A Russian judge has been found dead after falling from a high window in Moscow.
Natalia Larina, 50, had a reputation for imposing punishments on enemies of the Moscow authorities and supporting Russia’s FSB secret services, but she was better known for her high-profile criminal cases.
An investigation into the cause of his death has been launched near his apartment block on 1. Mashinostroeniya Street in the Russian capital.
Larina reportedly had a minor daughter.
Investigators are understood to be testing a theory contained in local reports which suggested she had lost a large sum of money to “phone scammers”.
Natalia Larina (pictured), 50, had a reputation for punishing enemies of the Moscow authorities and supporting the FSB secret services, but she was better known for high-profile criminal cases.
Shortly before her death, she reportedly reported to police that scammers convinced her that her bank account was threatened by people who wanted to send her funds to help the Ukrainian armed forces.
He transferred his cash, said to be one million rubles (around £8,800) to another account, and in doing so fell victim to a scam.
Many Russians have fallen for this type of fraud in recent months.
Sources say she became upset that she was “duped” and left a note.
However, so far there is no official confirmation of this version of events.
Larina was a criminal judge for more than 15 years and her death came months after she suddenly left the Tagansky court.
He had acted as a judge in several high-profile fraud cases.
In 2015, he took into custody the artist Pyotr Pavlensky, who set fire to a door of the FSB building on Lubyanka Square as part of a political protest.
He had previously passed sentence against the hard-line National Bolsheviks.
And in 2011, Larina convicted the Ministry of Transport official Vladimir Makarov, accused of sexually abusing her daughter.
Larina is not the only high-ranking Russian official whose death by falling out of a window has raised suspicions since the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
In December 2023, 46-year-old Vladimir Egorov, a member of the Tobolsk City Duma, fell from a third-floor window in the city to his death.
Larina is not the only high-ranking Russian official whose death by falling out of a window has raised suspicions since the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. In December 2023, 46-year-old Vladimir Egorov (pictured) fell from a third-story window to his death.
In June 2023, the glamorous vice president of a Russian bank, 28-year-old Kristina Baikova, reportedly fell to her death from the window of her Moscow apartment.
In February 2023, senior Russian defense official Marina Yankina, 58, was found dead after falling 50 meters from the window of an apartment block.
He was a member of Vladimir Putin’s ruling United Russia party and his body was found in the yard of his home.
In June of that same year, the glamorous vice president of a Russian bank allegedly fell to her death from the window of her Moscow apartment.
Kristina Baikova, 28 years old, he allegedly fell from his apartment on the 11th floor of Khodynsky Boulevard during the early hours of the morning. He died instantly at the scene.
In February, a senior Russian defense official was found dead after falling 50 meters from the window of an apartment block. Marina Yankina, 58, was discovered by a passer-by at the entrance to a house on Zamshina Street in St. Petersburg.
He is believed to have fallen from the 16th floor to his death.
Furthermore, in December 2022, billionaire Pavel Antov, who had criticized Putin’s war in Ukraine, was found dead after a mysterious fall from a hotel in India.
Antov, also from the main pro-Putin party, United Russia, had been on a trip to celebrate his upcoming 66th birthday when he mysteriously died.
And before that, in September 2022, the president of a Russian oil company who was critical of Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine was found dead under suspicious circumstances after jumping from the sixth-floor window of a Moscow hospital.
Ravil Maganov, 67, president of Lukoil, died instantly after falling from a window on the sixth floor of Moscow’s Central Clinical Hospital.
In December 2022, Pavel Antov, Russia’s “highest-earning elected politician” who had criticized Putin’s war in Ukraine, was found dead after a mysterious fall from a hotel in India.
Ravil Maganov, 67 (pictured with Putin after receiving a medal), president of the Russian oil giant Lukoil, died instantly after falling from a window on the sixth floor of Moscow’s Central Clinical Hospital in September 2022.
Russian state media quickly called his death a suicide, but police sources said there was no suicide note and there were no CCTV cameras in the section of the building where Maganov fell.
Lukoil was one of the few major Russian companies to call for an end to fighting in Ukraine after Moscow’s invasion.
In a statement in the days after the invasion, Lukoil’s board of directors called for an “immediate” end to the fighting, expressing solidarity with those affected by the “tragedy” of Russia’s so-called special military operation in Ukraine.
Seven months later, Maganov was found dead after falling from a hospital window.
