A Grand Theft Auto Gang Is Terrorizing Moscow

Police say the killers have murdered at least 14 people on the roads around the Russian capital since May

The gang’s tactics are as simple as they are brutal, the police say.
Late at night, the killers place metal spikes on a quiet road near Moscow, usually close to the woodlands on the M4 highway, which links the Russian capital to the country’s south. They then retreat to the nearby shadows, weapons in hand, and wait for a vehicle to drive over the spikes, causing a puncture. When the driver gets out, the gang moves forward, shooting 9 mm handguns with eerie precision. The gunmen—there are believed to be three of them—then flee the scene, usually leaving any valuables that may be in the vehicle untouched.

A screenshot of Grand Theft Auto V. The Russian media has named the gang after the GTA games.

Rockstar Games

Since May, when an elderly couple was gunned down in a similarly cold-blooded fashion, this group of thugs has killed at least 14 people on the roads around Moscow, police say. The Russian media has dubbed them the “GTA gang,” a reference to the violent Grand Theft Auto video games.
Using the testimony of survivors, police have drawn up identikit portraits of the suspected gang members. They have, however, been unable to come up with a motive. All this has led to some intense speculation. Russia’s Life News website, a lurid tabloid with ties to the security services, has suggested the gang may be a group of Satanists, carrying out ritual murders. The evidence: a leaked police report stating that the metal spikes used to puncture the victims’ tires are actually black crosses.

The killers place these metal spikes on the road to puncture victims' tires.

“This is some form of homegrown Satanism,” says Vladimr Yakhnenko, a lecturer at Moscow State University. “The form of the spikes is clearly no coincidence. They are indicating their rejection of society.”
Vladimir Zhirinovsky, an ultranationalist Russian politician, suspects the murderers work for the “Ukrainian security forces” and are carrying out the attacks “as revenge” for Russia’s annexation of Crimea. Most analysts, however, have discredited this theory.
Others have decided not to waste time searching for the logic to these apparently senseless killings. In mid-August, Erik Davidich, “the father of Russian street racing,” launched a vigilante effort to stop this band of murderers. Davidich now leads a team of 150 men—a combination of street racers and volunteers, many of whom are legally armed—who patrol the roads around Moscow at night. They may not have found the killers, but since they began their patrols, there hasn’t been a single confirmed kill by the GTA gang.

Street racer Erik Davidich has launched a vigilante effort to stop the killers. 
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Davidich, however, isn’t satisfied. “These aren’t just some crazies,” he says. ”They are far too well organized and professional for that. In one case, three shooters simultaneously fired from around 10 meters [32 feet] away straight into the head of a driver. In the dark. These guys are very serious.”
Motorists also remain on guard. “If I get a puncture on an empty stretch of road, I keep going until the next garage,” says Vadim, a Moscow taxi driver, who asked I not use his last name. “We are dealing with some wild people here. One or two killings could be the work of hit men. But 14 deaths? These guys need to be taken out—and soon.”