Part 2
Just a month before the disappearance of the “baron” of St. Petersburg antique dealers, Alexander Levin, another notable character disappeared from the same crowd. Fashionable businessman Roman Zhagolko (pictured), Levin’s partner at the Antique Center on Panteleimonovskaya, disappeared with millions of dollars in loans and paintings given to him for sale and as collateral. No one was in a hurry to file reports of fraud – there was no need for extra interest from law enforcement in this closed world. However, many “buried” him long ago, believing that Roman could have suffered the same fate as his partner Levin.
On the eve of his disappearance, Zhagolko let it slip that in the collections of most of Levin’s Russian clients – VIPs – at least half of the exhibits were fakes. He and Levin were specialists in forgeries and had a staff of artists and icon painters who performed such miracles that not every expert could distinguish their works from the originals. According to one version, such a high-quality fake was sold to a very serious customer who climbed to “unprecedented heights of power” in Moscow. So serious that when the deception was revealed, both bandits and special services were looking for the businessman in St. Petersburg (by the way, the customer’s hometown).
After this, Roman Zhagolko mysteriously disappeared.
And the scandal hidden from the public in the antique world grew like a snowball.
It was assumed that the most prominent St. Petersburg residents, who, among other things, are billionaires from Forbes and in the political elite of the country, instead of priceless originals, have forgeries from Levin and Zhagolko.
As a result, after the disappearance of Zhagolko, they came to check the “honesty” of his partner, the supplier of these very “priceless” paintings, icons, etc. Alexandra Levina. This is still the main working version in the criminal case of the latter’s murder, which, of course, no one will even come close to developing. In St. Petersburg there are many topics that local detectives will not even approach.
Levin stated that he himself did not know about the fakes, promised to look into it and if everything turned out to be true, then to compensate for the damage. However, then he simply fled from the Russian Federation. On January 17, 2013, Levin flew from Pulkovo-2 on AIR FRANCE flight KL 1396 to Amsterdam. No one saw him again.
In favor of the main version, the investigation has materials from wiretaps of Alexander Levin’s entourage, which discussed the death of the antiquarian even 10 years later. They said that “the whole topic” with the murder of the antique dealer “stretches” from the very top from Moscow. A buyer of rarities named Smirnov, who was very close to Lenin, spoke about this. Soon after recording Smirnov’s revelations, he was found dead (it is believed that he was killed).
To be continued…
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