When, How 5 Were Killed Is a Mystery

Authorities believed at least one of four people allegedly kidnapped by an Eastern European mob was still alive almost a month after his abduction, his family said Friday.

Nick Kharabadze’s weighted body was fished from the depths of a Calaveras County reservoir in Northern California this week, along with those of the other three victims of an alleged kidnapping-for-ransom plot.

The body of a fifth victim was pulled from the same lake in October.

Kharabadze and business partner George Safiev vanished Jan. 20, six weeks after a bookkeeper for their fledgling film production company, Rita Pekler, disappeared.

But as late as Feb. 15, Kharabadze’s relatives said, they were given cause for hope.

“I was told [by the FBI] that they identified all the kidnappers, and next week it’d be wrapped up and Nick was going to come home,” said Mat Shatz, Kharabadze’s stepfather.

FBI investigators say the victims were kidnapped by a crime ring operating in the San Fernando Valley, with links to Russia and the United Arab Emirates.

U.S. Atty. John Gordon in Los Angeles said the victims were held for ransom and then killed, their bodies thrown from bridges into remote New Melones Lake.

The first body to surface was that of Myer Muscatel, a Sherman Oaks real estate developer, found in October floating with his hands bound and a bag over his head.

This week, the bodies of Kharabadze, Safiev and Pekler were recovered from the lake bottom, along with that of Alexander Umansky, owner of a small North Hollywood electronics business.

Six suspects are in federal custody and a seventh is being sought. So far, none has been charged with murder. The kidnapping charges pertain only to the abductions of Safiev and Umansky.

“We’re continuing the investigation,” said Special Agent Matthew McLaughlin, spokesman for the FBI’s Los Angeles office. “We’re doing some things that are fairly sensitive right now.”

More charges may follow in the next two weeks, he added.

Authorities have left many questions unanswered about the plot, including where and how the victims were killed. The abductions apparently took place over a three-month period ending in January.

For the families of the missing--some of whom received phone calls from their terrified loved ones saying they needed money fast--the weeks that followed were a blur of fleeting hope and deepening dread.

Nancy Shapiro Muscatel, who married her longtime boyfriend just a month before he disappeared in October, said authorities did not inform her that they had made any arrests. The first inkling she had of her husband’s fate, she said, came March 11, when she was notified that Muscatel’s body had been identified after five months in a Central Valley morgue.

“The day after he disappeared, the [Los Angeles] police came to see me,” she said. “They said, ‘Ma’am, we have seen many cases like this. A lot of men have this midlife crisis.’

“We could never really get them to believe it was something more than that,” she said. “In my estimation, they did not do enough.”

The Los Angeles Police Department declined to comment on her accusation.

Kharabadze’s family did not go to police right away. For four days after he vanished, the family got troubling phone calls from him, saying he was in Las Vegas and would be home soon.

In the last message left on an answering machine, Kharabadze sounded desperate. He told his mother he loved her.

It was then that the family contacted Los Angeles police and later hired a private investigator as well.

The FBI is still combing through the web of relationships among the victims and their alleged abductors.

It remains unclear, for example, whether Muscatel or Umansky had any ties to the other victims or each other.

Muscatel’s wife said she did not recognize the names of any of the other victims or the suspects.

Olga Preiss, who worked for Safiev, said she knew of no links to Muscatel or Umansky.

Pekler’s colleagues at her bookkeeping business said they knew of no connections either.

Also unknown is how the kidnappers picked their targets--although one suspect, Petro “Peter” Krylov, 29, of West Hollywood, had worked for Umansky before being fired last year.

The others in federal custody are Iouri Mikhel, 36, of Sherman Oaks; Jurijus Kadamovas, 35, of Encino; Ainar Altmanis; and two men arrested in the United Arab Emirates--Andrei Agueev and Andrei Liapine--who are charged with helping to transfer ransom money paid for Umansky. All six suspects have pleaded not guilty.

Mikhel and Kadamovas own an upscale, by-appointment-only aquarium store on Ventura Boulevard in Sherman Oaks.

Neighboring merchants described the pair as jet-setting businessmen who tooled around in black luxury cars. But some kept their distance from the shop, recalling an incident in which “tough-looking Russian guys” shattered a storefront window.

Michael Chernykh was working inside the store Friday, cleaning fish tanks to help out Kadamovas’ wife. He said he was Kadamovas’ business partner, creating elaborate saltwater aquariums with coral sculptures, until Kadamovas dropped him three years ago to team up with an investor.

Chernykh said he was startled by his friend’s arrest.

“That’s a shock to me,” he said.

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Times staff writers Karima A. Haynes, Greg Krikorian, Jessica Garrison and Tony Perry contributed to this report.