The Russian Mafia Is Not a Myth – It's a Dangerous Reality

Currently, Russian officials and the government-controlled media are trying to give the international community a wrong idea – that the notorious Russian or "Red" Mafia exists largely in the imagination of Western intelligence experts.

However, the activities of Russia's criminal syndicates have been exhaustively documented, not only by the law enforcement agencies but also by the security services of their commercial competitors.

The very latest, but by no means the last, evidence of its existence could be last week's arrest of a reputed Russian crime boss who fixed two figure-skating events at the Salt Lake City Olympics by arranging a vote-swapping deal.

Alimzan Tokhtakhounov, arrested in Italy on U.S. charges, is accused of scheming to get a French judge to vote for the Russian team that won a gold medal, in exchange for the Russian judge to vote for the French team, which won the ice-dancing competition.

According to U.S. intelligence experts, Russia today presents a serious danger to the Western world because it still has huge stores of very poorly guarded weapons of mass destruction and radioactive materials, along with powerful criminal syndicates prepared to sell everything to everybody for cash.

The danger that Russian criminals may sell weapons of mass destruction to terrorists for use against the U.S. and its friends and allies is real and is recognized by Western officials.

At the same time, Russia's Mafia-type crime groups have a history of cooperating with terrorist organizations. As Moscow's press recently reported, Russian and Chechen criminal syndicates are cooperating to transport and market heroin from Afghanistan, and Osama bin Laden used these criminal organizations to launder money for his terrorism activities, receiving from $133 million to $1 billion a year.

For these and other operations, Russian criminal syndicates need large amounts of money and are using all opportunities to launder the money earned from their openly criminal activities. We know that European prosecutors are currently continuing their "Spiderweb" operation to crack down on money laundering and the Russian Mafia, which uses unprincipled Western businessmen for illegal activities.

As NewsMax.com reported on June 20, the operation led to the arrest of 50 persons, and 150 more are under investigation in connection with a $500 million money-laundering ring. The probe, one of the largest in recent history, was born out of the U.S. Justice Department's investigation into the role of the Bank of New York in large-scale money laundering from Russia in 1999.

Currently, investigators taking part in the "Spiderweb" probe have focused on the repatriation of funds from the Bank of New York and offshore centers to Russia through Italian and other European front companies.

According to Italian law enforcement officials, the Russian criminals were sending all the money that they could out of the country, and at one point many of the same people decided they wanted to bring the laundered money back. The problem was that, since they had illegally sent the money out, now they had to find a way to re-launder their money to make it appear legal to the Russian authorities.

So they decided to use friendly Italian companies to issue false invoices or send goods to Russia and make everything look more or less legitimate.

In the center of the investigation is a group run by Grigori Loutchansky, whose company, Nordex, has been linked with the Bank of New York. Mr. Loutchansky is considered by law enforcement authorities to be a major figure in the Russian organized crime network connected with this case.

As an Interpol report stated, Nordex, a company based in Vienna, Austria, with offices in Germany, Ireland, Lithuania, Russia, Switzerland and Ukraine, is accused of having had a central role in the money-laundering operation uncovered by the "Spiderweb" probe.

Nordex was created by the old guard of the communist regime to allow the exodus of former Soviet Communist Party funds before the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Loutchansky's organization is also suspected of having trafficked in weapons, drugs and nuclear materials, and is alleged to have close ties to the former KGB and its successor agencies. Loutchansky was expelled from Britain in 1994.

In other words, the Russian or "Red" Mafia is not a myth but a reality that is dangerous not only for Russia itself but for the Western world.

Under these circumstances, it is just as important for the Russian government, which pretends to be our partner in the anti-terrorism coalition, not to pretend its Mafia doesn't exist, but to crack down on organized crime in Russia.

I can tell you that the Russian mafia is for real. There is a Russian organized crime presence in California's Central Valley where I live. Most of what they do involves cell phone theft, credit card fraud and extorting "protection" money from Russian, Ukrainian and Lithuanian immigrants.

It's been said these guys make the Sicilian mafia look like a bunch of girl scouts. I wonder how Putin deals with them. I suspect either he's against them or he works with them. Since we don't hear much about that issue, I suspect he works with them, but I would very much like to hear otherwise.

"Currently, Russian officials and the government-controlled media are trying to give the international community a wrong idea – that the notorious Russian or "Red" Mafia exists largely in the imagination of Western intelligence experts. "

LOL...good luck to them. Not only does the "Red" Mafia exist, but about 20,000 "Red" Mafias exist. Trying to claim they don't is an exercise in futility. Anyone trying to do business in Russia has to deal with mafia.

"Since we don't hear much about that issue, I suspect he works with them, but I would very much like to hear otherwise."

He works with the more successful mafia. They are called oligarchs. (semi respectable mafia) Putin shut down Yeltsins Oligarchs' when he took over and his supporters moved into their places. Now they control most of the Russian economy.

Oh no! I was sort of referring to those Oligarchs as I knew they had lots of power during Yeltin's period; however, I figured that was because Yeltin was such a drunk and in poor health that he didn't really care what was going on anyway. I do remember when Putin came out, there was a falling-out with Berezovsky (sp?). But now some new ones have come along to take the places of the old ones? Great.

I guess Russia will continue to deteriorate. I wondered if the Russian mob had anything to do with the death of Lebed, because if I remember correctly, Lebed hated them.

It's been said these guys make the Sicilian mafia look like a bunch of girl scouts. I wonder how Putin deals with them.

Ever wonder what the "Russian Mafia" (a bunch of people whose specialty was violence and intimidation) did for a living in the old USSR before Communism imploded? How it is that we only started hearing about them after the "fall" of Communism?

Ever wonder where all the laid-off KGB agents went, after there wasn't enough money to keep so many on the payroll

I wonder about what kind of relationship Putin maintains with the Russian Mafia too

You forgot a few things. Tax fraud, insurance fraud, gas schemes, etc,etc,etc.

He works with the more successful mafia. They are called oligarchs.

When the USSR "privatized", the people who bought up the state-owned factories dirt-cheap were the inner-circle of the Communist Party (the nomenklatura). They were the only ones with cash to buy up factories. They stayed in control, only now as "capitalists" rather than as "the Party".

In the Communist days, the Party had the KGB to keep people in line, and terminate threats to Party power. In the post-Communist days, the "oligarchs" have the "Russian Mafia" to keep people in line, and terminate threats to the oligarchs position in the "new economy"

LUDWIG 'TARZAN' FAINBERG tried to buy a Russian submarine to smuggle drugs into South Florida. Extortion and humiliating women were his favorite activities (he chased a stripper down the street, beat her up and made her eat stones.). Fainberg ratted out some friends and got off with a slap on the wrist and deportation.

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