Thief Ate His Passport on Plane to Avoid Deportation

The Ukrainian police failed to deport the thief Avtandil Kobeshavidze, known as Avto Kopala, as he ate his passport, according to Detective-Info.

On July 10, the criminal authority was supposed to be deported to Georgia instead of Russia, where he has been wanted since 2019. Kobeshavidze was the first to board the plane, which was scheduled to take off from Boryspil to Batumi at 07:30 local time. However, immediately after landing, he consumed his passport.

While law enforcement officials were deciding what to do, the remaining passengers were not allowed to board the plane. They were kept in the waiting area for 24 hours without any explanation for the flight delay. The passengers were not provided with hotel accommodations, water, or food.

As for Avto Kopala, he was unable to be deported due to the eaten document. The border guards were unable to return him to Ukraine without a passport, nor could they send him to Georgia on another flight.

On July 8, 2021, a Ukrainian court decided to release him into house arrest, as it found no evidence in the case materials that Kobeshavidze held the status of a thief in law. It has been revealed that the criminal authority had been released from the pretrial detention center thanks to a bribe of $300,000 given to Ukrainian special services by representatives of the criminal world.

Avto Kopala was wanted in Russia under Article 210.1 of the Russian Criminal Code (“The acquisition of the highest rank in the criminal hierarchy”) after being arrested in Odesa in the spring of 2020. Kobeshavidze was born in 1955 in Georgia and gained the status of a thief in law nearly half a century ago. He has seven convictions for theft, vagrancy, resisting law enforcement, fraud, and robbery. He had spent his last 12-year term in the Kurgan region. Kobeshavidze is considered one of the most authoritative thieves in law in Georgia. He was released in 2016.