WElcome PolakVet... here's a question... do you know of any linkages between cyber criminals, organized crime, and Russian? state
All I know that there are individual or groups of hackers who get into such operations. However there are groups that for example produce devices for example to read your credit card info from an ATM if they have attached it there and you've entered your card. But, unfortunately I do not got large information sources on that kind of sector, sadly.
Polak vet what do you think of the gasoline scam the russians had going along with the italians in new york and why do you think that they gave in to the italians demand for a cut of the action?
The shakedown was done while Balagula was leading the group as far as I remember. They paid to the Italian Mafia due that at those years the Russian Mafiya was really the Jewish-Russian Mafiya as people stated it before. They were small in numbers and nothing compared to the groups that came up in late 80's and troughout 90's. So they had no other choice but to pay up, unless they wanted to be taken out.
In the early 90's when Ivankov arrived to USA, he built up a brigade of around 100 men who were sportsmen or ex-army/spetsnaz/kgb figures in Brighton Beach. I also remember that there were many murders around Brighton Beach with Ivankov's group taking over the area, they either told smaller brigades to join them up or to be eliminated. The group is still present nowdays in Brighton Beach, only Ivankov doesn't lead it anymore as he's dead.
In the start there were sayings that the Italian Mob was going to even kill Ivankov, due to that they didn't have experience with that kind of Russian Crime Group. They didn't realize they were much more powerful than Balagula's little gang of thugs.
I really have a lot of info in Russian about these all figures that are info about them in Russia, but sadly there's really less info about Russian criminals in USA in Russian.
