Ruslan Labazanov Ruslan Labazanov ( 1967 – 1996 ) was a notorious criminal boss of the Chechen mafia and head of a Chechen armed faction , held by some as an example of a modern " abrek " ( bandit hero ) . Biography . Labazanov was born in internal exile in Kazakhstan in 1967 to the Turkxoj " teip " ( clan ) . He became an Eastern martial arts expert and served in the Soviet Red Army as a physical training instructor . After leaving the army , he became known as a flamboyant , charismatic and extremely violent gangster . In 1990 he was convicted of murder in Rostov - on - Don and sentenced to death , before escaping from prison in 1991 . According to himself , he actually escaped from Grozny pretrial detention center : " During the 1991 coup , I freed the whole prison , nearly 600 men , ahead of time . They obeyed me . " Since 1992 Labazanov aligned closely with the Chechen President Dzhokhar Dudayev , eventually becoming the chief of Dudayev ' s personal Presidential Guard and holding a rank of captain in the Chechen National Guard ( in 1992 – 1993 he had been also been engaged in illegal arms trade ) before failing out with him after a year - and - half during the 1993 Chechen constitutional crisis . After a bloody two - day clash between his followers and allies , including Chechen mafia boss Nikolay Suleimanov , and Dudayev ' s loyalists in the centre of the Chechen capital Grozny on June 13 – 14 , Labazanov fled the city and promptly declared a blood feud against Dudayev for the death of his relative ( either a brother or a cousin ) , whose head was publicly displayed among the heads of three other Labazanov ' s henchmen . Labazanov then joined Umar Avturkhanov and the other criminal leader and one - time Dudayev supporter Beslan Gantamirov ( the ex - mayor of Grozny ) in the anti - Dudayev opposition , called the Chechen Provisional Council , operating as commander of his own paramilitary outfit - the " Justice " ( " Niiso " ) movement , partially controlling the Shalinsky and Vedensky districts of southern Chechnya . Labazanov assumed a role of a " Chechen Robin Hood " , a self - styled defender of the people against the oppressive authorities . His private army of about two hundred men , mostly former convicts like himself , was based in and around the town of Argun and supplied with T - 72 tanks and other heavy weapons provided by the Russian special services . They also provided personal security and other armed men for Ruslan Khasbulatov ( freshly released from Russian prison following his defeat in the 1993 Russian constitutional crisis ) and his abortive " peacemaking " initiative . In the summer of 1994 , Chechnya descended into a fierce civil war - style conflict between the Chechen government and the opposition forces . For the first two months the clashes were sporadic , but on September 4 , Dudayev ' s forces attacked Labazanov ' s stronghold of Argun and after a fierce all - night battle during which dozens of fighters were killed on both sides succeeded in dislodging him out of the city . The fighting culminated in the November 26 attempted raid on Grozny by the Chechen opposition supported by the covert Russian federal forces , which resulted in the final defeat for the Provisional Council and the open intervention by Moscow . During the subsequent First Chechen War of 1994 - 1996 , Labazanov sided with the invading Russian federal forces and promptly was given the rank of colonel in the Russian internal security service FSK ( soon to be reorganized into the FSB ) . On June 1 , 1996 , it was reported that Labazanov was slain together with a bodyguard at the village of Tolstoy - Yurt , 15 kilometres north of Grozny . He was reportedly gunned down at point - blank range in his fortified castle - like house , where he has been living with his three wives , apparently killed by one of his own men . The Russians quickly implicated the Chechen separatist field commander Shamil Basayev in the killing . According to another version , Labazanov fell victim to blood vengeance by the relatives of a killed Chechen police officer .