Posted on 05/22/2004 5:13:05 AM PDT by Tailgunner Joe
TWO Russian mafia "godfathers" who lead an organised crime group in Australia have set up in Sydney's eastern suburbs and are running a string of legitimate international trading companies to cover their illicit activities.
An investigation by The Weekend Australian has revealed the men, the ringleader, 50, and his financial officer, 68, lead a gang of 60 Russian mobsters now known to be living in Queensland, NSW and Victoria.
Authorities have found that the network is involved in money laundering, drugs, extortion, fraud, immigration rackets and trafficking of women for prostitution in Australia.
The men cannot be named for legal reasons.
The ringleader has settled in a mansion with his wife and daughter while his lieutenant lives nearby.
The two head the local branch of the "Odessa mafia" - the dominant Russian organised crime group in the US. They are considered to be among the most deadly of the Russian crime gangs. Between the men and their families, they have interests in about 20 residential properties worth millions of dollars in the suburbs of Bondi, Maroubra, Surry Hills, Rose Bay, and Waterloo.
Activities of their string of companies include investments and international trading ventures.
The FBI sent two agents to Australia earlier this year to advise state and federal police about the operations of Russian organised crime.
Justice Minister Chris Ellison said he had been briefed on the growing problem.
NSW Police Commissioner Ken Moroney said police were looking at Russian organised crime as an emerging issue and said NSW police would work closely with the federal police. "It is one of the priority areas for the gangs squad," Mr Moroney said.
Detective Superintendent Ken McKay, who will head the NSW Russian crime desk, said the mobsters were so sophisticated, wealthy and well connected it made them possibly, "the greatest organised crime threat to Australia".
The revelations come as the NSW police and the Australian Federal Police have both opened fresh inquiries into the extent of Russian organised crime in the nation.
The AFP's national intelligence manager, Grant Wardlaw, said it appeared Russian organised crime was on the rise. "It's something we are keeping an eye on," he said.
By Natalie O'Brien
May 22, 2004
YOU would not recognise them if they lived next door to you: the modern Russian mafioso lives in a mansion with the right postcode, is well-dressed and drives luxury cars.
An investigation by Inquirer has revealed that Russian mobsters are operating respectable investment and international trading companies in what authorities fear is an attempt to launder some of the billions of dollars of their ill-gotten gains.
But for all their new-found suaveness, the Russians are the toughest crims in the business. Many were trained by the KGB, renowned as the best counter-intelligence agency in the world.
Australian detectives warn Inquirer about the Russians' ruthlessness. Says one intelligence officer: "They wear their sadism like a badge."
"They have been known to kill investigators," says one police source. "Some of them kill for pleasure," says another.
The Russians' legitimate businesses are believed to cover a spider web of illicit activities. Authorities know that they are involved in money laundering, drugs, extortion, fraud, immigration and mail-order bride rackets, trafficking of women for prostitution, housing commission frauds and diamond trading. Inquirer has also uncovered an extortion racket in which young Russian women who came to Australia to study English have been blackmailed.
Russian sources say some vulnerable women targeted by the mob have been stood over and forced to work part time as prostitutes. Others from wealthy or prominent families are courted by young Russian men, then drugged and raped. The rape is filmed and the mobsters then blackmail the family in Russia with the tape. The families almost never contact the authorities.
Trafficking women for prostitution and selling women through mail-order bride scams have also been big business for Russian organised crime. Kathleen Maltzhan of Project Respect, a group working for trafficked women, says the Russian women seem to be subjected to the worst treatment. "They are often the subject of extreme violence."
Andreas Schloenhardt, a law lecturer at the University of Adelaide, says a recent study reveals just how open those organised crime links appear to be. Schloenhardt says authorities need to investigate further.
"It may be that we find the Russian mafia are key players," he says.
Since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, authorities estimate Russian crime gangs have infiltrated at least 50 countries and police confirm Australia is one of them. Warnings have been gathering pace about the millions of dollars accompanying new Russian emigre communities to Australia.
A classified report prepared by the Queensland Crime and Misconduct Commission three years ago warned that the Russian mafia had made significant inroads into the Gold Coast through property and small business. It said some influential Russians in the area had risen from obscurity to acquire significant wealth within a short period and the volume of money being moved through sophisticated white-collar crime techniques could be enough to affect financial markets.
Detective Sergeant Terry Winters of Burleigh Heads CIB says there is a "lot of unexplained wealth" accompanying the influx of Russian immigrants to canal developments such as the exclusive enclave of Sovereign Islands.
In the late 1990s the Australian Federal Police launched Investigation Plate, interviewing members of the Russian community.
Former NSW police commissioner Peter Ryan warned in 2000 that the Russian mafia had Australia in its sights and two foreign Olympic officials were banned from attending the Sydney Olympics.
The FBI has been warning for years that crime gangs are moving into Western countries. Two months ago two FBI agents were asked to speak to the AFP and Queensland and NSW police about the tentacles of Russian organised crime. One of the latest scams has been fraudulent banking websites and it appears that ANZ and Westpac may have been victims of mafia stings. The Australian High Tech Crime Centre has been investigating eastern European identity fraud and internet banking scams.
Alastair Milroy, chief executive of the Australian Crime Commission, says the commission, too, has gathered intelligence showing Russians are involved in organised criminal activity in Australia.
NSW police are so concerned about the emergence of Russian crime lords that commissioner Ken Moroney has made it a priority for the gangs taskforce.
Detective Superintendent Ken McKay of the NSW State Crime Command, who will lead the investigation, tells Inquirer that the Russian gang members are equipped like no other organisation he has seen.
"They have huge amounts of money, unlimited capability to travel, a unique language and international connections," he says. "That makes them one of the greatest organised crime threats to Australia."
McKay says their constant travelling is a significant obstruction to law enforcement. "We would be working on something one day, then the next they would all fly to the US, Israel or Europe. It makes it very difficult because they have the ability to be so mobile."
National manager of intelligence with the AFP Grant Wardlaw says there are several indicators that Russian organised crime is in Australia. But he says internationally their sophistication and their counter-surveillance techniques make it even harder to monitor them.
One of the first indicators that Russian gangsters were infiltrating Australia was in 1993 when the AFP and the Australian Customs Service broke up a drug importation ring in which Russian ships were being used to bring heroin and cannabis into Melbourne.
Protection rackets also are a hallmark of the mobsters. They call it krysha, which means an umbrella of protection or bandit roof. By 1998 it was claimed to be operating on the Gold Coast when two businessmen said they were victims of Russian standover men. Oleg Kouzmine and Valentine Masnyi alleged they were victims of $1million sting by Anton Kouropatkine and US citizen Igor Solonkovich. But the charges were dropped after Kouzmine failed to give evidence at a court appearance. He has gone back to Russia. In 2000 one of his former business partners, Gold Coast millionaire and former KGB colonel Gennadi Bernovski, was murdered. No one has been charged over his killing.
Police did find that Bernovski had a murky past and Winters of Burleigh Heads CIB, who is investigating the still unsolved murder, says police have discovered Bernovski had a KGB past even his wife didn't know about.
The two Russian mafia godfathers who lead the organised crime group in Australia have set up in Sydney's exclusive eastern suburbs. Investigations have revealed the men lead a gang of 60 high-level Russian mobsters across the east coast. The two head the local branch of the Odessa mafia - the dominant Russian organised crime group in the US. They are considered to be among the deadliest of the Russian crime gangs.
Between them, the men and their families have interests in about 20 residential properties worth millions of dollars in the suburbs of Bondi, Maroubra, Surry Hills, Rose Bay and Waterloo. Their string of companies includes investments and international trading ventures.
The authorities appear to know all about them, but maybe their neighbours don't. One way of identifying gang members is through their tattoos. Finger tattoos were considered the business cards of the criminal world in old Russia. The placement and style of a tattoo instantly told associates of their rank, criminal background, association and sexual preference. The tattoos are strategically placed on the body - although some involuntary tattoos are given to informers and homosexuals on the face so everyone can see them.
Russian organised crime has its roots in perestroika and the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. With almost 100,000 members of the KGB being snapped up by crime syndicates, they soon became some of the most feared mobsters in the world. By 1994, the UN identified 5700 organised crime gangs with a membership of 3million people.
The mafia tattoos were used in prison to denote status, but in Sydney's exclusive harbourside suburbs status is judged differently. The mafia godfathers are keeping a low profile while keeping up with the Joneses. Their property holdings are getting bigger and their investments are becoming more widespread. But if anyone gets too close, they won't be settling any scores with violent street shoot-outs like the Melbourne gangs.
McKay says it's a closed shop with the Russians: "People just disappear."
Oh.
The Lucky Country has one more foreign menace to worry about.
Great... I'll sleep well tonight (not)
Names, and pics, please.
This is the internet age.
Sydney has always been a hotbed of vice, sodomy and gangsterism anyway. They will fit right in. Luckily in Melbourne our gangsters are too busy killing each other these days to bother doing real harm.
One time I corresponded with a poet in Australia to explain some facts to him. The Australian poet had met some Russian poets and had written some poem about peace that was published in the USSR. The Russian poet he had met was the head of the Soviet Writers'Union. I think his name was Alexi Bobkov. I explained that Alexi Bobkov was the son of Filipp Denisovich Bobkov. FDB was the #2 in the KGB and reportedly ran it on a day-to-day basis. Can you imagine what it would be like to have the son--of-General Bobkov running the Writers' Union?
KGB General Bobkov had the main job of controlling dissent from writers and of manipulating writers. After communism ended, he went into business with the "oligarch" Vladimir Gusinsky who owned MOST Bank. Gusinsky had supposedly been an agent of Bobkov's. He even studied at the University of Virginia. I think he studied business there, but before, in Russia, he had been involved in the theatre business and possibly in spying on Jews who wanted to leave Russia.
MOST Bank had a correspondant bank in Madrid Spain. That is a bank for banks. At one point, the acting head of that Madrid branch of MOST was named Darya S. Bobkova (a woman). I wonder if she was a relative of Filipp Denisovich Bobkov? For reasons I don't really get, these correspondant banks are good for laundering money. Apparently a lot of drug money from South America is first placed in Spanish banks because the traffickers speak Spanish and feel comfortable with the language. Then the money is moved over and over. I mention this because there were rumors from some group called Feliks in Russia that Bobkov was involved with moving drugs using military transport. Supposedly the epicenter of this was CamRan Bay in Vietnam. Feliks was a sort of NAZI type group, but sometimes they had kind of interesting information.
Of course, I am just reporting what I have read. Except for the Darya S. Bobkova part. I found that myself on the Internet at the bank's site years ago.
Bobkov is a slimebag-someone should write an expose on him. Maybe if we stop having KGB spies in the CIA and FBI we will finally get the "dope" on Filipp Denisovich Bobkov. Recently he was in Bulgaria. Look on the Internet. He looks like a kindly grandpa.
I have been married to a wonderful Russian lady for three years. We have an apartment in Volgograd, formerly Stalingrad, overlooking the beautiful Volga River.
I have always had an interest in Russia, but especially now. I read a lot of Russian history, and several Russian newspapers. The Russian Mafia is fearsome, and demands 20% of the income from every business in Russia. Even the little flower lady scraping out a living on the street corner has to pay the required amount.
Since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, authorities estimate Russian crime gangs [note their KGB training, mentioned above]have infiltrated at least 50 countries and police confirm Australia is one of them.
In the 1989 edition of the National Drug Control Strategy, President Bush made it official:'We must be prepared to share our knowledge and our concern with the Soviet Union and Eastern European nations and be willing to engage them in cooperative counterdrug activities". (36)In this strategy document, there was no recognition of the role of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe countries in drug-trafficking and in creating the very sickness the strategy was designed to cure.Towards the end of 1989, the DEA made a formal proposal to the Soviets for the DEA to conduct 'advanced narcotics investigations' for about 30 anti-narcotics professionals from Soviet customs, the Ministry of Interior and the KGB. As one DEA official, Paul Higdon, explained: 'We're looking at them as policemen - these guys are cops with a mission similar to ours'. Not to be outdone, US Customs is proposing a formal information-sharing agreement, similar to the ones we have with most of our Western allies'
Stroke of genius, really, to bring yet-uniformed KGB into the counter-drug ops while the "former Soviets" went legit as Bidnessmen. The Wall fell INTO the West, comrade.
Thanks for the reply ... MOST interesting, so to speak.
Why are we being victimized by noncitizens who can run to Israel or Russia and can't be extradited? The Russian gangsters have told me that they've come here to suck our country dry. My uncle died on the beaches of Normandy defending this country. How did the Russian Mob become so entrenched? They are into Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid fraud. Why is it that every ambulance service in Brooklyn is run by the Russian mob? Why are so many of their doctors practicing without a license? They have invaded Wall Street from boiler-room operations to brokerage houses. Nothing is too small for them to steal. Even the guys with the multimillon dollar Medicare scam still have to have their food stamps.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.