Akhat Khafizovich Bragin (1953-15 October 1995) was a Ukrainian Tatar businessman and Mafia boss who was President of FC Shakhtar Donetsk.
Biography[]
Akhat Khafizovich Bragin was born in Donetsk, Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union in 1953 to a family of Tatars, and he boxed as a youth. He worked as a butcher before getting involved in the business world during perestroika, becoming a store director and becoming rich from the foreign exchange and gaming markets. By the late 1980s, he was the largest entrepreneur in Donetsk, investing in computer and VCR stores as electronics were imported from the West. He also became the boss of a criminal organization which provided security for other entrepreneurs in the Donetsk region and dominated the Central Market of Donetsk. He was unofficially considered the "Master" of Donetsk for his hegemony over the city's business and criminal worlds, and he even acquired FC Shakhtar Donetsk. On 19 March 1994, Bragin survived a shooting assassination attempt at his pigeon coop in his hometown of Pisky. On 15 October 1995, however, he was killed when rival mobsters detonated a bomb at Shakhtar Stadium, killing him, his brother, and his bodyguards. His protege Rinat Akhmetov, who may have been involved in his murder, succeeded him as the boss of Donetsk.