Crime of the Wolf

Filmed over two years, Kevin Sim and Olga Budashevska´s epic tale of love and betrayal tells the extraodinary true story of the killer who seduced his female prosecutor. Sergei Maduev is a ruthless career criminal , who became one of the Soviet Union´s most wanted men. Natasha Vorontsova was a leading criminal prosecutor, a bookish, provincial girl, who had worked hard to rise to the top of her profession. Ideologically and socially they were poles apart. But when his case landed on her desk, the unthinkable happened and she fell in love. “Crime of the Wolf” charts the fatal attraction that led to the betrayal and eventual imprisonment of Natasha at the hands of the charming killer she was meant put before a firing squad but ended up helping to escape. With unique access to all the central characters, and to the secret KGB film used to entrap Natasha, this remarkable documentary pieces together the truth behind a love story with all the power and passion of a great Russian novel. When the story of Maduev´s escape and Natasha´s betrayal broke in 1992, it became a cause célèbre in Russia that gave birth to two feature films and countless newspaper articles. The flames of republic interest were fanned by Maduev´s tragic past. Raised in an isolated Chechen village, his mother was an alcoholic prostitute. His criminal career began at the age of five, peddling dope to help support his family. At the age of 13 he was asked by his mother to take the blame for a murder committed by her lover. Arrested and imprisoned he eventually confessed the truth to the authorities, and his mother threw him out onto the streets. Irretrievably hardened by these early experiences – “I forgave too much as a child to forgive now” – from that day on he cut himself off from all emotional attachments and embarked on a lonely life of brutal crime and banditry – the life of a lone wolf. His criminal career was cut short in June 1990, when he was captured after a particularly violent 18 month spree and was charged with over 80 robberies and 5 murders. “Maduev emanates masculine power, and power always commands respect”, recalls Senior Prosecutor, Leonid Proschkin who was assigned to handle the case. To help him he requested Vorontsova. She had recently tragically lost her husband and child, and was picked partly because she had no family ties. With ten years´ experience she was a good lawyer, devoted to her work, but nothing could have prepared her for Maduev. “She was as desirable as any woman”, he says, “And as a woman, she was available.”