@Antonio I got to agree with you, the whole thing of calling the Russian Crime Groups a Mafia is wrong, imo. We call them the Bratva - literally traslates to "a group of men", but practically describes any criminal structure which is from the ex-USSR, even if they're just three people. Practically in Russia and ex-USSR states we do not call our organized crime structures as a mafia, we call them bandits and criminals. The term of the "Red Mafiya" is more from the United States where they've made this trough stereotypes.

About the Miami fraudsters. Oleg Simchuk started this scam back in Riga, Latvia since the 90's. From my information sources he was also involved in extortion in his early career. But then turned to prostitution rings and fraud operations with them. He had at least seven strip club in Riga from which these operations were done, then he decided to move to USA where money would be a lot more.

Yeah, Italian Mafia may do money laundering, but everyone does that. Here in Latvia the latest fraud by the Bratva was done the 'income tax repayment scam'. We get paid a percent of our paid taxes each year when they recalculate them. So, this group made near to hundred non-existing companies, in Latvia and abroad. They made several deals that did not happen between these companies and their total jackpot in the end was around six million. They were filtrating the money trough these off-shore companies as well so there would be no trace, but yeah in the end they got caught. But somehow all the arrested people involved in this scheme have been released already.