The Russian Mob or Mafia, Russkaya Mafiya, Red Mafia, Krasnaya Mafiya or Bratva (brotherhood), is a name given to a broad group of organized criminals of various ethnicity which appeared from the Soviet Union after its disintegration in 1991. Apart from ethnic Russians, the term comprises disproportionately large numbers of Jews and Chechens, as well as the Georgian, the Ukrainian, the Armenian, and the Azeri mob, as well as so called “mafia” groups from other former USSR republics.
Background
Amid the political uncertainty that has engulfed the former Soviet Union since the end of the Cold War in 1991, rampant, unchecked organized crime has laid waste to noteworthy democratic reforms and contributed to an economic and moral meltdown within the 15 newly independent republics. Intelligence reports emanating out of Russia peg the numerical size of the Russian Mafia (“mafiya”) at 100,000 members owing allegiance to 8,000 stratified crime groups who control 70-80% of all private business and 40% of the nation’s wealth.
Many of the bosses and main members of the Russian mafia are believed to be ex-Soviet Army and ex-KGB officers who lost their posts in the reduction of forces that began in 1993 after the end of the Cold War. It is also believed that many of the groups’ enforcers are ex-Russian Spetsnaz special forces, an organisation renowned for its brutality. Russian mobsters also recruit sportsmen: boxers, martial artists, weightlifters (as funding for sports had decreased sharply) and other Olympic athletes. In some cases, the Russian mafia has recruited Olympic sharpshooters to carry out hits.
The Russian Mafia appears to be organized in similar ways to the Italian mafia. It is believed, however, to be a very loose organization with internal feuds and murders being commonplace. A particularly brutal practice rumored to be utilized by the Russian Mafia is the killing of not only the individual who has “snitched” or turned against the Organizatsiya, but also the individual’s family. The Russian mafia is notorious for underground operations and clean transactions, and, unlike certain vestiges of the Italian mafia, it is known for its secrecy and unflamboyant manner.
History
Despite seeming to arise during the Fall of the Soviet Union, organized crime had existed throughout the imperial and communist eras as a form of open rebellion against the systems in the form of the “Thief’s World”. During this time organized crime was fiercely honor-based and often attacked and killed traitors among their ranks. Nevertheless, during World War II, many enlisted in the Russian Army resulting in the Suka Wars, which killed many of the thieves who were branded as government allies as well as the original thief underworld during Stalin’s reign. The criminals, seeking a new survival strategy, began to ally with the elite in the Soviet Union as a means of survival, creating a powerful Russian black market.
The real breakthrough for criminal organizations occurred during the economic disaster of the 1990s that followed the fall of the Soviet Union. Desperate for money, many former government workers turned to crime and the Mafia became a natural extension of this trend. According to official estimates, some 100,000 Russians are hard-core mobsters, with a large but unknown number engaging in these criminal practices on and off.
Between 1992 and 1994 the Russian Mafia targeted the commercial centers of power, seizing control of the nation’s fragile banking system. At first the criminal gangs were content to merely “park” their large cash holdings in legitimate institutions, but soon they realized that the next step was the easiest of all: direct ownership of the bank itself.
Banking executives, reform-minded business leaders, even investigative journalists, were systematically assassinated or kidnapped. In 1993 alone, members of the eight criminal gangs that control the Moscow underworld murdered 10 local bankers. Calling themselves “Thieves in Law” (vori v zakone), Russian gangsters have murdered ninety-five bankers in the last five years.
Since the mid-90s the Russians have been trying to expand into America, most often via the trafficking of drugs and illegal weapons. This has led to some brutal wars with the organizations already present, including the Italian Mafia, Chinese Triads and the Yakuza. The group is believed to have links to Colombian drug smugglers and many smaller gangs as a result of the fall of the Soviet Union. Some also believe they are at the heart of gangs smuggling illegal workers west to the European Union and often Britain, though no proof has been offered for this at this time. The home of the Russian Mafia in America is in the Brighton Beach (dubbed by Russians “Little Odessa”) neighborhood in New York.
Over the last few years, the FBI and Russian security services have tried to crack down on the Mafia, though the impact of this has yet to be measured.
Composition
The majority of organized crime groups and their members within Russia are ethnically Russian. Furthermore, the majority of violent organized crime groups and their members are also ethnically Russian within Russia’s borders.
However, the Russian mafia is not limited to ethnic Russians, but to many nationalities from the former Soviet Union, most of which are now collectively known as the Commonwealth of Independent States.
Chechens make up a disproportionate amount of Russian mafia members inside Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus, and only play a small role in the Russian Mafia’s overseas membership. Russian Jews are also present in the Mafia structure, though it is difficult to determine the number in the Russian mafia. The Russian Mafia also has a multitude of other nationalities such as Ukrainians, Belarusians, Armenians (tied to the Armenian Power gang), Moldovans, Kazakhs, Uzbeks, Georgians, Dagestanis, Azeris, and others. Additionally, countries such as Armenia, Georgia, Ukraine, Estonia, Lithuania, Belarus, and Moldova have their own mafia organizations which have extensive links to the Russian mafia.
Organizations
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Dolgoprudnenskaya is a Russian mafia organization and is considered one of the largest groups of organized crime operating in Moscow. It is named after Dolgoprudniy, which is a Moscow suburb. It was founded in 1988 and is allegedly very influential.
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Izmailovskaya (Russian: Измайловская) is considered one of the country’s most important and oldest Russian Mafia groups in Moscow and also has a presence in Tel Aviv, Paris, Toronto, Miami and New York City.It was founded during the 1980s under the leadership of Oleg Ivanov and was recently estimated to consist of about 200 active members (according to other data of 300-500 people). In principle, the organization is divided into two separate bodies – Izmailovskaya and Gol’yanovskaya, which utilize quasi-military ranks and strict internal discipline. It is involved extensively in murder-for-hire, extortions, and infiltration of legitimate businesses.
Threats to International Business
Foreign companies pay up to 20% of their profits to the Mafia as the on-going price of doing business in Russia. Ignoring shakedown threats merely invites tragedy. Most American and other western firms find it necessary to hire private security guards to protect their executives from extortion threats and roving assassins.
Ineffective law enforcement has spurred the rapid growth and expansion of the private security industry. In the past seven years, 25,000 Russian security firms were established, employing between 600,000 and 800,000 workers. The Mafia controls at least one-sixth of them.
Foreign businessmen and the Russian Mafia
An unknown number of foreign businessmen, believed to be in the low thousands, arrived in Russia from all over the world during the early and mid 1990s to seek their fortune and to cash in on the transition from a communist to a free market/capitalist society. This period was referred to by many of the businessmen as the “second great gold rush“.
Generally, 1990 to 1998 was a wild and unstable time for most foreign businessmen operating in Russia. Dangerous battles with the Russian Mob occurred, with many being killed or wounded. The Mafia welcomed the foreign businessmen and their expertise in facilitating business and making things happen in a stagnant and new economy. The Mafia considered them as a good source of hard currency, to be extorted under the usual guise of “protection money”. Many different Mafia groups would fiercely compete to be able to “protect” a certain businessman; in exchange, the businessman would not have to worry about having more than one group showing up demanding tribute from him. Many foreign businessmen left Russia after these incidents, and after almost a decade since the wild 1990’s, the Mafia still holds its grip on the majority of legitimate and illegal business occurring in Russia.
