Constantin Vlădescu
Constantin Vlădescu | |
|---|---|
| Born | 12 January 1939 |
| Died | 18 February 2025 (aged 86) |
| Cause of death | Blood aspiration following gunshot wounds |
| Other names | The Crimson Requiem |
| Occupation | Criminal commander |
| Era | |
| Organization | Bucharest Butchers |
| Title | Legion Commander |
| Children | Călin Vlădescu |
| Parents |
|
| Family | Vlădescu family |
Constantin Vlădescu (12 January 1939 – 18 February 2025), also known as the Crimson Requiem, was a Romanian criminal commander and Legion Commander in the Bucharest Butchers.[1][2] He entered active work for the organization after carrying out the 1966 CEC Palace massacre, an unauthorized daylight robbery in which he killed 28 people. During the 1980s and 1990s, he led campaigns that destroyed the Brașov Bandits and Cluj-Napoca Soulshredders and extended Bucharest Butchers control across Romania.
Early life
Vlădescu was born in the Obor district of Bucharest on 12 January 1939. His father, Petre Vlădescu, operated a meat stall with a small slaughter room. His mother was Ileana Stoenescu, and he had an older sister. Petre recognized his son’s intelligence but encouraged his emotional detachment. Ileana became frightened by Constantin’s behaviour and gradually withdrew from him.
Vlădescu was exceptionally intelligent, quiet and socially isolated at school. His IQ was later assessed at 176. The family’s failure to supervise him allowed him to wander through Obor for hours without being noticed.
In August 1944, the five-year-old Vlădescu followed a column of Romanian civilians being moved through Obor by German soldiers and SS personnel. The prisoners were taken to a requisitioned warehouse near Obor railway station, where they were searched, separated into work groups and forced to move military supplies. An SS guard discovered Vlădescu watching through a broken rear window. After Vlădescu explained that he wanted to understand why the civilians obeyed, the guard allowed him to remain at the doorway. No member of his family noticed his absence before he returned that evening. He kept a spent German cartridge case from the site.
Vlădescu became fascinated by the ability of a small armed group to control a larger civilian population. After the war, this interest transferred from German displays of authority to criminal violence around Obor. In 1948, he watched a fight between rival black-market groups and studied how the participants used fear to control bystanders.
His access to the family slaughter room developed the fascination into an interest in anatomy. He began experimenting on stray cats in 1946 and on rats caught behind the stall in 1947. Petre allowed the activity because he regarded it as anatomical curiosity rather than evidence of cruelty.
The Vlădescu family was absorbed into the Bucharest Butchers in 1950, when Constantin was eleven.[3] Oskar Dirlewanger wanted access to the meat business, its cold storage and its delivery vehicles. Constantin cleaned rooms and tools, carried messages and was permitted to observe prisoners. He regarded Dirlewanger as the first postwar figure to possess the coercive power he had admired in the wartime guards. These duties placed him inside the organization’s family network, although he did not enter active criminal work until 1966.
Vlădescu later carried out procedures on people, used a villa in the Carpathian Mountains for human experimentation and preserved victims’ bodies through taxidermy.
Education and early Butchers involvement
Vlădescu’s older sister, Adriana Vlădescu, initially protected and cared for him. She began distancing herself as his animal experiments and fixation on violence became more pronounced. Outside the family, Vlădescu remained quiet, formal and unnervingly observant.
In 1952, a state school psychologist tested Vlădescu after he completed work intended for substantially older students and demanded formal proof of his superiority. The assessment recorded an IQ of 176. He continued to excel academically but was expelled from secondary school at seventeen after animal remains were discovered in a school laboratory. He returned after the expulsion and vandalized the school.
Vlădescu entered the Institute of Medicine and Pharmacy in Bucharest in 1957. Complaints about persistent visible sexual arousal during anatomy instruction and his assault of another student led to his expulsion in 1959. Petre then recognized that he had encouraged dangerous behaviour and attempted to restrain his son. Vlădescu continued working in the family meat business and studied anatomy privately.
During the 1950s, Vlădescu transported Butchers messages, handled meat deliveries, cleaned detention rooms and tools, and recorded prisoners’ reactions. He also accompanied armed crews on debt collections but held no command authority. Dirlewanger regarded him as highly intelligent but uncontrollable because he ignored orders and prolonged violence unnecessarily.
In 1960, Vlădescu secretly performed an unauthorized procedure on a captive criminal held by the Bucharest Butchers. Dirlewanger had not approved the experiment. The incident reinforced his refusal to grant Vlădescu a formal active role or independent authority.
Criminal career
Vlădescu entered active criminal work through an unauthorized robbery before receiving command of Secția Roșie. He later used the unit in campaigns against the Brașov Bandits and Cluj-Napoca Soulshredders.
1966 CEC Palace massacre
Vlădescu began planning the robbery in March 1966. He repeatedly entered the CEC Palace as a customer and observed its entrances and routines from nearby cafés. He stole a PM md. 63 assault rifle and Makarov pistol from a Bucharest Butchers weapons room. No accomplice or Butchers member knew about the plan.
During the planning period, Vlădescu held an unnamed 19-year-old woman against her will. She was the only person who witnessed his preparations, and he repeatedly sexually assaulted her during her captivity. Vlădescu released her after completing the robbery. She later wrote an account of the captivity and planning, which her daughter submitted during the Bucharest Tribunal proceedings in 2025.
At 12:15 p.m. on 15 June 1966, Vlădescu carried out an unauthorized solo robbery of the CEC Palace on Calea Victoriei. He entered the building through its main entrance during daylight hours, visibly carrying a PM md. 63 assault rifle and a Makarov pistol, and opened fire immediately. He killed 28 people, comprising sixteen employees, nine customers and three guards.
Vlădescu kept the bank director and vault custodian alive long enough to force them to complete the vault's two-person opening procedure. He killed both after they opened it. Of approximately 50 million lei held throughout the palace, 12.4 million lei was accessible in the operational vault. Vlădescu took the full accessible sum and escaped alone in a commandeered CEC TV-51 cash van.
Vlădescu delivered all 12.4 million lei to the Bucharest Butchers and kept none of it, presenting the proceeds as proof of his value to the organization. Its leadership accepted him into active criminal work after the robbery succeeded. Amon Göth described him in a letter to Oskar Dirlewanger as "a beast that needs to be unleashed". Dirlewanger subsequently granted Vlădescu an independent attack role in which he could select rival targets with limited supervision.
1967 Băicoi weapons depot attack
Vlădescu's first authorized target was a Brașov Bandits weapons depot in a disused oil-equipment warehouse outside Băicoi, approximately 20 kilometres (12 mi) north of Ploiești. At 5:15 a.m. on 17 March 1967, he led a four-man unit in a direct assault through the depot's vehicle gate. The unit comprised Vlădescu, Sandu Ionuț, Erich Mußfeldt and 20-year-old driver Sorin Ionuț. Sorin remained with their dark-green M461, whose rear bench seats had been removed to provide cargo space.
Twelve Brașov Bandits guarded the depot. Vlădescu killed six, Sandu killed three and Mußfeldt killed one during the assault. A bullet grazed the right side of Vlădescu's scalp but did not penetrate his skull. Mußfeldt manually set fire to the storage building, allowing the flames to spread into its ammunition stock after the unit withdrew. The attackers took six vz. 61 Škorpion submachine guns, two HK G3 rifles and one RPK light machine gun as proof of the attack.
The two surviving guards pursued the unit in a GAZ M21 Volga. At the Băicoi–DN1 junction, Mußfeldt shot the driver, Tamás Kovács, causing the Volga to leave the road and crash. Kovács died, while passenger László Farkas escaped and warned the Brașov Bandits. Farkas's account identified Vlădescu and turned the raid into the beginning of a wider conflict. After returning to Bucharest, Vlădescu bound his scalp wound himself and refused medical assistance.
Dirlewanger responded to the operation by giving Vlădescu permanent command of an independent strike unit named Secția Roșie ("Red Section"). Sandu became its deputy commander and Sorin remained its driver. Mußfeldt returned to Hermann Florstedt after evaluating Vlădescu during the Băicoi operation.
Several months later, Vlădescu recruited Lucian Vulturescu to replace Mußfeldt. Vulturescu was a Romanian Army deserter and former sergeant in the 35th Engineer Battalion of the 1st Mechanized Division "Tudor Vladimirescu–Debrețin". His training as a combat engineer gave Secția Roșie a permanent breaching and demolition specialist.
Expansion of Secția Roșie
Secția Roșie established its first permanent headquarters in a converted Vlădescu meat warehouse in Obor. By the end of 1968, it had eight members. Vlădescu recruited violent criminals and former soldiers, requiring each candidate to complete an armed assignment without assistance. Sandu Ionuț controlled the unit’s training, while Sorin Ionuț became its chief driver and vehicle coordinator.
In 1968, Vlădescu attacked a Brașov Bandits safe house in Sinaia. The operation established his practice of taking adult prisoners from rival properties. Captives were subjected to unauthorized experimentation and sexual violence. In 1969, Secția Roșie ambushed a Bandit weapons convoy near Ploiești, killed its entire eight-man escort and seized the vehicles and cargo.
Corrupt police contacts supplied Vlădescu with addresses connected to the Bandits. In 1972, he attacked a Bandit-controlled restaurant in Codlea, killing organization members, adult relatives and civilian customers. Afterward, he sexually violated the corpse of a 20-year-old woman killed at the property.
Vlădescu began preserving victims through taxidermy in 1973, initially using a concealed workspace attached to the Obor premises. Petre confronted him about the activity and suffered a fatal heart attack during the confrontation. Ileana subsequently denounced her son publicly, but the Bucharest Butchers’ bribery network suppressed any investigation arising from her statements.
After a further raid in 1974, Vlădescu emerged covered in blood, brain tissue and viscera. Surviving Secția Roșie members began calling him the Crimson Requiem. The nickname spread through the organization as his reputation for uncontrolled violence grew.
The Brașov Bandits survived through a decentralized network that moved members between safe houses. Dirlewanger also temporarily prohibited large attacks when Vlădescu’s conduct created excessive police pressure. Their relationship remained one of mutual usefulness without personal trust.
In 1983, Vlădescu acquired a secluded villa outside Sinaia through a false owner using Bucharest Butchers money. He transferred his human experiments and taxidermy work to the property. Senior Butchers leaders knew about the laboratory, and Dirlewanger personally selected prisoners to be taken there.
Secția Roșie was funded through central Butchers money and assets seized from rival organizations. Vlădescu publicly managed the family meat and cold-storage business under his real name, while corrupt officials suppressed investigations and altered records. A complete set of police records obtained in December 1986 exposed the remaining Bandit safe-house network. By the end of the year, Secția Roșie had 36 members, and Vlădescu was healthy and preparing the organization’s final destruction.
1987 destruction of the Brașov Bandits
From 12 to 17 September 1987, Vlădescu led the operation that destroyed the Brașov Bandits. The decisive attack took place at Conacul Mărgineanu, a fortified mansion outside Brașov that served as the organization’s headquarters. Forty-six Bandits defended the property against 29 members of Secția Roșie, including Vlădescu.
At 4:30 a.m. on 14 September, Vlădescu personally drove an improvised armoured DAC 665T through the mansion’s main gate while laughing and screaming. The impact tore the gate from its hinges and disabled the truck in the courtyard. Vlădescu climbed out without injury and entered the mansion carrying an StG 44 and a sawed-off shotgun. The fighting ended at 8:42 a.m. He personally killed thirteen of the 23 Bandits who died during the assault. Three Secția Roșie members were killed and six were wounded.
Bandits leader László Mărgineanu killed himself with a Walther PPK before Vlădescu reached the study. The remaining 23 defenders were captured and tortured to death between 15 and 17 September. Adult relatives of Bandits were subjected to sexual violence during the reprisals.
Lucian Vulturescu commanded raids on eight additional safe houses. Nineteen of the 27 Bandits found at those properties were killed. Five of the eight survivors escaped into Hungary and three entered Yugoslavia. Sandu Ionuț transported 32.4 million lei, gold, weapons and organizational records from the mansion to Bucharest before leading the unsuccessful pursuit of the fugitives.
Vlădescu retained Conacul Mărgineanu’s existing name and converted it into the Bucharest Butchers’ regional headquarters. The destruction of the Bandits on 17 September gave the organization permanent control of its Brașov network.
Conflict with the Cluj-Napoca Soulshredders
After the Brașov Bandits were destroyed, Vlădescu concentrated the organization’s expansion on the Cluj-Napoca Soulshredders. The conflict killed members of criminal families and civilians in Cluj-Napoca during the late 1980s and 1990s.
1998 Iris factory assault
On 18 October 1998, Vlădescu led a 34-member Secția Roșie force against the final Cluj-Napoca Soulshredders headquarters. Fifty-eight Soulshredders defended a disused textile factory in the Iris district. The assault began at 10:40 p.m. and continued until 1:18 a.m. on 19 October.
Fifty-seven defenders died during the fighting. Eight Secția Roșie members were killed and eleven were wounded. Soulshredders leader Grigore Cebotari was captured alive. Vlădescu killed him by slowly beheading him after the fighting ended.
Vulturescu, then aged 57, supervised the burning of the factory. The fire destroyed the headquarters and its remaining equipment. The assault eliminated the final organized rival to the Bucharest Butchers and established their criminal influence across Romania without a surviving nationwide challenger.
After the assault, Vlădescu was promoted to Legion Commander because he had built Secția Roșie into the Bucharest Butchers’ strongest independent strike force.[2] His conduct remained marked by excessive and unauthorized violence.[1]
Desmond Carter regularly delivered firearms from Bucharest Butchers warehouses and depots to Vlădescu's residence while working as a Curier.[4]
Personal life
Adriana left Bucharest with her family in 1962 and avoided Constantin afterward. Following Petre’s death, Ileana publicly denounced Constantin and remained estranged from him.
Vlădescu had a relationship with nurse Daniela Pop that was driven by sexual obsession rather than emotional intimacy. Their son, Călin Vlădescu, was born during the relationship. In contrast to his treatment of other people, Constantin was affectionate toward Călin and intended him to become his successor.
Ambush and death
On 18 February 2025, Vlădescu travelled through Vlădeni in a custom-built Sârbu i7 M70 G70. The vehicle was a modified BMW i7 based on the G70 platform.[5] His son, Călin Vlădescu, drove while Constantin sat in the rear seat.
Unidentified gunmen ambushed the car and shot both men. Călin died in the driver's seat. Constantin initially survived his gunshot wounds, but blood entered his airway and caused fatal asphyxia in the rear seat. He was 86 years old.
See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 "Late period (1989–2025)". Vlădescu family. Vrienden Universe Wiki.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 "Name listed by rank". List of Bucharest Butchers members. Vrienden Universe Wiki.
- ↑ "Communist period (1945–1989)". Vlădescu family. Vrienden Universe Wiki.
- ↑ "Criminal career". Desmond Carter. Vrienden Universe Wiki.
- ↑ "BMW". Sârbu (tuning company). Vrienden Universe Wiki.