Putin's alleged ally Ilya Traber arrested in Moscow over 2020 murder of Vyborg's criminal kingpin

Moscow courts have remanded Ilya Traber, owner of the Ust-Luga oil port and a figure long associated with Vladimir Putin from their 1990s St. Petersburg circles, into pre-trial detention in connection with the 2020 murder of Vyborg entrepreneur and municipal deputy Alexander Petrov. Traber, known by the nickname "The Antique Dealer," also faces illegal weapons charges. Searches were simultaneously conducted at the home of Gennady Petrov, a leader of the Tambov-Malyshev organised crime group.

Moscow authorities have placed Ilya Traber, the owner of a major oil port in Ust-Luga and a prominent figure from St. Petersburg's criminal underworld of the 1990s, under pre-trial arrest. He is charged in connection with the 2020 killing of Alexander Petrov, the so-called "master of Vyborg", as well as illegal firearms possession.

A "Friend of Putin" Behind Bars

Traber, a St. Petersburg native widely known by the alias "The Antique Dealer," built his fortune trading art and antiques during the Soviet collapse before expanding into port infrastructure. Investigators simultaneously carried out searches at the residence of Gennady Petrov, a leader of the Tambov-Malyshev organised crime group and a namesake but no relation to the murder victim.

The arrest marks a remarkable turn for a man who, according to Russian crime journalists, maintained significant influence in St. Petersburg until at least 2026 and had a long personal acquaintance with Vladimir Putin dating from their shared 1990s milieu. Traber was previously acquitted in a Spanish organised crime trial in which intercepted conversations allegedly referred to a "tsar", widely interpreted as a reference to Putin.

Who Was Alexander Petrov?

Alexander Petrov, shot dead in 2020, was described by those who knew him as a towering local figure whose official title, municipal deputy of Vyborg, barely scratched the surface of his real status. Evgeny Vyshenkov, deputy editor-in-chief of the St. Petersburg outlet Fontanka and a veteran crime journalist, attended Petrov's funeral and later recalled the scene vividly.

«He held Vyborg,» an elderly local woman told Vyshenkov outside the church during the funeral service, using a word, he noted, that hadn't been common since the 1950s. The phrase, he argued, captured Petrov's role more precisely than any official biography.

Petrov's roots were in sport. In the 1980s he competed as a boxer in Leningrad's open championship at 67 kilograms, representing the Vyborg club "Trud." By June 1985, according to Vyshenkov, Petrov had already established dominance in Vyborg by leading roughly 80 boxers in a confrontation that drove out established criminal elements, a moment he described as the real beginning of Petrov's rise.

The Making of St. Petersburg's 1990s Underworld

Vyshenkov offered a broader analysis of how figures like Petrov and Traber emerged. In his account, Soviet-era athletes, particularly boxers and wrestlers, found themselves uniquely positioned as the USSR disintegrated. They had physical discipline and tight networks, but no economic prospects. Standing guard at restaurants and clubs, they effectively filled a vacuum left by a collapsing state.

«At the end of the 1980s, athletes became a kind of network where everyone knew each other,» Vyshenkov explained, describing how this community, which they called "the movement", gradually assumed quasi-governmental functions: enforcing informal contracts, settling disputes, and setting rules of commerce in the absence of functioning institutions.

Traber, older and better educated than most in this milieu, leveraged his antique trade to build border connections with Vyborg, strategically located near Finland, and Petrov was instrumental in facilitating that early cross-border business. The two later diverged as Traber's empire grew far beyond Vyborg's scale.

A Rift and a Murder

By the mid-2000s, according to Vyshenkov, a quiet estrangement had developed between the two men. Traber's assets had grown to include major ports and substantial industrial holdings, while Petrov remained anchored in Vyborg, investing in local sports clubs, housing services, and seasonal festivals, all while staying the undisputed force in the city.

Vyshenkov noted a telling detail from October 14th, 2020, weeks before Petrov's death, when he spotted Petrov in St. Petersburg surrounded by five armed bodyguards and two armed drivers across two vehicles. In Vyborg, by contrast, Petrov had always moved alone, treating the city as his home. «He was an adult man. He decided,» Vyshenkov said, declining to draw explicit conclusions.

The murder occurred later that year. It has taken until 2026 for a formal arrest to be made, with Traber now the central suspect.