[imagesource: The Daily Beast/Getty]

When Russian oligarch and ‘Sausage King’ Vladimir Marugov lost his life on Monday morning, after he was shot in a sauna by a masked criminal wielding a crossbow, you’d be forgiven for thinking that things couldn’t possibly get any weirder.

But, then again, this is Russia, where the president releases yearly calendars with pictures of him engaging in some of his more robust and athletic hobbies – usually without a shirt on.

If you add into the mix that Marugov wasn’t the first wealthy person to be killed in a sauna this year (he was the first killed with a crossbow in a sauna), it isn’t implausible that his death wasn’t the end of the story.

The Telegraph reports that following the alleged murder, police discovered an empty car containing crossbows and masks. They later apprehended a 49-year-old man from Kazakhstan in connection with the case, but his accomplices remain at large.

They then went on to search a suspect’s flat, where they found a man chained to a bedpost.

The pensioner handcuffed to the bed may have been “under the influence of some kind of psychotropic substance,” official Olga Vradiy told Russian media, adding that he had been taken to hospital.

He was found with another man, who was apparently keeping him locked up so as to force him to hand over property.

The discovery, say the police, suggests that the men who killed Marugov could be connected to “fraudulent activities regarding apartments in Moscow”.

Gennady Gudkov, a longtime manager of a security firm, mentioned shortly after Marugov’s death that he believed that it was an organised hit.

To add yet another twist to the tale, a police source told the Interfax news agency that the suspect arrested in connection with the crime was a known associate of his ex-wife Tatyana Marugova, who has been questioned as part of the investigation.

The divorce wasn’t amicable.

And, the plot thickens…

[source:telegraph]