Instead of heralding democracy and a better life for all, the fall of Communism has allowed crimian gangs to flourish in the former Soviet Union. Instead of fighting the underworld, it seems that many high-ranking officials maintain close connections to the Mafia. The weakness of central authority has allowed the gangs to plunder the assets of the state and legitimate businesses. And the Organisazija has now moved into lucrative ventures in Western Europe and North America.
On March 1, 1995, at around 10:30pm, Vladislav Listjev, the general director of a leading Russian independent television station, entered his Moscow apartment block. In the stairwell, he came face to face with an armed man. Listjev tried to flee, but it was too late. Two bullets struck him down.
The station suspended all programming on the following day, and broadcast only this statement" 'May, our silence be a warning to those in goverment and to society a country where criminal societies rule boundlessly has no future'.
Listjev's killing dramatically highlighted the prominence of organised crime in Russia. Among other things, he had tried to keep his station free of advertising campanies that wanted him to include as much advertising as possible. A number of these companies were clearly in the hands of the Russian Mafia, and eraned spectacular returns. For example, Vyacheslay Ivankov, one of the most infamous of Moscow's ,afoa bosses, raked in as much as US250,000 each month from television advertising. There were signs of his involvement in Listjev's journalists with more information kept quiet - an extreme example of the climate of fear created by organised crime in Russia.
Anarchy Instead of Democracy
Despite official denials, there was always crime in the former Soviet Union. Numerous criminal societies were established in the late 1980s, in the wake of the liberalisation of the Soviet system introduced by Mikhail Gorbachev. Following the collapse of the Soviet empire in 1991, many more such groups emerged in the Russian Federation and the various successor states of the Soviet union. The chaos arround the fall of the Iron Curtain and the end of the Soviet Union created the right conditions for criminal of all kinds.
The Russian government made a big mistake when it chose to ignore the fact that criminals had moved into the new private economic sector, making illegal activities acceptable business practices. According to a recent official estimate, the Organisazija - as the mafia is called in Russia - owns about 40,000 private and public companies. These include banks, commercial firms, distribution agencies and real estaate agencies. It also controls smuggling, is increasing its influence in the media, operates prostitution rings and earns incredible sums from sales of weapons and drugs. Some insiders maintain that the mafia uses up to 50% of its income for bribing officials. Last, but not least, the underworld obtains part of its income through extortion; ligitimate companies frequently have to turn over between 10 and 20% of their profits to the gangsters. The effect is that prices spiral ever higher and the already impoverished Russian population lurches closer to destitution.
Instead of fighting against the mafia, it is obvious that greedy politicians and poorly paid officials find it easier to co-operate with them. Fuelled by lavish bribes, corruption has become a fact of life in Russia. Where democracy should flourish, the country seems on the brink of lawlessness.
Just like the Italian clans, these criminal societies use secret codes, carry out initiation ceremonies for new members and submit themselves to a dubious code of honour. Blut the term 'Russian Mafia' is also slightly mesleading, for the gangs are by no means a homogeneous unit. Georgians and Azeris from the Caucasus region are also active in the undderworld. However, Ukrainian and Czech gangs have not as yet followed the Russians into the realms of serious crime.
Expansion of crime
Of all the criminal groups in the former Communist-ruled Eastern Bloc, those of the former Soviet Union are expanding the fastest. Soviet Union are expanding the fastest. The first of these gangs made their appearance in Western Europe during the 1970s. At that time, they were involved mainly in counterfeiting, slot machines and the smuggling of gold and icons (painted religious images). Their illegal activities were centred on the divided city of Berlin, which at that time lay deep inside Communis-ruled East Germany.
After the collapse of Communism, the Russian mafia formed close ties with other criminal syndicates. Their first meetings with the Sicilian mafia, the Camorra and the Ndrangheta took place in March and June 1991 in Warsaw, capital of Poland. The syndicates found that they had much in common, and the links between them developed rapidly. This is hardly surprising, since each side had much to offer the other. They agreed on a worldwide network for dealing in drugs and radioactive materials. According to Britain's National criminal Intelligence Service, about 60% of the heroin smuggled into the European Union is routed via the Balkans and the former Eastern Bloc states. Even more alarming has been the increase in illegal shipments of radioactive materials from the East. If any of these fell into the hands of terrorists, the results could be terrifying.
International connection.
The rapid rise of the Russian Mafia took Western authorities by surprise. Police chiefs found it hard to believe that organised crime had changedso quickly. Until the early 1990s, extortion, gostage-taking, bombing of banks and contract killings were never seen in a global context.
While the Eastern European underground was establishing contacts with its cousins in Western Europe, a new chapter unfolded in America. Russian crime boss Vyacheslav Ivankov crossed the Atlantic to establih bases in the US, where many Russians had emigrated. Using a false name, he and his closest associates travelled to New York. In a short time, they got rid of all rival groups. This war turned Ivanlov's gang into by far the most powerful arm of the Russian Mafia in the United States. It is rumoured that the group maintains close contact with New York's Cosa Nostra.
Ivankov, called the 'Red Godfather' by the FBI, soon had bases in Miami,Boston, Denver and Los Angeles. Hi gang specialises in insurance and credit card fraud, extortion and the sale of black-market fuel - cheating authorities out of millions of dollars in sales tax each year. The FBI arrested Ivankov in 1995, but his gang continued to operate.
A web of international connections means that the Russian Mafia can easiy transfer illegal income from one country to another. Another popular way of laundering money is for the criminals to set up commercial companies and sell products to each other at inflated prices. And this system works the other way, too: they sell goods bought with dirty money; such as precious stones and works of art, to their own companies abroad at prices far below market value. The goods then yield high profits when resold.
The international network of the Russian Mafia is virtually impenetrable. According to some estimates, they currently have an anual turnover of about US100 billion and number well over 1.8 million members.
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