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Feds link Russian mob to 2012 JFK hotel slay

Feds link Russian mob to 2012 JFK hotel slay
By Rich Bockmann

Federal prosecutors in Manhattan earlier this week linked a bizarre murder-suicide that took place last year in a hotel near John F. Kennedy International Airport with an international gambling ring, a prestigious Manhattan art gallery and something called a “Vor.”

Last May, Gary Zalevsky was sitting around a table with five other men in a private room near the lobby of the Hilton Garden Inn when he stood up, pulled out a stolen .380-caliber Baretta pistol and fired five shots into the head of 31-year-old Brian Weiss as he sat at the table, according to the NYPD.

Weiss died at the scene and Zalevsky turned the gun on himself, according to the police.

The four remaining men fled the room when the shots were fired and were later apprehended by the police, but not arrested.

One of the men sitting at that table was an unindicted co-conspirator of Anatoly “Tony” Golubchik, who was charged earlier this month with heading two international sports-gambling syndicates that catered to multimillionaires and billionaires in the U.S., Russia and Ukraine, prosecutors claim.

At a bail hearing in Manhattan Monday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Joshua Naftalis said Golubchik wired $300,000 to Zalevsky the month before the murder-suicide through Northside Capital, a sham company he allegedly used to launder money from Russia to the United States.

The U.S. attorney’s office has charged Golubchik and 33 others with running illegal gambling, money laundering and extortion rings based in New York City; Kiev, Ukraine; and Moscow.

One of those charged is Hillel “Helly” Nahmad, operator of the Helly Nahmad Gallery on the Upper East Side. Nahmad is accused of helping finance the crime organization and conspiring to commit wire fraud in connection with the sale of a $250,000 painting.

Various members of the organization are charged with running illegal, high-stakes poker rooms across the city where gamblers would rack up thousands of dollars in debt.

The syndicate was allegedly under the protection of Alimzhan Tokhtakhounov, who is known as a Vor, or “Thief-in-Law” in Russia.

One of the biggest criminals in the former U.S.S.R., a Vor offers protection to other criminals and has substantial influence in the criminal underworld.

Prosecutors said Tokhtakhounov rarely leaves the former Soviet Union because he is under indictment for his alleged role in bribing Olympics officials in a scam to bring the 2002 Winter Games to Salt Lake City, Utah.

Reach reporter Rich Bockmann by e-mail at rbockmann@cnglocal.com or by phone at 718-260-4574.