The Polotsk Four
The Polotsk Four was a group of Belarusian criminals and robbers, active from 2001 to 2002, led by serial killers Sergey Pugachev and Alexander Burdenko. With the aid of thieves Dmitry Ignatovich and Sergey Astafurov, the gang robbed numerous places around the Vitebsk Region and Brest Region, with Pugachev and Burdenko themselves killing two girls and two car enthusiasts. For their crimes, the criminals received their respective punishments. Members. It is also noted that one member of the gang practised occultism in order to bring them luck, much to the amusement of his co-conspirators. However, it  is unclear who that member is. Formation. The thirst for profit between the former school buddies would eventually make them cross paths again, with Ignatovich borrowing $200 from Burdenko, giving him a Makarov pistol as deposit. Later on, Burdenko introduced Ignatovich to Pugachev, and in turn, the former let Astafurov into the gang. Crimes. In the span of three years, the gang would rob a large number of facilities, assault multiple victims, steal money and engage in banditry. The following crimes are their most notable: Discovery and capture. On September 11, 2002, the decomposing body of an unidentified man  was found by forester Alexander Zholudev. The victim had a bullet from a Makarov lodged into his head. Although some detectives had the feeling this would quickly become a cold case, inspector Yevgeny Gulyaev, who was recently on a business trip to Slantsy, noticed a group of drivers along the road. When one of their cars broke down, he asked them if any of their colleagues had gone missing, with one replying that somebody indeed had: Georgy Romanov. The corpse found in the forest was quickly identified as that of Romanov by the traffic police, but soon after, another body  was discovered along the same road. The authorities, who had learned that Petrachkov had also gone missing in the area, connected the dots when a bullet was also found in the head of this body as well. Both killings pointed towards a gang operating in the area. Later on, another forester by the name of Alexander Sergeevich recalled that several months earlier, he had seen a strange man hanging around the burial site at 5 o'clock in the morning. When they approached the man, he quickly entered his car and sped away. The criminals were eventually captured when the cellphone  belonging to Petrachkov, which Burdenko registered in his name, was traced and monitored by the police. After a month of close observation, the operatives moved in to arrest the criminals on November 13, 2003. Just a few days before, one of the gang members, Astafurov, sensed that there was some kind of ambush awaiting him in his home, and so he hid in a box storing potatoes. Trembling with fear, he spent two days in there before being discovered and arrested. However, Burdenko remained the only one uncaptured, with policemen only confiscating some of his items for examination. To the  authorities' surprise, however, Burdenko himself later appeared in the police department, demanding that they return the things seized during the search. He was arrested on the spot, and other evidence was discovered in his apartment: $4,000 dollars, an investigator's handbook for investigating banditry, a book about Russian pistols, a radio, handcuffs and a cache of Makarovs. Quickly realising that they had been watched, the gang confessed to all of their crimes. Trial and sentences. When charged, the other members rallied behind their leader Burdenko, accusing the police of beating them into confessing. Meanwhile, Balchugina's mother, driven to  despair by the fact that the criminals never revealed where her daughter's corpse was hidden, believed that she was still only kidnapped, and set out to Moscow to look for her. As for the gang, after five hours of deliberation, Justice Leonid Petrov handed out the following verdicts: