On February 1, Thai police discovered the remains of 30-year-old St. Petersburg businessman Mikhail Yemelyanov near Pattaya, three weeks after he disappeared. Investigators say his body was cut into ten parts, some fragments were burned, placed in black plastic bags, and buried in five locations close to one another.
Yemelyanov moved to Thailand in 2022. In Pattaya, he became a co-founder of the King Cannabis chain and worked with a cannabis farm. People who knew him said a community of customers quickly formed around the shop, and after he vanished, clients joined the search and asked volunteers to help.
According to relatives, on January 7, 2026, Yemelyanov left for a meeting in Bangkok linked to a car purchase and to one of the future suspects. Sensing danger, he sent his family his location and details of the man he was going to meet. He never contacted them again.
A message later appeared in the shop’s customer chat saying Yemelyanov was missing and offering a reward for information about his whereabouts. His relatives believed he had conflicts with business partners. One co-owner, referred to by customers as “Mr. Boyd”, said he had removed Yemelyanov over contractual violations but denied any involvement in the disappearance.
Yemelyanov’s mother said that after her son vanished, she received ransom demands and preserved the messages for investigators. She also said surveillance footage pointed to the movements of suspects in the days after the disappearance. On February 20, a preliminary hearing was held in Pattaya: one defendant, Dmitry Maskalev, accepted responsibility and said the killing happened during a fight. The victim’s mother rejected that version and demanded the maximum punishment. On February 25, it emerged that Yaroslav Demidov and Maskalev were also suspected in another case involving abduction and extortion.