Bali: When a hostage video surfaced from Bali showing a mangled Ukrainian tourist begging for his ransom, it seemed so heinous, so violent, some on social media took it as a set-up or a fake.
Then his head turned up in an estuary.
Again, a foreign enterprise has sent operatives to Bali, Australia’s most popular overseas holiday destination, to carry out its dirty work.
Called in to search the area where the head was found in Ketewel, just north of Sanur, police found five other body parts and remnants of internal organs. Samples sent to Jakarta last month have been confirmed as belonging to the man in the video, 28-year-old Igor Komarov.
The three-minute recording is distressing viewing. According to widely circulating but unverified transcripts, he pleaded for his parents to pay back $US10 million ($14.3 million) that he said – under extraordinary duress – he or his family had stolen from unnamed people.
In obvious pain, he said the kidnappers were serious because they had already broken his legs and chopped off fingers.
“After COVID, to revive Bali tourism, [the government] opened their doors as wide as possible … when you open your doors, the good people come, but so do the bad.”
Ariasandy, Bali police spokesman
“As far as Bali police are concerned, Igor was a foreign tourist,” said police spokesman Ariasandy, who goes by one name. “It is outside our jurisdiction to determine his background in his own country.”
Investigators have identified six people from undisclosed eastern European countries who they believe were responsible for Komarov’s kidnapping and death. All had fled Bali, and applications for Red Notices – requests to authorities worldwide to find and arrest people – have been made to Interpol. A European who rented the car used by the alleged criminals had been arrested, Ariasandy said, but police did not believe at this stage of the investigation that he knew about the plot.
The case has gripped the island, much like the killing of innocent Australian Zivan Radmanovic, who was shot inside a luxury villa during a botched shakedown attempt in June last year. The Australian men allegedly sent to Bali by an unnamed boss to threaten or bash Radmanovic’s friend, Sanar Ghanim, learned their fate in a Bali court on Monday.
Ariasandy said there were two hostage situations in Bali last year, one involving a South Asian man and the other a Russian. Both men were released after transferring cryptocurrency to their respective captors. He said the assailants were from the victims’ own countries.
‘The good people come, but so do the bad’
Foreign gangs had not set up on the island, Ariasandy told this masthead. Rather, operatives had come to the holiday island on set missions targeting specific people from their own nations, taking advantage of the easy entry process and then blending in with the mass of tourists.
“After COVID, in an effort to revive Bali tourism, [the government] opened their doors as wide as possible – that’s when all sorts of people came,” he said.
“When you open your doors, the good people come, but so do the bad.
“If I wanted to go to Europe, they would check my bank account and all sorts of things, unlike when coming to Bali, where the requirements are limited. You can just come and visit.”
Komarov was in Bali with his influencer girlfriend and at least one other friend. They had a sense they were being followed, and changed their accommodation multiple times, Ariasandy said.
Some people speculated online that his girlfriend unwittingly gave away their locations through her Instagram posts. “It is possible, but we don’t know that,” Ariasandy said. “What is for sure is that he was being targeted.”
Komarov and the friend were snatched from their motorbikes about 10.30pm on February 15 in Jimbaran, just south of the airport, while riding with a Russian guide, who was not a suspect.
The threatened friend immediately called home and was released on the spot after organising a money transfer, Ariasandy said. Komarov, meanwhile, was taken to a villa in Tabanan, on the outskirts of the main tourist area.
“Because the [friend] was released, police can only assume at the moment that Igor’s ransom was not paid,” Ariasandy said.
In 2023, Bali Governor Wayan Koster unsuccessfully proposed that the national government revoke visa-on-arrival rights for Russian and Ukrainian visitors, who he said had been causing problems. The following year, police dismantled a Ukrainian-Russian drug ring. Just last week, two Russians were busted for allegedly operating a Bali drug lab.
Ariasandy said police representatives had been meeting with the consulates of several nations in Bali to ask them to be more proactive in warning authorities if known troublemakers were on their way.
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Zach Hope is South-East Asia correspondent. He is a former reporter at the Brisbane Times.Connect via email.
Amilia Rosa is assistant Indonesia correspondent.Connect via X.