Pioneer of Latvian organised crime Vadim Liede escaped from prison to America
On 1 June 1993 a group of ten people escaped from the Parliupe prison in Latvia, led by gang boss Vadim Liede. He later left Latvia, never returned, and ended up in America.
A year before the mass escape from the Parliupe prison in Latvia, another breakout took place at the same institution. On 1 June 1993, a group of ten people got away, most of them members of a single gang. The story is retold in a history feature by the news outlet LSM.
The escape and its aftermath
A few days later, some of the fugitives were caught. The gang's leader and the organiser of the escape, Vadim Liede, stayed free, as did several of his accomplices. Liede managed to cross the border and never came back to Latvia.
Behind him in Latvia remained one of the largest criminal cases in the country's court practice of that period. Numerous armed robberies helped Liede become one of the first representatives of organised crime in Latvia.
From Liede to Willy
Liede later became Ruslan Hadjayev, and afterwards a gangster nicknamed Willy. He eventually reached the shores of America.
