"Crime boss Shakro Kalashov released in Russia for use in Georgia's October elections" - Mikheil Saakashvili

Shakro Kalashov and Mikhail Saakashvili

The third President of Georgia, Mikheil Saakashvili, currently imprisoned, reacted to the early release from a Russian prison of the “thief-in-law” Zakaria (Shakro) Kalashov. His release is linked to the upcoming elections in Georgia, Saakashvili said. He supposes that Kalashov was given a “task by Russia to ‘resolve’ his [Saakashvili’s] issue in prison once and for all.“

“In Russia, four years before his sentence ended, Shakro Kalashov, the most authoritative ‘thief-in-law,’ was released from prison. I have no doubt that they released him for the elections in Georgia.

When I was appointed Minister of Justice, Kalashov, through Duda Dadiani [a famous basketball player and vice president of the Basketball Federation of Georgia, was killed in 2002], sent me a watch worth 30,000 dollars, which I, of course, did not accept. Instead, I advised him to leave Georgia, but he was not scared because back then Shevardnadze’s minister of interior was Kaha Targamadze, and the Minister of Security was Vakhtang Kutateladze.

After I became president, Kalashov did not dare to return to Georgia. They confiscated his huge palace in Tskneti.

Based on the materials we provided, Spain detained him and began extradition procedures. He, according to my information, paid 70 million dollars to the Investigative Committee of Russia, and the Russians ‘arranged’ a case, after which Georgian citizen Shakro was handed over to Russia, where he was soon released.

However, a few years later, they had to detain him there as well. He was sentenced to 10 years but was released six years earlier.

In 2007, Kalashov flew to Yerevan to his thief-mentor Usoyan and, according to FBI information, facilitated unrest in Georgia from there.

Now the Russians think that they will get big surprises in the elections and assign Kalashov to manage the Georgian criminal world. I do not exclude that one of the assignments is the final ‘resolution’ of my issue in prison,” writes Saakashvili.

The most influential criminal authority of Georgia, Shakro Kalashov, also known as “Shakro Molodoy,”[“young” in Russian] was born in Tbilisi in 1953, and by the age of 16, he became a “thief-in-law.” In 2019, he was included in the US sanctions list along with 10 other criminal world leaders.

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On March 13, the Krasnodar Regional Court granted the petition for the early release of Zakaria (Shakro) Kalashov from custody.

In 2016, Zakaria Kalashov was found guilty of extorting eight million rubles from the owner of the Elements restaurant in Moscow. Along with Kalashov, Andrey Kochuykov, known as “The Italian,” was arrested and sentenced to eight years and ten months for the same case.

On December 14, 2015, a shootout occurred in the Elements restaurant, resulting in two deaths. The popular version suggests that the conflict was caused by the restaurant owner Zhanna Kim and designer Fatima Misikova.

On July 19, 2017, in the Shakro Molodoy case, several more people were arrested, including the first deputy chief of the capital’s Investigative Committee, major general Denis Nikandrov, the head of the Russian Investigative Committee’s own security department Mikhail Maksimenko, and his deputy Alexander Lamonov. That same evening, seven more employees of the Russian Investigative Committee, who were involved in the investigation, were arrested.

According to them, they received a bribe of 500,000 euros for softening the charges against Kalashov and releasing Kalashov’s “right-hand man” Andrey Kochuykov.

According to “Novaya Gazeta Europe,” Kalashov has been arrested several times. In 2006, he was arrested in Dubai and handed over to Spain. There, the criminal authority was found guilty of money laundering and sentenced to seven and a half years in prison and a fine of 20 million euros. Later, the sentence was changed to nine years in prison.

This is not the first instance when the names of so-called “thieves-in-law” were mentioned in connection with elections. A few months before the parliamentary elections in 2012, the then-ruling party “United National Movement,” created by Mikheil Saakashvili, and the Ministry of Internal Affairs announced that Georgian “thieves-in-law” abroad actively supported “Georgian Dream” and attempted to influence the election results through intimidation and blackmail.

In 2021, non-governmental organizations — the “Initiative for Rehabilitation of Vulnerable Groups” (RIVG) and the “Institute for Development of Democracy and Security” (IDSD) — conducted a study “The Influence of Criminal Authorities on the Electoral Process in Georgia,” in which respondents reported violations and crimes committed during the pre-election period, including the interference of criminal authorities.

According to the study, one of the methods used by these groups is to organize provocations at district pre-election meetings of opposition candidates — they behaved provocatively, loudly swore, aiming to disrupt meetings with voters.

Moreover, psychological pressure was applied when criminal authorities, both before and on the day of the elections, actively appeared at polling stations, attempting to influence the oppositionally or neutrally inclined voters. On election day, they gathered directly at the polling station, thereby showing the voters that they were monitoring the voting process, creating the impression that they directly controlled it.