They both likely made tons of money

Today would the Russians tell the Italians about a big scam like that , unlikely but in the 80s and 90s the guineas ran everything and had all the connections , including LE, so it's possible the Russian guy told the Italians to get the network , protection and the scale to make it massive like it was. My guess is the Russians took a decent cut but really couldn't negotiate from a position of strength and were probably happy to get the cut they did and more importantly know the scan would be poised for big growth with the wiseguys