Contract killings and kidnappings – How Avtandil Khurtsidze became one of the most rampant criminals in boxing history – Boxing News Online

Georgian middleweight Avtandil Khurtsidze arrived in the UK in 2017, he became an instant cult icon. “I’m crazy man,” he said, with his wild grin cracking a pumice-like complexion. “I’m crazy black man. I’m Brooklyn man. I’m Russian man. I’m Ukrainian man. I’m Georgian man. I’m a very beautiful man, man.”

But just a month before his scheduled bout with then-WBO middleweight champion Billy Joe Saunders, Khurtsidze was arrested by the FBI under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organisations (RICO) Act and, after being found guilty in June 2018, faced up to 40 years in prison before a 10-year sentence was enforced.  But how did Georgia’s greatest boxer become the chief enforcer to Razhden Shulaia, one of post-Soviet Russia’s most powerful crime lords and a key member in the most prolific criminal syndicate in the US, accused of everything from contract killings and kidnappings to the snatching of cigarettes and chocolate?