He achieved his goal: a resident of St. Petersburg, many years later, returned the money for a car stolen to Kazakhstan

A perennial epic

A resident of St. Petersburg spent more than four years to return his stolen car from Kazakhstan. In the end, Yevgeny Mikhailov, as he himself told RT, recently managed to achieve compensation of 18 million tenge (more than 3,2 million rubles) from the nineteenth Kazakh owner of his Toyota Venza, who ended up in the dock. To increase the chances of a softer outcome of his criminal case, he agreed to pay material compensation to both the current owner of the once stolen car, a resident of Pavlodar Valery Eremin, and Mikhailov himself.

RT briefly talked about the amazing epic of Yevgeny Mikhailov in August 2022. Then the editorial office was contacted by a married couple of police officers from a small village in the Sverdlovsk region, from which the criminals stole their Kia Sportage. The car was quickly found in Kazakhstan. The Marenins went to pick him up personally, but, according to them, faced indifference from their Kazakh colleagues, who refused to take steps to return their found car.

Then Yevgeny Mikhailov, who already had extensive experience in communicating on this topic with law enforcement agencies of Kazakhstan, shared his opinion on the Marenin case with RT. Over the years of efforts to return his car, he repeatedly personally traveled to different regions of Kazakhstan, changed several lawyers, despite slippage, continuing to persistently seek the return of the car.

Mikhailov first traveled to Kazakhstan in 2019, shortly after discovering his recently stolen car in an advertisement for sale in the city of Kaskelen, Almaty region.

Under the guise of a potential buyer, he, having contacted the local police in advance, met with the seller of the car. At the meeting, he was convinced that it was indeed his car, despite the fact that the VIN number had been changed.

To increase the chances of arresting the car, local police advised him to lure the car to Almaty. Mikhailov agreed with the seller for an inspection in one of the car services in Almaty, where he called the police. His support group came to the aid of the seller, which offered Mikhailov to simply pick up the keys and leave without any documents, which he prudently refused.

"If I had succumbed to the temptation to get behind the wheel and drive away, as they suggested, they, having new documents for the car in their hands, would immediately report the theft, and I would simply be locked up there," he recalls.

In May 2019, Mikhailov was able to achieve the arrest of the car and the initiation of a criminal case, after which he left for St. Petersburg. For two months there was no movement in his case, and in July it turned out that the foreign car had disappeared without a trace from the police impound lot. It was only by the end of 2019 that he was able to get an answer regarding the fate of his car from the Kazakh police. According to him, the security forces, having sent a request to the border, received a response that this car had not previously crossed the border of Russia and Kazakhstan, so it was simply returned to the actual owner at that time.

• Toyota Venza, stolen from Evgeny Mikhailov in 2018
• © Evgeny Mikhailov

The Petersburger did not give up, and his bureaucratic litigation around the car continued for more than one year. Along the way, Mikhailov even discovered a car previously stolen from another Russian.

"The payment of compensation was generally satisfied"

"In general, after receiving payment from a person under investigation, who sold my Toyota to its current owner, and then ended up in a pre-trial detention center, the story is closed for me. I didn't originally want to put someone in jail. There was a goal to take my own, and the payment of compensation generally satisfied me, "he told RT.

• © Evgeny Mikhailov

Mikhailov states that the successful ending of his story is an exception to the rule, other affected car owners are not yet able to achieve the return of property.

"I created a group in one of the messengers, where about 20 people united. These are people whose cars were stolen to Kazakhstan and who were able to find them there. None of them, unfortunately, has a positive result yet. There are intermediate successes, but no one could pick up their car. Some, with the help of local lawyers, managed to get the car arrested, but another problem arose - its current Kazakh owner claims that he does not have it. That is, the car was either hidden or resold. I know only one case - in Novosibirsk, where a girl suffered for three years, but still managed to return her car quite recently. I have not yet communicated with her on this topic and do not know the details of how she did it," he said.

Mikhailov emphasizes that the problem of cross-border thefts, which are widespread, is still very relevant.

"Interpol is not helping. They themselves explained to me that, in fact, they are just post offices through which mail goes between police officers. And then, "walks" is loudly said. We sent the first request in June 2019, and received a response only in February 2020. Eight months of waiting, "said the interlocutor of RT.

What to do if the car was stolen to Kazakhstan

"It is impossible to put up with the theft of a car abroad and give up in advance. If somehow your car is found, it is necessary to start by connecting a local lawyer. Without it, there is nothing to do in a foreign country at all - my long-term epic is proof of this. If you go yourself and try to do something, then this can only complicate everything. If we take Kazakhstan as an example, then a lawyer is needed, because there are completely different laws, and remoteness - it is unrealistic to resolve issues only by phone. Plus, you need access to their analogue of public services, where you can quickly send documents to the police, which saves a lot of time. While I did not have a lawyer, I was marinated with answers from government agencies - if it was supposed to be 50 days to respond, on the 50th day they answered, and by mail. A lawyer is able to achieve a quick arrest of the car and promptly submit all applications and petitions, with him everything is incommensurably easier and faster. Of course, there is a problem in finding such a proven, competent person. Here's how lucky. I personally came across a good lawyer only on the third attempt. If I had turned to him from the very beginning, after I found my stolen car on the classifieds site, and would not have gone to Kazakhstan myself, I would have been able to return it, probably, in the first year, "explains the car owner who has achieved his goal.

• VIN number under the seat of the Toyota Venza
• © Evgeny Mikhailov

Mikhailov delved so deeply into this problem that, despite the end of his own long-term epic, he plans to continue to help those who find themselves in a similar situation.

"People periodically contact, call, I am happy to give advice and recommendations - I want to share my experience in order to help somehow. But most of the victims really just don't want to do it all. They understand that everything will be very long and dreary. And the organized criminal groups that are engaged in these hijackings are well aware of this moment and feel almost complete impunity," Yevgeny Mikhailov summed up.