The Gang of Amazons | Russia
On a quiet evening in early September 2013, two patrol officers manning a checkpoint on the outskirts of Aksai in Russia’s Rostov Oblast flagged down a scooter with two riders – a man and a woman. There was nothing suspicious about the couple at first glance. But as Officer Ivan Shakhovoi approached to check their documents, the male rider reached inside his jacket, pulled out a handgun, and fired. The first bullet struck Shakhovoi in the head. His partner, Aleksey Lagoda, was shot in the chest, but managed to send out a distress call before collapsing.
Reinforcements arrived minutes later, only to find themselves in the middle of a gunfight. The male assailant was killed on the spot. The woman, critically injured, was arrested. Inside her coat pocket, investigators would later find a loaded pistol and a map of the region –marked in several places. Still, the true horror of what they had uncovered lay not in her belongings, but in what she led them to: a remote campsite tucked away in the woods.
There, among camouflage tents and campfire ashes, officers discovered a chilling cache: automatic weapons, homemade silencers, hand grenades, thousands of rounds of ammunition, and dozens of stolen items. They also found two more people: a woman in her forties and a girl no older than thirteen, both standing guard over the weapons. The girl stared blankly, offering no resistance. The woman gave her name: Inessa Tarverdiyeva. The name meant nothing to the officers. But it wouldn’t stay that way for long.
Within days, police linked the weapons to a series of violent crimes that had plagued southern Russia for years – robberies, home invasions, and execution-style murders that had baffled law enforcement. What they had uncovered was a criminal enterprise that spanned multiple regions, claimed at least ten confirmed lives, and involved not only women and children – but a respected nursery school teacher, a qualified dentist, and a police officer sworn to uphold the law.
The media called them the ‘Gang of Amazons’. But behind the sensational headlines was a truth far stranger, and far darker, than any nickname could capture.
You are listening to: The Evidence Locker.
Thanks for listening to our podcast. This episode is made possible by our sponsors—be sure to check them out for exclusive deals. For an ad-free experience, join us on Patreon, starting at just $2 a month, with 25% of proceeds supporting The Doe Network, helping to bring closure to international cold cases. Links are in the show notes.
Our episodes cover true crimes involving real people, and some content may be graphic in nature. Listener discretion is advised. We produce each episode with the utmost respect for the victims, their families, and loved ones.
When police recovered the bodies at the checkpoint in Aksai and secured the campsite in the nearby forest, they weren’t sure what they had found. At first, it looked like a rogue operation. Possibly a survivalist group. But it quickly became clear that this was something else entirely. Something much worse.
The weapons – semi-automatic rifles, pistols, silencers, hand grenades – suggested military-level planning. The map found in the female perpetrator’s jacket was marked with symbols investigators would later match to crime scenes across the Rostov and Stavropol regions. Scattered among the camping gear were stolen items: documents, phones, jewellery, even a child’s schoolbag. Each piece would connect to a case, some open for years, others long forgotten. These weren't petty thefts. They were traces of violence. Clues left behind by people who had walked into homes, pulled the trigger, and vanished.
As police pieced together the evidence, one thing became undeniable: they were not dealing with a single crime, or even a series of robberies. They had stumbled across the remnants of a coordinated killing spree, committed by a group of modern-day outlaws.
The first murder police could definitively link to the group dated back to February 2008. The victims were Mikhail Zlydnev, head of the Information Security Department at the State Drug Control Service, and his wife. They were found in their home in Aksai, shot and then stabbed. The killers took a television set, some jackets, and a few everyday items. Nothing that suggested high value. At the time, the double murder was written off as a possible retaliation or burglary gone wrong. With no leads, the case went cold.
Five months later, a vehicle was ambushed along the Don Federal Highway. The driver, Alexei Sazonov, was shot and killed. His partner, Julia Vasilyeva, was severely wounded but survived. Her handbag was missing. Inside it: personal identification, bank cards, and some cash. Again, no suspects. No motive.
A similar pattern appeared in March 2009, when a couple near Novocherkassk was murdered in their home. They, too, had been shot and stabbed. Their belongings – boots, clothing, a laptop – were taken. But the violence of the crime didn’t match the value of the items. Investigators noted the overkill. The unnecessary brutality.
The turning point came later that same year. On July 8th, Lieutenant Colonel Dmitry Chudakov was driving with his family through the Rostov region. They had been vacationing and were on their way back to Nizhny Novgorod. Along the highway, the family pulled over. Perhaps to stretch their legs. Perhaps to check something in the vehicle.
None of them made it home.
Dmitry, his wife Irina, and their children – 11-year-old Veronika and 7-year-old Alexander – were all murdered. Dmitry, Irina, and Alexander had been shot with a Saiga semi-automatic shotgun. Veronika had been stabbed thirty-seven times. The killers left behind jewellery and electronics, taking only wallets and small personal items.
The brutality of the attack, and the high-profile status of the victim, sent shockwaves across Russia. Chudakov was not just any officer – he commanded a SOBR special forces unit. His murder, and the murder of his wife and children, prompted a national investigation.
A man named Alexei Serenko was arrested and charged. A forensic expert testified that his carbine had been used in the killings. He denied any involvement. He was imprisoned for two years before the evidence was discredited and the charges dropped. But the damage had been done. The case remained unsolved, and the real killers continued their spree.
In 2010, they struck again.
The target was a house belonging to a family known to keep weapons and cash. The attackers broke in and waited. But instead of the homeowners, two teenage girls entered. Both were tortured and murdered. Their eyes were gouged out.
In September 2012, two private security guards responded to an alarm at a dental clinic in Novocherkassk. They were ambushed and killed. Their service weapons – two AK rifles and two pistols – were taken. Two months later, those same weapons were used to murder Vadim Lozhkov, a taxi driver. He returned home to find intruders. During the attack, he fought back, but ultimately, Vadim was killed in cold blood.
In early 2013, the killings continued. In March, Nikolai Kutsekon, a car inspector in Aksai, heard his car alarm and stepped outside. He was shot dead.
In April, two employees from a local supermarket responded to an alarm. They were ambushed in their vehicle before they could get out. One survived. The other, Yuri Statsenko, died in hospital.
Then, in a chilling escalation, the gang turned their focus to law enforcement. On April 24th, Police Lieutenant Andrei Yurin left his house in the Aksai district to start his patrol. He was shot at point-blank range. Inside the house, his wife and child were asleep. They heard nothing. It was only later, when police arrived, that they realised what had happened outside.
Despite the growing number of victims, the crimes remained unconnected. The killers moved across three different regions – Rostov, Stavropol, Kalmykia – making it difficult for investigators to trace a pattern. Different police departments handled each case. Communication between jurisdictions was poor. Without a central task force or a shared forensic database, the dots remained unjoined.
The victims didn’t fit a single profile. Some were police officers. Others, civilians. Some were ambushed on highways. Others, inside their homes. The only constant was the violence – and the fact that the killers rarely took anything of value.
Then came the 8th of September, 2013. Earlier that day, a retired military officer was robbed in his home. The attackers stole food from the fridge. A bottle of liquor. Some candles. Then, just hours later, two of them were stopped at a checkpoint near Aksai. Roman Podkopaev and Viktoria Tarverdiyeva.
Roman opened fire, killing Officer Ivan Shakhovoi. Viktoria was hit in the crossfire and seriously wounded. When reinforcements arrived, they discovered the forest campsite. And the story of the Gang of Amazons began to unravel.
Ballistics quickly matched weapons found at the camp to multiple murders. Stolen items were traced to victims going back five years. A knife found near the Chudakov family’s murder scene had the words “My Favorite Amazon” engraved on it. It had been considered an early clue, but wrongly attributed to Inessa. The name stuck, even if the origin didn’t.
Within hours, police arrested Inessa Tarverdiyeva and her 13-year-old daughter Anastasiya at the camp. Shortly after, they arrested Anastasiya Sinelnik, Inessa’s sister-in-law, and her husband Sergei – a traffic police inspector who had used his position to feed information to the group for years.
Inessa didn’t hesitate. She confessed to everything. She told police she had been involved in every single attack since 1998. She admitted to shooting victims herself. She expressed no regret – only disappointment that they hadn’t killed more officers. And when asked what she thought of herself, her reply was simple.
“I am a gangster by nature,” she said.
Police were stunned. This wasn’t a gang in the traditional sense. It wasn’t a group of ex-military men or career criminals. It was a woman, her daughters, her husband, and a pair of in-laws. A teacher. A dentist. A child. And a policeman.
They had gone unnoticed for years.
At first, police struggled to reconcile the image. Inessa wasn’t what they expected. She had no criminal record. No known history of violence. She was educated, articulate, and by all appearances, an ordinary woman. A mother. A former nursery school teacher. She had studied pedagogy and psychology, and later trained as a dental assistant. She had even worked at a local clinic in Novocherkassk. Neighbours described her as intelligent. Reserved, but not unfriendly.
But behind closed doors, she had harboured a deep resentment. In interviews, she claimed that she despised authority. That she viewed police officers as corrupt. That the system was rotten. Killing them, she said, wasn’t murder. It was cleansing.
Inessa had met Roman Podkopaev sometime in the early 2000s. He was a few years younger, unemployed, and by some accounts, easily influenced. But he had a criminal record – a conviction for armed robbery dating back to the 1990s. He had been raised in a harsh household, and spent time in a juvenile detention facility. Friends from that period described him as volatile, quick to anger. But loyal. The kind of person who would do anything for someone he trusted.
Roman and Inessa became inseparable. Inessa had two daughters from a previous marriage: Anastasiya and Viktoria. Although Roman and Inessa never officially married, he raised them as his own.
And over time, he brought them into the fold… At first, the crimes were small. Break-ins. Simple theft. But the targets became more ambitious. And the violence escalated.
Inessa claimed it was never about money. It was about ideology. A war, she said, against authority. Against police. Against those who thought they were above the law. But her explanations often contradicted the facts. The crimes rarely had political meaning. There were no messages left behind. No manifestos. No demands. Just dead bodies and stolen goods.
Police would later discover that much of what had been taken during the home invasions had been kept as trophies. Some items were worn. Some hidden. Some used by the family in their day-to-day lives. A pair of shoes belonging to a murdered woman. A child’s backpack. A man’s wristwatch.
The involvement of Inessa’s daughters stunned investigators. In some cases, they had helped carry stolen items. In others, they had stood guard. They had been present when people were killed, when homes were burned and when bodies were dragged outside. Viktoria, the elder daughter, was 25 at the time of the arrests. She had trained as a dental hygienist and worked with her mother at a local clinic. She was the one found at the checkpoint, wounded by gunfire. According to Inessa, Viktoria had participated willingly. She had carried weapons, helped plan attacks, and in at least one case, pulled the trigger herself.
Anastasiya, the younger daughter, had grown up in the shadow of the crimes. Born in 2000, she was barely eight years old when the first murder took place. She had been raised in an environment where theft and violence were routine. According to prosecutors, she had been groomed from a young age to accept the family’s criminal life as normal. She was arrested alongside her mother at the forest campsite, standing guard with a rifle.
But Inessa and Roman were not acting alone. Police traced more weapons and stolen goods to a second address—an apartment registered to Anastasiya Sinelnik, Roman’s sister. She and her husband, Sergei, were soon taken into custody.
Sergei Sinelnik had been a traffic police officer for over a decade. He had access to internal systems, patrol schedules, and case files. Investigators believe he provided crucial information to the gang—details about police patrols, alarm systems, and which homes were worth targeting. In return, he was given a cut of the stolen goods. He had also supplied weapons. In at least one case, he removed a service firearm from evidence storage and handed it over to Roman. The same weapon was later used in the murder of a taxi driver.
Anastasiya Sinelnik’s involvement was more passive, but no less critical. She helped launder stolen items. Held onto cash. Maintained the appearance of a quiet, middle-class life. A schoolteacher, she had worked with children for most of her adult life. Those who knew her said she was kind. Gentle. There were no signs that she had any knowledge of the murders.
But inside the apartment, police found evidence to the contrary. A bag filled with bloodstained clothing. Items belonging to victims. Photographs. Documents. Enough to place her directly in the aftermath of several attacks.
As the interrogations continued, the confessions mounted. Inessa spoke freely, describing the crimes with clarity and control. She drew maps, listed names, pointed out details that had never been made public. She claimed that she had started killing in 1998, but police were only able to confirm her involvement from 2007 onwards.
Roman, was killed during the checkpoint firefight. But his fingerprint had already been found on shell casings from earlier scenes. A forensics match had linked him to the murder of Lieutenant Colonel Chudakov and his family. Police now believe he was the one who stabbed Veronika thirty-seven times.
Inessa’s daughters were more guarded. Viktoria admitted to some of the crimes but insisted she had acted under pressure. Anastasiya said little. Psychologists determined she had been deeply manipulated, raised in a closed world where violence was routine, and trust extended only to family.
Sergei and Anastasiya Sinelnik denied any involvement. Sergei claimed he had no knowledge of the murders. That his work as a traffic officer had nothing to do with the crimes. But the weight of evidence told a different story.
Over the course of several months, investigators reconstructed the timeline. They linked weapons to victims. Matched maps to crime scenes. Analysed digital records, mobile phone data, and vehicle movements. What emerged was a chilling picture of a family that had operated across three Russian regions for more than half a decade – unseen, unreported, and unchallenged.
There were no outward signs. No neighbours had reported strange behaviour. To the outside world, they were a quiet, respectable family who loved the outdoors. In reality, they were hunters. And their victims were chosen not out of need, but out of opportunity.
The trial commenced in 2016 at the Rostov Regional Court. Four members of the group stood trial: Inessa Tarverdiyeva, her daughter Viktoria, and her in-laws Sergei and Anastasiya Sinelnik. Charges included multiple counts of murder, robbery, illegal weapons possession, and conspiracy to commit violent crimes. The prosecution submitted forensic evidence linking each accused to specific crime scenes, alongside witness testimony and confessions.
The court proceedings were closed to the public due to the involvement of a minor and the nature of the crimes. Journalists waited outside each day, and media coverage remained intense. The nickname “Gang of Amazons,” coined early in the investigation, continued to dominate headlines.
Inessa Tarverdiyeva faced the most serious charges. She was accused of direct involvement in at least 10 murders, including the killings of police officers and children. During questioning, she confessed to many of the crimes and admitted she had personally shot several victims. In court, she offered no apology and showed no visible remorse. Her defence team attempted to argue that she had acted under the influence of her partner, Roman Podkopaev, who had died in the shootout at the Aksai checkpoint. The court rejected this argument.
Viktoria Tarverdiyeva, 25 years old at the time of arrest, was charged as a full participant. Prosecutors presented evidence placing her at multiple crime scenes. She admitted to handling weapons and participating in robberies but denied direct involvement in killings. Her defence argued that she had been coerced by her mother and stepfather from a young age.
Sergei Sinelnik, a serving traffic police officer, was accused of supplying the gang with information and weapons. The prosecution presented surveillance footage, phone records, and items found in his apartment that had belonged to murdered victims. He denied the charges.
Anastasiya Sinelnik was accused of storing stolen goods and helping to conceal evidence. Prosecutors alleged that she had knowingly assisted the group over a period of years. She denied knowing the full extent of the crimes.
The youngest member of the group, 13-year-old Anastasiya, was not charged due to her age. She was removed from her mother’s custody and placed under state care. Psychological assessments concluded that she had been manipulated and exposed to violence from an early age.
In July 2017, the court delivered its verdict: Inessa Tarverdiyeva was found guilty of murder, robbery, and possession of illegal weapons. She was sentenced to 21 years in a penal colony. Under Russian law, the maximum sentence for a woman – except in the most exceptional cases – is 25 years. The court did not impose life imprisonment.
Viktoria received a 16-year sentence. The court acknowledged her age at the time of the crimes and her subordinate role in the group’s hierarchy.
Sergei Sinelnik was sentenced to 20 years.
Anastasiya Sinelnik received 19 years. She was found guilty of complicity, concealment of stolen goods, and participation in the criminal enterprise.
Following sentencing, all four were transferred to penal colonies. Anastasiya Tarverdiyeva, remained in the care of social services. Her current whereabouts are not publicly known.
The case is considered closed. No further suspects have been charged in connection with the crimes. The crimes of the Gang of Amazons shocked the entire nation, but their arrests brought no satisfaction to the families left behind. Justice was served, but it brought little comfort.
If you'd like to dive deeper into this case, check out the resources we used for this episode in the show notes.
Don’t forget to follow us on social media for more updates on today's case – you can find us on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and X. We also have a channel on YouTube where you can watch more content.
If you enjoy what we do here at Evidence Locker, please subscribe on Apple Podcasts or wherever you're listening right now and consider leaving us a 5-star review.
This was The Evidence Locker. Thank you for listening!