Police hope a $250,000 reward will help solve the murder of former KGB Colonel Gennadi Bernovski, who was gunned down outside his Gold Coast home.

November 16, 2018

Police hope a hefty reward will flush out the killer of a former KGB Colonel who died in a hail of bullets outside his luxury Gold Coast home 18 years ago.

Gennadi Bernovski was raked with semi-automatic gunfire as he took out his bins on the night of July 25, 2000.

The 41-year-old martial arts expert died after staggering back to the doorway of his Benowa Waters home before telling his wife: “Call the police, there’s shooting.”

Queensland Police Minister Mark Ryan hopes the $250,000 reward will be an incentive for anyone who knows who killed Mr Bernovski to come forward.

Homicide detectives have established that before coming to Australia Mr Bernovski had risen quickly through the ranks of the Russian Army and was a colonel in an elite, SAS-style military unit of the KGB.

His killing sparked fears of a Russian mafia expansion in Australia but that community is no longer the focus of the investigation.

In the two years after his murder, police exhausted mafia-related leads and then formed the view the crime was more likely related to a dispute between two old comrades over a lost fortune.

The search for a motive led to Russian businessman Oleg Kouzmine, who had arrived in Australia in 1998 with $1.3 million from “dubious” origins, according to police involved in the initial investigation.

Mr Bernovski introduced Mr Kouzmine to two business investments but the ventures failed and he blamed his old comrade for the loss of his money.

Mr Kouzmine became the prime suspect when his fingerprints were discovered on a gate at the Bernovski home.

He left for Russia to visit family, promising to speak with police when he returned in a few weeks.

But he did not come back and Australian police have been unable to extradite him.