Stavropol earlier this week.
Police on Wednesday found four cars in and around several villages in the region, with the bodies of five people killed by gunshot wounds in the trunks or on the seats. Explosive devices had been planted at all of the crime scenes, officials said.
A sixth body was found Thursday in a thicket at one of the crime scenes, an unidentified investigator told Kommersant, adding that the victim was likely shot while trying to run away.
Three of the six victims have been identified as local men who worked or moonlighted as cab drivers.
The Stavropol region's governor, Vladimir Vladimirov, said that the families of the six men will each receive 1 million rubles ($30,000) in compensation, Interfax reported Friday.
Police are searching for three young men from the neighboring republic of Kabardino-Balkaria in connection with the killings — Anzor Margushev, 32, his brother Artur, 23, and Vadim Shogenov, 25 — and a fourth unidentified accomplice. The suspects were already wanted in connection with other cases on charges of murder and illegal arms dealing.
The killers could have hired taxis and slain their drivers to set up crime scenes as traps for law-enforcement agents, Kommersant reported Thursday, citing no one.
The newspaper thinks the killings may have been an attempt to settle scores by the Zolksy Jamaat, a militant group from Kabardino-Balkaria, which officials said had been nearly wiped out in clashes with law-enforcement forces last October.
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