Hired fighter of a private company Wagner previously was a member of a criminal gang and tortured his victims with boiling water, according to the Rotunda channel in the Telegram application, Novaya Gazeta Europe writes.

According to this media, in one of the Russia Today reports, Anton Ionov was among a group of former prisoners of war who returned from the war in Ukraine in early January 2023. According to the Rotunda investigation, Ionov, nicknamed “Siapa”, was a former member of the so-called “Motinskaya” gang. The gang in question from 2008 to 2015 was engaged in extortion, robbery and drug trafficking in some areas of the Leningrad region.

The gang members were arrested in December 2015. Ionin was then 27 years old. Journalists then wrote that Ionin was the right hand of the Motinsky leader Oleg Matfeev.

The gang was suspected of murdering crime boss Sergeyev and extorting 1.5 million rubles from the owner of the workshop, Dmitry Afonin. Ionin and his accomplices tortured Afonin with hot water and then took away his Porsche Cayenne.

In July 2018, the court sentenced Ionin to 11 years in prison.

The video, in which Anton Ionov now appears as a Wagner fighter, was published on November 30 by the Voenkor Yarem Telegram channel. The name “Siapa” was written on the pockets of his trousers, signifying that he used his old nickname on his forehead.

^{Source: APE-OIE, Novaya Gazeta}