An 81-year-old Russian woman with ties to the criminal underworld of Krasnodar was recently arrested for ordering the killing of a criminal investigations detective.

Lyudmila Ryabykh is not your average grandmother. Not only does the 81-year-old have a strong connection to members of Krasnodar’s organized crime, but she once threatened to kill a paramedic with a sawed-off shotgun and she recently placed a hit on a local detective that apparently rubbed her the wrong way. The pensioner was caught red-handed after ordering the killing of an officer from the Krasnodar police department and paying part of the reward for proof of his death. Unfortunately for her, Ryabykh didn’t know that her criminal associates had revealed her plan to the authorities, and she now risks spending the rest of her days behind bars.

According to the Russian newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda, Lyudmila Ryabykh contacted a number of acquaintances from her circle of former prison inmates, offering them one million Russian rubles ($11,000) for the killing of a Krasnodar criminal investigations detective. The reason for wanting the man dead remains a mystery, but authorities suspect that the officer’s investigative work threatened the 81-year-old woman in some way.

The ruthless grandmother told her killer buddies where the police detective lived and even drew up a map of directions to his house, advising them that this was the best place to ambush and kill him. She never expected her contacts to rat her out to the police, but that was exactly what happened. As soon as they learned about Lyudmila Ryabykh’s intentions, police officers decided to let her think that everything was going according to plan, in order to build a stronger case against her.

The targeted detective agreed to play dead, with blood makeup around his neck, to make it look like someone had slit his throat. Photos of the dead police officers were then provided to the contract killers, as proof for their employer. Only Lyudmila required more convincing. After seeing the photos, she went to the police station where the detective had worked to ask about him, only authorities had expected her to snoop around, and she was told that the police officer had been murdered.

The day after confirming the death of the snooping detective, Lyudmila Ryabykh paid 25,000 rubles to the contract killers and was arrested shortly after. Upon searching her home, police officers found an impressive arsenal of firearms, ammunition, hatchets, and knives.

 

The 81-year-old woman is currently being held in a pre-detention center until being formally charged for her crimes.