Yuri Orlov was born on 16 October 1970, in Kurgan, Soviet Union. As a child he showed great interest in martial arts and firearms. When finishing school, Yuri was conscripted into the Soviet Army and was assigned to a tank regiment, a part of the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany. After his conscription ended, Yuri joined the OMON police agency and eventually received training at the Gorkovskiy Institute. However, after 6 months he was expelled for extreme violence towards suspects, and upon returning home, Yuri obtained a job as a gravedigger at the Kurgan cemetery. Soon after returning to Kurgan he married, and his wife gave birth to a daughter, but they eventually divorced. Yuri remarried another woman with whom he had a son, and in 1987 he was charged with murder and sentenced to 8 years in prison. During a farewell meeting with his wife before he was imprisoned, Yuri escaped by jumping from the second floor of the building. After several months he was apprehended 120 miles (190 km) north of Kurgan, and taken to the prison.
In prison Yuri was designated to solitary confinement because he served on active duty and had some police training, but later was transferred to serve his jail time among the other general population of the prison. When it became known to the other inmates that Yuri had worked for the police, he was marked for death. According to rumor, Yuri took on as many as 12 inmates at a time, earning the respect of his fellow prisoners. After 2 years of imprisonment, he escaped again.
Yuri went back home to Kurgan, joined the local criminal organization and started work as a hitman. Yuri's first target, the leader of a rival organization, was murdered in 1990 in Tyumen. After this hit, Yuri traveled to Moscow with other members of the Kurgan organization to seek work. In 1992, Yuri assassinated Russian thief in law Viktor Nikiforov, and six months later he murdered another important Russian Mob boss. This time the victim was thief in law Valeri Dlugatsj, who was shot in a crowded nightclub despite the fact that he was surrounded by bodyguards. In 1994, Yuri eliminated Vladislav Vinner, Dlugatsj's replacement. It was reported that in 1994, Yuri tried to extort money from another Russian mobster, who made a phone call to settle the extortion. Yuri immediately identified him as Otari Kvantrishvili, one of the most powerful mobsters in Russia. Apparently, Yuri was unable to extort money from Kvantrishvili, and several weeks later murdered him in an act of revenge.
Eventually Yuri resurfaced on the islands of Alits with a fake passport, which he secured from the Altis consulate in Moscow. In Altis, Yuri set up his own small operation of, which dealt in small time drug smuggling but primarily in the illegal gun trade.
