Gurnee cabbie held in Ohio corpse tampering case

A Gurnee cab driver is being extradited to Ohio for gross abuse of a corpse and tampering with evidence in connection with a skeleton discovered in southwest Ohio two years ago.

Ermek Abdildaev, 40, who lives in the Woodlake Apartments on Route 21, south of Washington Street, was taken into custody Wednesday in Lake Forest by Gurnee police and a trio of Ohio police. Abdildaev was working when he was arrested.

He is currently in Lake County Jail and will not fight extradition, said Gurnee Police Cmdr. Jay Patrick, who worked with officers from the Warren County, Ohio Sheriff’s Office, a Hamilton Township, Ohio officer and an Ohio State Police investigator.

Matt Nolan, spokesman for the Warren County prosecutor’s office, said Friday that Abdildaev is accused of assisting in the disposal of the body of a Russian immigrant, Aleksandr Alferov. Alferov had been living in Cincinnati when he went missing in 2000, along with $27,000 from his bank account.

In 2007, a skeleton was found in Hamilton Township and it turned out to be the missing immigrant. Recently, Ohio authorities developed information on Abdildaev’s role in Alferov’s disappearance. They are still searching for the person who killed the immigrant.

Ohio police sent out an alert to other police agencies and recently Gurnee contacted them saying they had someone that seemed like a match. That’s when the authorities teamed up to make the arrest.