In Yekaterinburg, a repeat offender on the run pawned two stolen smartphones in two days.

      In Yekaterinburg, investigators from the Transport Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia for the Ural Federal District are preparing to submit to the court for substantive consideration a criminal case against a recidivist who committed robbery and theft at the railway station of the Ural capital with a one-day interval in March of this year.

      A report from a 49-year-old shift worker, a resident of the Chelyabinsk region, was received by the duty unit of the Leningrad Railway Police at the Yekaterinburg-Passenger station on March 16, 2026. The victim reported that while waiting for a train, he met a man at the station and began drinking alcohol with his new acquaintance. At some point, the freshly baked friend asked for his phone, and after being refused, forcibly took the device and fled. The victim assessed the damage at 7,500 rubles.

      Criminal investigation officers checked the nearest pawn shops and found the stolen mobile phone in one of them. The phone was returned to its rightful owner. The operatives also reviewed footage from surveillance cameras and, on hot trails, detained the suspect—a 31-year-old resident of the city of Artemovsky.

      The citizen, who had previously been convicted of theft and assault, confessed to the crime. He explained that he arrived in Yekaterinburg to find work. He sold the stolen phone to a pawn shop for a symbolic 1,000 rubles, which he later spent on drinks.

      A criminal case was initiated against the detainee under Article 161 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, and the next day he was released on a signed undertaking not to leave.

      On the evening of the same day, the duty unit of the Leningrad Railway Police received information from colleagues in Kurgan, who had taken a statement from a 39-year-old resident of Nizhny Tagil, who reported that before her train trip from Yekaterinburg to Kurgan, she left her smartphone worth 100,000 rubles in a café at the station. By the time she discovered the phone was missing, boarding had already been announced, and the Yekaterinburg resident decided to report it to the police upon her arrival in Kurgan.

      The Leningrad Railway Police found out that the forgotten phone in the café was taken by the same citizen they had worked with just a few hours earlier. By that time, the one released on a signed undertaking not to leave had already bought tickets and left for Kamensk-Uralsky.

      He was detained the next day based on a description. The smartphone stolen from the woman was seized from the pawn shop. The detainee had sold it for 5,000 rubles, just like the first time, spending it on drinks and snacks.

      A criminal case was initiated under paragraph "b" of part 2 of Article 158 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. This time, the recidivist was placed in custody.

      Recall that in February of this year, the Krasnogorsk District Court of Kamensk-Uralsky sentenced Viktor Petrichenko, who killed 7 people, including two children, on New Year's Eve in 1993. The young ghoul ended up in someone else's apartment with the family's guests, whom he had met at the Yekaterinburg railway station. He arrived in the Ural capital for criminal earnings, and criminal luck came to him—after a brief conversation, he was invited to celebrate the New Year together.