A Russian judge has been found dead after falling from a high window in Moscow.
Natalia Larina, 50, had a reputation for handing down punishments to foes of the Moscow authorities and in support of Russia‘s FSB secret services, but was more known for prominent criminal cases.
An investigation has been launched into the cause of her death close to her apartment block on 1st Mashinostroeniya Street in the Russian capital.
Larina had an underage daughter, according to reports.
Investigators are understood to be checking one theory in local reports which suggested she had lost a large sum of money to ‘telephone scammers’.
Natalia Larina (pictured), 50, had a reputation for handing down punishments to foes of the Moscow authorities and in support of the FSB secret services, but was more known for prominent criminal cases
Shortly before her death, she allegedly reported to police that fraudsters convinced her that her bank account was under threat from people seeking to send her funds to help the armed forces of Ukraine.
She transferred her cash – said to be one million rubles (around £8,800) to another account, and in doing so became victim of a scam.
Many Russians have fallen for this type of fraud in recent months.
Sources say she became upset that she was ‘deceived’, and left a note.
However, there is no official confirmation so far of this version of events.
Larina was a criminal judge for more than 15 years, and her death came months after she suddenly quit the Tagansky Court.
She had acted as a judge in various high profile fraud cases.
In 2015, she remanded in custody artist Pyotr Pavlensky who set fire to a door of the FSB building in Lubyanka Square in a political protest.
Earlier she gave a judgement against the hardline National Bolsheviks.
And in 2011, Larina sentenced Ministry of Transport official Vladimir Makarov, accused of sexually abusing his daughter.
Larina is not the only high-ranking Russian official whose death from falling out of a window has aroused suspicion since the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
In December 2023, Vladimir Egorov, 46 – the Tobolsk City Duma – dropped to his death from a third-floor window in the city.
Larina is not the only high-ranking Russian official whose death from falling out of a window has aroused suspicion since the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. In December 2023, Vladimir Egorov, 46 (pictured) dropped to his death from a third-floor window
In June 2023, the glamorous vice-president of a Russian bank, Kristina Baikova, 28, reportedly plunged to her death after falling from the window of her Moscow apartment
In February 2023, top Russian defence official Marina Yankina, 58, was found dead after falling 160ft from a tower block window
He was a member of Vladimir Putin‘s ruling United Russia party, and his corpse was found in the yard of his house.
In June that same year, the glamorous vice-president of a Russian bank reportedly plunged to her death after falling from the window of her Moscow apartment.
Kristina Baikova, 28, allegedly fell from her 11th floor apartment on the Khodynsky Boulevard in the early hours. She died instantly at the scene.
In February, a top Russian defence official was found dead after plunging 160ft from a tower block window. Marina Yankina , 58, was discovered by a passerby at the entrance of a house on Zamshina Street in St Petersburg.
She is believed to have fallen from the 16th floor to her death.
Furthermore, in December 2022, multi-millionaire Pavel Antov , who had criticised 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 died mysteriously.
And before that, in September 2022, the chairman of a Russian oil company that criticised Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine was found dead in suspicious circumstances after he plunged from a sixth floor window at a Moscow hospital.
Ravil Maganov, 67, chairman of Lukoil, died on the spot after falling from a window on the sixth floor of the Central Clinical Hospital in Moscow.
In December 2022, Pavel Antov, Russia’s ‘highest-earning elected politician’ who had criticised 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) chairman of Russian oil giant Lukoil, died on the spot after falling from a window on the sixth floor of the Central Clinical Hospital in Moscow in September 2022
Russian state media quickly said his death was a suicide, but law enforcement sources said there was no suicide note and there were no CCTV cameras on the section of the building where Maganov fell.
Lukoil was one of the few major Russian companies to call for the end of fighting in Ukraine after Moscow invaded.
In a statement in the days after the invasion, the Lukoil board called for an ‘immediate’ end to the fighting, expressing its sympathy to 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 the hospital window.