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- Russian businessman Vladimir Marugov was killed by a crossbow in the sauna of his own estate, the BBC reports.
- Marugov, who owns two major sausages factories and is known as the “Sausage King,” was sitting at an outdoor sauna with his partner when two masked assailants struck.
- The assailants reportedly demanded money from Marugov; his body was later found with a crossbow next to it. His partner was able to escape through a window and contact authorities from a neighbor’s house.
- The BBC referred to Marugov as an “oligarch,” a term synonymous with modern Russia’s extremely wealthy, and increasingly with those who meet sudden and deadly ends.
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A Russian businessman known as the “Sausage King” was killed with a crossbow at his countryside estate on Monday, according to The Moscow Times.
Vladimir Marugov and his partner were sitting in an outdoor sauna when, according to the BBC, two masked people attacked. They reportedly demanded money from Marugov, who owned the “Meat Empire” and “Ozyorsky” sausage factories.
The woman was able to successfully escape through the window and alert authorities from a neighbor’s house, but not Marugov; his body was reportedly found with a crossbow next to it.
Per the BBC, Russia’s Investigative Committee said the attack occurred early in the morning at Marugov’s estate 25 miles outside of Moscow.
The assailants fled the scene in a getaway car, which was later discovered in Istra, a town outside of Moscow. A male suspect has reportedly been detained by police.
The Moscow Times reports that Marugov has been embroiled in a "property rights conflict" with ex-wife Tatyana Marugova since 2019; the duo had divorced about five years earlier.
The BBC identified Muragov as an "oligarch," a term that in post-Soviet Russia came to refer to the new generation of billionaires who emerged amid the sudden privatisations of major industries during the 1990s. Many oligarchs, according to Russian President Vladimir Putin, "use their proximity to the authorities to receive super profits," but it is unclear if Muragov and his sausage business have any such connections.
In addition, many of Russia's oligarchs have met with grisly ends in recent years, such as Boris Berezovsky in 2013, Nikolai Glushkov in 2018, and just last year, Dmitry Obretskiy. Also last year, in August, Marugov's son Alexander was killed in a motorcycle accident.
The rich have more generally been on edge about security concerns in recent years. As Business Insider's Hillary Hoffower reported, some ultrawealthy individuals started prioritizing safety over flashiness and toned down displays of wealth.
"Now, particularly with personal information readily available via internet and social-media sources, people are using what was once private information to learn where clients live — or information about their activities in order to seek personal encounters with them," Gary Howlin, the senior vice president of executive protection company Gavin de Becker & Associates, told Hoffower.
And, as Business Insider's Katie Warren reported in 2018, some super rich people had begun paying up to $500,000 for luxury panic rooms.