MOSCOW, May 22 (RAPSI) – A leader of a Russian organized crime group suspected of over 20 murders has been arrested in Spain, Kommersant newspaper writes.

In the late 1990s, Dmitry Zavyalov and two of his accomplices created a gang to assume control of the Pushkino District in the Moscow Region. They were involved in racketeering, hostile takeovers and contract murders.

The other gangsters in the district were nonplused. According to the newspaper, one of Zavyalov’s accomplices, Mikhail Prutov, was killed in Moscow in 2002 following a conflict with another organized crime group. That crime was followed by the murder of dozens of criminal leaders and businessmen. Zavyalov’s accomplice Dmitry Lesnyakov was sentenced to 25 years in prison.

Zavyalov, 28, was living in Spain on a fake Belgian passport. He was arrested during a routine border check in La Jonquera, a municipality in Catalonia on the border with France. He was taken to a police station where his true identity was established, along with an alert indicating that he was armed and dangerous.

“Zavyalov was arrested because the Spanish police have many informants in the semi-criminal part of the Russian diaspora,” Kommersant writes. “One of the agents alerted the police about Zavyalov’s true identity. Zavyalov remains in custody pending an extradition hearing.”

The newspaper writes that the Spanish authorities had notified Russia’s Prosecutor General’s Office about Zavyalov’s arrest.