As a native Californian living in L.A. for the last 16 years, I'm just dying for a New York transplanted Floridian to explain to me the real problems arising from Illegals and immigrant gangsters in my city.
Please, enlighten us all.
Posted on 03/27/2002 5:56:31 AM PST by It'salmosttolate
Russian mobsters tighten their grip on LA
Duncan Campbell in Los Angeles
Monday March 25, 2002
The Guardian
Four bodies pulled from a reservoir in California are believed to be the latest victims of a huge organised crime network run by mobsters from the former Soviet Union. What is now surfacing, along with the corpses, is a picture of a highly intelligent criminal organisation that far outstrips in numbers and sophistication the traditional Italian mafia and any other such group in the US.
The bodies are believed to be those of two businessmen, a bookkeeper, and one of their associates. All four were from the former Soviet Union and had settled in Los Angeles. They are believed to have been kidnapped, held for ransom, killed and their bodies dumped in the water.
A fifth body was found floating in the reservoir in October.
The discoveries have been followed by the arrest of four men, also from the former Soviet Union, who are alleged to have kidnapped one of the victims, Alexander Umansky, the president of Advanced Mobile Technologies in Hollywood and held him for a $250,000 (£175,000) ransom.
Two of the suspects are alleged to have kidnapped another victim, George Safiev, president of a film production company, Matador Media, and held him for a $5m ransom. Two other Russians have been charged with receiving ransom money.
The three other bodies found were those of Matador Media's chief executive officer, Nick Kharabadze; the bookkeeper Rita Pekler, 39, one of whose clients was Safiev; and the property developer Myer Muscatel.
Kharabadze, the son of the Georgian actress Ruiko Kiknadze, was well known in Hollywood's film community. His family contacted the Georgian president, Eduard Shevardnadze, to ask him to enlist President Bush's help after last year's kidnapping.
The abductions focused attention on the enormous growth in the US of organised crime groups from eastern Europe, and specifically the former Soviet Union.
Anthony Colannino, deputy district attorney for LA, who specialises in Russian organised crime, said that between 1970 and 1985 about 300,000 legal Soviet immigrants entered the US, of whom 5,000-10,000 were "hardened criminals".
There are now, he says, tens of thousands entering the US every year illegally, many crossing the Mexican border and going to LA. "They include ex-KGB officers, former special forces and government officers. They're very good at computer crime, electronic balance fraud, insurance fraud, pimping, narcotics, loan sharking, racketeering."
They preferred to avoid violent crime, if possible, Mr Colannino said, "but they'll kill you if they have to".
"Unlike the old Italian mob, who would send flowers to your wife after they'd killed you, they'll kill you, your wife, your children, your uncle, your cousins, your neighbours. They're bloody ruthless, they really are."
Mr Colannino said that mobsters from the former Soviet Union now constituted the largest ethnically based crime group in the US.
"The Italian mob have got fat and lazy like the rest of us Americans, but they [from the former Soviet Union] are used to hardship. You throw them in prison, they're living better than they were before."
The growth of crime run by immigrants from the former Soviet Union is also penetrating the public consciousness.
In the film Training Day it is the Russian mafia who appear at the end of the film, cackling as they riddle Denzil Washington's bent LA cop with bullets.
Italian-American groups protest that they have been unfairly stereotyped for too long as criminals in movies.
Now they may be handing the mantle on to the Russians.
(Okie Accent)" 'Course we know the real problem is Vicente Fox and all those Mex'cuns"
There are now, he says, tens of thousands entering the US every year illegally, many crossing the Mexican border and going to LA. "They include ex-KGB officers, former special forces and government officers.
Maybe we'll get lucky and someone in the executive branch, someone high up, someone on the top, will read this post.
I hope you didn't just notice this. The Guardian makes the New York Times look like the Washington Times.
Yeah, but it's the DIVERSITY that counts! (Hurl!) Remember, "Our strength is our diversity." (/sarcasm)
You'd fall for anything as long as it blamed the Jewz.
Let's tell it like it is, nazi - your feedlot is likely over on polinco or faem. Why don't you slither over to the rest of your species?
As a native Californian living in L.A. for the last 16 years, I'm just dying for a New York transplanted Floridian to explain to me the real problems arising from Illegals and immigrant gangsters in my city.
Please, enlighten us all.
What we need to do is 1. Enforce the laws we already have on the books regarding immigration, 2. Abolish family reunification and 3. End the drug war!
Ethnic gangs will always be with us, but these steps should "choke them off" a bit.
Ask me. I am from brooklyn. Let's tell it like it is.... this is the JEWISH MAFIA from Russia.
Is it? Really? Two suspects - Dubai businessman Andrei Agueev and Andrei Liapine, who lived in the United Arab Emirates - are accused of helping transfer $240,000 in ransom paid to the kidnappers. Both have pleaded innocent and face trials beginning April 9. . Interesting. Suspects have non Jewish names and live in Dubai. Don't you feel like an ass?
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