Russian Organized Crime - Q&A

Hello, I'm ThePolakVet. I live in Latvia, which is an ex-USSR state bordering with Russia, Estonia and Lithuania. I have a large knowledge on Russian Organized Crime and crime groups in ex-USSR states. So, I would like to share with you guys with this information so you would get a better glance on how it is actually. Yeah, I'm making this type of thread as it would take me days actually to write a proper info thred.

So yeah, feel free and post your questions. I'll hopefully will try to answer all of them.

How many clans are there in Moscow alone since its the capital of Russia and whats the total manpower of those clans combined?

I know of 'Russian' crime lords from these ethnic groups from the former USSR : ethnic Russians, Sovjet Jews, Georgians, Chechens, Azerbaijanis, Armenians, Kyrgyz, Uzbeks, Abkhaz and Yazidis.
Which other ethnic communities from the former USSR are big players in organized crime ?

This is a map of the largest groups currently in Moscow.
Here's another map from another source.
The apparent number of largely memberbased crime groups in Moscow is around 20. Not all of the are Russian ethnic, there are Chechen, Georgian, Azerbaijan and also various other ethnic crime groups in Moscow.

The total amount of Russian Crime groups in Moscow is around 150. The largest groups such as the Solnetsevskaya has up to 5000 members, however some sources state that there's a lot less by that. But apromoxitely there's around 30,000 to even 50,000 criminals in Moscow connected to an organized crime group.

They're mostly the one's you mentioned. There are also also figures as Bellarussians, Ukrainians, Kazakh's who are largely known in the Bratva.

I remember a big massacre that took place in Irkutsk when I lived there in 2002 when the gangster Pavel Kiselev was killed with his bodyguards and a couple of witnesses (including a 15-year-old boy). It took place just on the street I often passed through while going at the marketplace in the center of the city. Good thing I wasn't there.
There is a powerful organization with international ties in that region, the so-called Bratskaya organized crime group, based in the city of Bratsk. The boss is Vladimir Tiurin, a thief-in-law (vor v zakone), although I have no idea how did he manage to get that title considering the fact he was convicted for rape. A real b#@$%^d, that one. He has been arrested by interpol a couple of years ago at the Spanish authorities request, they hoped he would be extradited because he had no Russian citizenship since he was born in Kazakhstan, but he managed to get the citizenship during the hearings, and my country with its idiotic extradition law doesn't extradite its citizens.

ThePolakVet, by the way who do you think is more powerful - Sergey Mikhailov, the head of the Solnzevskaya, or Aslan Usoyan? I haven't been in Russia for years, so I don't really know the present situation.

Great info! thanks!

That's due to that nowdays Vory V Zakone have changed really a lot just like any other criminal organization. But it's not that they allow people who have raped someone in their lines, they still have this rule. But it's the money thing. More or less it's all based on money nowdays and even an eighteen year old boy spending few months in a prison can be crowned as a Vor V Zakone if he pays an enough sum to another Vor V Zakone who'll crown him.



Mikhas definetely as Solnetsevskaya is a large and international crime group and the largest in Moscow, by now with having several brigades almost in every well developed world's country. Nowdays Solnetsevskaya controls the Russian crime groups in Latvia making them to pay up to Solnetsevskaya's Obschak(organization's fund collection).

Ded Hasan on the other hand has control on the Kazakh groups within many ex-USSR states, but still his organization is not so large as Solnetsevskaya. Thus Solnetsevskaya has a far greater history with battling Chechen crime groups in 90's.

There's no doubt Mikhailov is well more respected and more powerful than Ded Hasan with his empire.

Is the Solntsevskaya Bratva mostly ethnic Russian or mostly ethnic Jewish ?
Because I've always considered the myth that 'The Russian Mafia is Jewish' bullshit. This may be true for the USA since it were mostly Russian/Ukrainian Jews who migrated to the USA. But in Russia and other European countries there also are a lot of ethnic Russian mobsters.

Mostly ethnic Russian, there are of course individuals who are other ethnics but speak Russian, such as Georgians, Ukrainians, Belarussian, etc.

Yeah, you're completely right on that. Never happened in Russia. Maybe in the 70's that was what was going on in America due to the mostly emigrated people being jewish, but still a lot of Russian criminals just made fake documents to show that they're jewish while really they weren't.

But now in these years, this has even changed in America. They're mostly ethnic Russians.

Dont know how true is this(sounds to me like a fantasy talk)but here it goes...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FG_bACkcDL8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dlGdisZfFBU&feature=channel&list=UL

I remember I once saw in the news Mikhailov was beaten by a policeman (he went around showing the wound on the head in front of the cameras). Don't remember when it was, maybe 10 years ago. I don't like police violence, but was good to know there was at least somebody around there not afraid of that hypocritical scumbag. I once went to his site, so many people in the guestbook seemed to like licking his boots. Disgusting... I hope so much he meets a bad end sooner or later.

Yeah I've heard about this.
There are a lot of 'Russian' and 'Ukrainian' criminals who are ethnically Ashkenazi Jewish. Mogilevich is Jewish, Agron, Balagula, Nayfeld, Fainberg,...all Jewish.
But then we have Mikhailov, Kumarin, Timofeyev, Ivankov,...and they don't have a Jewish bone in their body.
There are a lot of Soviet Jewish crime bosses, sure. But there are also lots and lots of ethnic Russian mobsters. Like PolakVet said, a lot of ethnic Russian gangsters faked Jewish background just to hide in Israel. The 'Russian' Mafia is neither fully Jewish, nor fully Russian.

ps : I live in Belgium. Antwerp used to be a big place for the 'Russian' mob. The main bosses were Rachmiel Brandwain and Mosche Ben-Ari, both Ashkenazi Jews from Ukraine, and Abraham Melikhov, a Georgian Jew ( ethnically Georgian Jews differ from Ashkenazi Jews). In Belgium citizenship was applied to people of Jewish origins. Just like it in the USA. That's why a lot of Jewish crime bosses are around in these countries.
Nowadays these crime bosses aren't that active anymore in Antwerp. They used to run prostitution, drug trafficking, arms trafficking, contract killing, money laundering,...nowadays (the ones who are still alive) they only launder money.
Albanians in Antwerp mostly control drug and weapon trafficking and prostitution nowadays, but there also is an increase in Chechen gangsters over there. They have tried to take over some Albanian businesses which has resulted in shootings a couple of times.

I always found Mogilevich much worse than Mikhailov for some reason.

^^^ Ye me too

I think they are equally despicable. Mikhailov just bothers me more because so far he is more successful in escaping prosecution. Mogilevich at least is wanted in the USA, so if the Russian laws change one day, there is hope he will be extradited, while Mikhailov isn't wanted or indicted anywhere and even presents himself as a sort of benefactor!

I remember reading about Mogilevich' torture chambers. That was some pretty effed up stuff

I didn't know about that. I guess I should inform myself more about the gangsters of my homeland.

Mogilevich Torture chambers

These torture chambers were ran in Prague by members of Mogilevich' organization ( mostly Ukrainian Jews I thought)

Criminals in Russia in arrests are treated worser than dirt, just look at these videos on youtube. They usually get brutally dragged to the ground, forced with their faces in the asphalt or mud or even slammed with their head against a cars hood. I've even seen how a guy got dragged with his face on the asphalt, damn. When it comes to Russia, police is brutal there agains the criminals.

Well not that I dislike or admire criminals, but in ex-USSR states the majority of criminals have turned to this lifestyle just because they had no other chance to survive in the 90's.

Interesting information.
By the way, even though I don't want to start a political discussion and I am not a communist, I can't help noticing that before the 90s those characters, such as Mogilevich, Usoyan etc. were at least regularly sent to prison where they belonged, while now they are all "respectable businessmen". So much for the so-called "liberation of the country" by Gorbachev. From communism straight into the hands of the mafia. Don't know which of the 2 is more sinister.

I agree, many are treated like that, but not the crime lords. The police are afraid to do something to them as far as I know, they prefer beating their underlings, while the big criminal businessmen are usually treated with hypocritical deference because of their connections. But I agree that small-time hoods are often forced in the life by the circumstances, that's really horrible.

In communism people got sent to prison for completely nothing sometimes. Such as starting in the early years when communism started you got sent to the Gulags for owning a property. During the WW2 you got sent to prison just because in the war the German army had forced you to join their lines and fight on their side, so when the war ended you got sent to prison due to that. If you went to the countryside and for example brought to your place a bag of potato's and sold it to your neighbor, you also got sent to prison. That's the communism system of prisoning people.



Many of the facts in that article I find untrue, for example the friendship between Mogilevich and Elson. The same goes for Mogilevich buying out Ivankov, when that actually was Ivankov's lawyer. As well as Ivankov sitting in a Siberian Prison, while he actually sat in Moscow. You shouldn't fully trust that article.

Thanx 4 the article...the most devilish part of the article that i hate OC for is this...

"In another deal, an FBI informant told the bureau that one of Mogilevich's chief lieutenants in Los Angeles met two Russians from New York City with Genovese crime family ties to broker a scheme to dump American toxic waste in Russia. Mogilevich's man from L.A. said the Red Mafia would dispose of the toxic waste in the Chernobyl region, ''probably through payoffs to the decontamination authorities there,'' says a classified FBI report."

And almost evry OC group in the world do this!

I wasn't talking about Stalin's times. I was actually comparing the 90s to the later years of the Soviet Union - the 70s and the first half of the 80s. However bad the those times may have been, at least there were not so much shootings in the streets. The economy was worse, I agree, as was the "freedom" situation, but the organized crime wasn't nearly as powerful as today. Trust me, in today's Russia, unfortunately, the concepts "big businessman" and "mafia boss" are almost the same.
During the Soviet Union times there wasn't any economical freedom, I agree, but in my opinion there isn't any even today, but for other reasons. A honest businessman has no hope to enter the market.

I totally agree on this!

Till the time when people were allowed to get back their businesses, these laws still worked about selling stuff. That's like till 1989 if I'm not mistaken. In Soviet Union everything happened as everywhere else. Russian Organized Crime Groups operate since the 60's, the majority of nowday crime groups operate since the 80's. There were shootings, crime and everything else. Of course it wasn't like in 1994 with bombings, but still stuff happened. The fact you think that it wasn't there, is just that USSR censored it's news and such events were not advertised.

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?

WElcome PolakVet... here's a question... do you know of any linkages between cyber criminals, organized crime, and Russian? state

There was crime, but how could it be as powerful as today if there were no businessmen and no private property? The mafia is strong where there is BIG money. You couldn't have a bank business account and legally export money. As for the shootings, I am only telling what I know and what my parents and grandparents know about the part of the country we lived in: independently from the injustices of communism, in the 70s if you walked through the streets, the possibility of being beaten up and robbed or killed were not nearly as high as today.
I repeat, I am not a communist and I don't defend the USSR, I am just saying that the mafia today has become more powerful because now there is big money and the power made it become more vicious. I am not saying the Soviet Union was better - there were MANY infamous things equally bad as the mafia, I am just saying that the crime situation has worsened. It's like in Italy - if I say the mafia situation during fascism was worse for the mafia, it doesn't mean I am justifying fascism.

By the way, could you tell us something about organized crime in Latvia? Who are considered the most important bosses, how is the law enforcement situation etc.

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.



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.

From what I've read it seems that the big organized crime bosses in the Baltic states are mostly ethnic Russians. Latvia is also supposed to be very corrupt.

ThePolakVet, if you understand Russian, I can share some documentaries about Russian organized crime if you want. It would be interesting to discuss them.

In Latvia there are many type of Organized Crime Groups, majorly they are Russian crime groups with involvement of other ethnics in them as well. So, there are Russian, Chechen and Georgian groups that I know of. As well as some Gipsy, but they are mostly just drug dealers.

There are few Chechen groups, the largest one is known to be ran in Ventspils, there's no real info who is leading it, but it's very feared. Few years ago some members of this group beat up police officers in a club and the guards of the club were scared shitless that they didn't even interrupt that event. But in my opinion, the largest group is led by a businessman named Beslan Abdulmuslimov. He usually drives in a escort with several bodyguards around and has links to political parties.

The Georgian group is led by Zurab Shamugiya, he's the only Vor V Zakone in Latvia. They mainly operate in vehicle theft, by stealing cars and exporting them to Russia and as well in hi-jackings. There's no large information about them, and I don't really know if they're fully Georgian or just a majority of them.

There's a lot of Russian crime groups. The biggest in the 90's were Pardaugava Group, Kharitnov's Brigade, Liepaja Brigade and many other groups that are not known to the media. Currently most groups are paying off to Solnetsevskaya's obschak(the united fund collection of a criminal structure, usually held by one or few person's) There's also information on other smaller brigades that operates/-ed in Latvia, such as Burnov's Brigade that got ambushed by Pardaugava in a gym. Bolderaja Brigada which were known to be ruthless and usually extorted victims to the very core by taking fully everything they had. Kononov's Group that largely operated in contraband smuggling.

The most known current criminal bosses are Beslan Abdulmuslimov(Chechen), Zurab Shamugiya(Georgian), Boris Raigorodsky, Ivan Kharitonov, Raitis Kononov.

There are as well new groups, that for example operate in drug dealing, fuel stealing, contraband smuggling and many other activities, but they're small time and usually being extorted by larger groups.

There is really a lot more information to tell, but I'll finish it up later, currently got to study. Thanks for the questions guys, keep them coming. I'll make sure to post loads and load of information here, was really long time searching for such a forum.

Great information ThePolakVet

it seems like georgian, chechen and armenian crime groups have a disproportionate role in the russian underworld, am i right? a bit like sicilian calabrian and neapolitan in the italian underworld

Well in the entire former Soviet Union there are about 500000 Ashkenazi Jews, 2 million Chechens, 8 million Armenians, 5 million Georgians, 200000 Abkhazians, 150000 Yazidis, 4 million Kyrgyz, 10 million Azerbaijanis and Uzbeks are relatively bigger with a population of around 20 million.
But compare this to no less than 100 million ethnic Russians living in the former Soviet Union.
So yeah, you can definitely say that the other ethnic crime groups play a pretty disproportionate role in the underworld

Yeah, mainly there are Russian criminal groups, there's a concentration with other ethnic groups in Moscow as for them it's a pot of gold in the capital city where money goes around. But troughout Russia there's mainly Russian ethnic groups that have the major power.

What do you guys think about Monya Elson's claim he made shortly after John Gotti's death in an interview:
"I don't want to speak badly of the Italian mafia, but compared to what is now happening in the former Soviet Union, its boss is a nobody, both in terms of money and influence".
I mean, if he is talking about the USA territory, he is clearly lying, but what would happen if the Italian mafia and the Russian crime groups had a conflict on a neutral territory? Who would manage to push the other out?

If we're speaking about ex-USSR countries - The Russian Organized Crime groups are a superpower. And there's many things to clarify that.

Who are the members of ROC groups?
1. Majority are ex-sportsmen, who were boxers, other fighting sports specialists and so on. Young athletes who can beat people seriously up. Gym's were mass recruiting spots for the Russian Gangs in 90's and is even today. A lot of P.E.(Physical Education) teachers also became criminal gang members and even leaders as well in the 90's.
2. Ex military members. It's an obligatory to serve the army in Russia for every male at least a year. They know how to use weapons, army close combat fighting, tactics, etc.
3. Intelectuals - if in USA in prison everyone does sports, then in Russia they read books. Some people come out of prisons with education that even people with an university degree are idiots compared to them. A lot of Russians play chess, that already shows who you're dealing with. You're dealing with a crime group consisting of physically and intelectually very developed people. Like when Vory V Zakone were created in the Siberian Gulags, who you think got sent there mainly? People who were very smart and intelectual - people who would be a threat for the Soviet Regime to fall. Practically if you were at the time a guy with higher education in Engineering, you got sent to the Gulag. Who else got sent there? People who knew how to make money. As they were considered to the Soviet Regime as well as a threat who support capitalism. And nowday Russian gangsters are these people, the children of ex-convicts who were there because of their intelect or skills to earn money.

Look at the criminal activities. Like for example the fuel fraud scheme that brought in millions even in the 70's. Medicare fraud schemes. Specualtions with fund exchange. This is not the typical extortion, robbery thing. These criminals have higher rates, they go for the jackpot, the big cash. Like the B Girls in Miami, led by Alek(Oleg) Simchuk(actually an Ukrainian/Russian from Latvia). He didn't just organize an usual prostitute ring, he made prostitues to scam clients bigtime. Same with Ivankov, he didn't go there to take five thousand every week. He told straight to bring the three million.


I'm not here stating that Cosa Nostra members are idiots. But they aren't in the level of the Russian Mob, that's practicing upper-scale crimes.

In the 70's I guess the LCN would have easily taken out the Russian Mob as they were really small time back then. Nowdays the Russians would most probably have an upper hand in the conflict. But that's my opinion.

What I've heard is actually that a singer Villy Tokarev was tried to be extorted in USA by LCN mobsters, but as soon as they've heard that he is under Ivankov's protection they backed off.

Like ThePolakVet confirmed before : 'Russian' organized crime is divided in criminal gangs of a lot of different ethnicities. All of these gangs are very powerful.
Gangs like the Solntsevskaya ( mostly ethnic Russians and some Russian Jews) however are in a league of their own. They are capable of doing the drug trafficking and extortion most OC groups do, but they also carry out sophisticated schemes.
Right now Ex-Soviet OC is much more powerful than the American Mafia. But I wouldn't say they are more powerful than the Italy-based organizations like the Sicilian Mafia or the Ndrangheta. These two gangs also have a large and powerful international presence.
Worldwide I think Ex-Soviet OC, Italian OC and Triads are the most prevalent.

@The PolakVet

I agree with a lot of your statements and by the way, thanks for the info, it was a very interesting read. However I think that even you have a bit of a disillusioned view on the "Russian Mafiya". A prime example of what you called the Russian mob is that scam that was run by that Russian fraudster in Miami, Florida. It's a bit out of context to say that is Russian "Mafia" and the media blow these things way out of context, because to me a group of fraudsters running a scam is not the same as the word "Mafia" to me. If a bunch of Spanish fraudsters did that, they wouldn't get called "Mafia", it's bassically just re-enforcing stereotypes that Russian have a sense of criminality about them. When I think of Russian Mafia, I think of people like the Vor V Zakone and other criminal groups that have structure and are involved in a range of criminal activities. They are the real Russian organized crime groups, not petty one's that go about and commit medicare fraud. For example, Armenian Power, now that is a prime example of Esstern European organized crime. It is involved in many crimes, has structure and is international. In comparison to the well built structures of the Italian-American mafia, the Italians I think have the upper hand when it comes to man power and stability. Also you say that the Russian OC groups tend to be more involved in white collar crimes than the Italians, whilst that may be true to a certain extent, I can name several examples of the Italian and Italian-American mobsters getting involved in things like huge money laundering operations, Fraud e.t.c. and it's nothing new either, they have been doing it for quite some time.

@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.

While I'm here having a bit of free time, I'll explain to the people what's Vory V Zakone and their difference from other criminal structures in ex-USSR.

So, the group Vory V Zakone is more or less to have been made in the early thirties in the Siberian Gulags. Practically there is no trace who were the very first to create this group, but what is known that it was a group of criminals to hold together the traditions of Russia's criminals. They made a special code to which they had to follow. The main thing was to oppose the communist regime and not go by it, as they wanted the Vory V Zakone to work.

Here's the code(Vorovskoi Zakon):
First part, there's practically seven main laws to follow:
1) Represent and support the Vorovskoi ideology.
2) Do not contact or get in any cooperation with goverment organs.
3) Be honest between each other(meant between Vory V Zakone)
4) Recruit new members to the Vorovskoi mir, especially those who are young.
5) Not to be involved in any politics.
6) Organize discipline/order in prisons and create there the ruling of Vory V Zakone.
7) Obligatory knowledge how to play card games.

Then from these 7 laws, there goes out more laws:
1) Disagree to work with/for any goverment workers(prison guards/police/etc.)
2) Never give a testimony.
3) Never accept your own fault in a crime you've done.
4) Not to hold any funds or stock(stock market)
5) Not to have family(no wife, no children)
6) From time to time, you need to get in prison
7) Not to take weapons in your hands(meant to not accept the offer from Stalin to become soldiers)
8) Not work at all
9) Hold order in prison, as sort conflicts and not let a conflict to break out
10) Send received packages to isolators
11) Recruit every possible criminal, prisoner as new recruits in the prison
12) Respect your parents(especially mother)
13) Not to be a member of some political party
14) Teach the new trade the right way of the life
15) Not to have signed at a living place(means you don't have an actual living place)
16) A card game always must be honestly played without cheating
17) Not allowed to swear
18) Not allowed to revenge in a sneaky way
19) Not to rob from your own people
20) Not to harm/laugh at other men
And then there's the other laws, that directly are meant to work in the prison:
1) Give a piece of your income(packages you receive/food/money) in the obshak(fund handler)
2) Not to raise your hand at a Vor V Zakone
3) Listen to/respect elders
4) Not to become a communist
Plus there goes other laws from previous sections mentioned.

A vor v zakone is a man who has sat in prison for a crime that is not(rape/pedophilia/killing of child) and has been crowned as a Vor V Zakone by another Vor V Zakone. They usually take leadership positions in organized crime groups, a lot of them are not even after that connected to organized crime. Their main task is to support criminals in the Russian prison system.

However, now there are always more and more vory v zakone who just buy the title, the so-called "oranges" (apelsiny), and there are some who did commit the "forbidden" crimes: for example, Vladimir Tiurin has been convicted for rape, as well as Otari Kvantrishvili (killed in the 90s), while Yevgeniy Yevseyev from Kemerovo (also killed) once had a small child murdered by mistake - his hit men went to kill the gangster Vladimir Dureyev, but got drunk before doing the job, entered the wrong apartment and slaughtered the family who lived there.

Yeah, as Dawlin2011 stated there's also a lot of those who buy the title nowdays. The whole ideology has changed a lot as well in nowdays, it's more business/money oriented. Such as Vory V Zakone having properties, families, children.

That's also for a lot of groups nodays to dismiss the influence of Vory V Zakone and take them as any other criminal, not an elite criminal.

I heard that pedophiles have tough times in Russian prisons lol

They try to put them together in some prisons together with other sexual crime related inmates, but mostly they're left in the zona together with everyone else - they either get used as prison whores themselves or get killed eventually.

I always wondered about one thing: while sexual offenders and those who get raped in prisons are considered the lowest category, those who rape them aren't despised at all. That makes no sense to me: if one has sexual contact with a child molester, he is a pervert himself.
By the way, a curiosity: I read that the the bosses of the "Uralmash" organization in Yekaterinburg created during the 90s a special group (the so-called "Kurdiumov brigade") composed mainly of so-caled "cocks" or "roosters", former prisoners who have been sexually abused. This group was used by the Uralmash by exploiting their hatred towards the gangsters who belonged to the same criminal category as those who had abused them.

From one side it's like giving them what they did to others, from another aspect I prefer the thing thay they kill them. Practically lately in Latvian prisons child molesters/killers have hanged themselves, but I think that they actually got hanged there by other prisoners. But on the other side then, they get with an easy punishment away. However, better them to be dead not to be alive and ruining someone's life.

@ThePolakVet

Do Moldovans have major organized crime networks ?

I've heard they operate in contraband smuggling, never heard of any actual Moldovian organized crime group. Mostly if there are Moldovian criminals, they're associated witn Russian groups.

This thread has gone down the drain, maybe anyone got some questions?

Is Russian oc in USA powerful?

they do that [seperate them] in all prisons.it is customary to put sex offenders in a seperate wing all together. very common practice has been going on since [at least] the late eightys.

In Scottish prisons sex offenders are always seperated from the general populations as you said. In England though it doesn't seem to always be the case last year in one Englands most secure prisons (Frankland) this happened -

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-...son-attack.html

Polakvets answer will be more useful but here's an article related to you question anyway -

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/hockey/mafia/csis.html

I think they are very powerful, due to the membership they have and the skills and everything. Well not all groups are like that, but there are definetely a lot of them. They play a major role nowday in USA's criminal society.

So, what I know from my own information what people from Latvia who have lived in USA has told. It is that in USA when Russian groups started to base themselves in the early 90's, a lot of black and mexican gangs had to back up out of their controled areas. Russian groups are known to be violent and professional in what they do. For example most of the Russian criminals have served in the Soviet and later Russian Federation army. Most of them are sportsmen, majorly specializing in fighting sports, such as boxing, wrestling, etc.

But by activities, look at Brighton Beach for example. Yaponchik led the group there really organized. The place is clean from black/mexican gangs. Medicare fraud is also a big common thing, various scams as well. When Russians do it, they do it big. They don't tend on going to extort the local grocery shop owner for five hundred dollars a month, that's like nothing. They better create some big scheme and gain millions out of it. That's what the smart one's do, but there are as well the stupid groups, which get into robberies and such shit as any other small time group.

What I've heard also, that if someone like tries to harm you at a club in New York, you just need to start swearing at them in Russian and they'll back off :D:D

But yeah, generally in my opinion they are powerful, a big key member in the criminal world of USA.

Is there a difference between the groups who mostly do white collar crime like frauds and the groups who do the violent crime like drug and weapon trafficking and extortion,etc...
I know that the Russian groups from Agron and Balagula were largely involved in violent crime, even home invasions and robberies.

Practically the groups that do white collar crime are those groups that did violent crimes when they started. For example a group formed in Russia in 90's, back then it did extortion, drug busines, murder for hire even, nowdays they think smarter that extortion and drugs won't get them big money, they need something better. So they create these scams with credit cards or medicare fraud, a popular scam in Latvia is to make fake business deals and get the tax money recounted, with that making the country to pay a part of your paid taxes to be paid back to you.

Groups that still do violent crimes are groups that haven't developed much. Or their leadership is just oneside-minded, for example they run a drug trafficking business and their leaders just wants to be there. But that's rarely. Most of what I've seen, they try to develop forming more of these scams where the big money is, at least that's what happening here in Latvia.

But there are also both type groups, that have a smart top, where leaders practice out all this white collar crime. And the bottom members of the group do the dirty work such as extortion and so on.

An example of scams and big groups in North America - Semyon Mogilevich and Sergey Mikhailov's YBM Magnex International Inc. scam that Mogilevich is for indeed now on FBI's most wanted list.

Agron Evsei and Marat Balagula's groups were the very first one's formed in Brighton Beach, both of these guys were Russian Jews. What I've read is that when Vyacheslav Ivankov came to Brighton Beach both of these were scared shitless because of the influence and power Yaponchik held.

But wasn't Agron already dead when Ivankov arrived? I read Ivankov was in jail from 1982 to 1991.

Yeah, Agron was dead, died on 1985. I mistook him with Nayfield.

Ivankov was on trial in these years: 1974, 1976, 1982(14 years sentence given), 1986, 1988. But yeah, he did time from 1982 to 1991, and in 1992 he went to USA. Where in 1995 he was arrested in USA.

By the way, who do you think killed Agron? Was it the Cosa Nostra or was it a struggle inside his own organization?

I'm more on that he got killed by Boris Goldberg. They were having a big feud before his death. There were two times when Evsei got attacked, but the style kind of reminds me of how LCN kills people. I think it was Goldberg all behind it.

And a correction from me, I before mentioned Balagula and Nayfield, the two mob bosses were Balagula and Goldberg who were scared of Ivankov.

Actually Balagula was already in prison a few years before Ivankov arrived...

Found this article.
http://russianmafiablog.blogspot.co.uk/2007/03/russian-mafia-bosses-evsei-little-don.html
Agron was supported by 2 very powerful allies: The Genovese Family and Ronald Greenwald. In turn for their friendship the Italians got Russian manpower and expaned their operations to the Russian neighborhoods. The friendship with the Italians was very important for Agron, they had an enormous army of soldiers and the political connections to get them out of trouble. And eventhough they made lots of money together there was some friction between the Russian gangsters and the Italian mobsters. Most of the Italians lived modest and would try not to attract any attention, the Russians on the other hand love the attention and love to show their wealth. The Russians also don't have the same codes as the Italians, the Italians don't kill civilians not even the family members of mobsters who flipped, the Russians don't have these rules. The other friend that was of importance to Agrons expanding power was Ronald Greenwald. Greenwald was a jewish rabbi who was active in politics.

By the mid 1980s Agron was at the top of his game. He was feared and his power had seriously grown. He was doing bigger heists and making more money than ever before. But eventhough Agron was sort of a Godfather and he was working with professional crime groups the Russian groups in his neighborhood were still running rampant and out of control. Eventhough he was THE power in Brighton Beach, he still could get killed any moment because there was just no structure and control. In January 1984 while he was walking towards his front door, Agron was shot again. A hitman shot Agron 2 times, once in the face and once in the neck, both from close range. Agron was brought to the Coney Island hospital for a second time and survived. But his face would be damaged for the rest of his lifetime, it would look like he was smiling, a weird grin would stay on his face. Again he told the police that he would handle business himself. Agron had a few ideas about who might be behind the attack. The prime suspect was Boris Goldberg, an Israelian ex army officer from Russia. Goldberg ran a group of crminals along with David "Napoleon" Shuster, a crminal mastermind. The Goldberg group had enormous firepower stashed away safely, among the weapons were: guns with silencers, boxes of grenades and plastic explosives with detonators. The group sold cocaine to streetdealers. Goldberg was living together with the daughter of Bob Guccione, the guy behind Penthouse Magazine.

Because of their criminal interests it was inevitable that Agron and Goldberg would meet. One of the things that had caused friction between the two had been the extortion areas. They had had several meetings discussing which area would belong to who and every time things went wrong. After the botched hit on Agron in May 1984 Agron himself called Goldberg for a sitdown at Agrons Country Club. When Goldberg and a trusted soldier arrived they were welcomed by 50 silent, heavily armed Russians who sat at a round table. After a heated discussion in which Agron asked Goldberg if he was behind the hit things started getting out of hand. Agron didn't believe Goldberg and wanted to kill him, Goldberg then said: "If you want trouble.....I'm ready" Agron told one of his guys to look outside and see if Goldberg was bluffing, he wasn't. The parking lot in front of the Country Club was filled with armed men running around. Agron decided to leave it at that and the sitdown ended without bloodshed. Agron felt he had located his attacker and felt safe, the guy now knew not to try again. Agron forgot however that Goldberg wasn't the only enemy who wanted him dead.

On May 4, 1985, Agron was getting himself ready to go out on the town and relax in a nice Turkish bath in Manhattan. While he was relaxing Agron felt he could also discuss some business there. He got dressed and stepped outside his appartement. At 8.35 in the morning Agron pressed the elevator button. Out of nowhere a guy wearing sunglasses stepped out of the shadows and shot Agron from close range. Agron was shot in the head twice, he fell to the floor and at the age of 53 the Little Don died. Agron was probably the first Russian Godfather who set up an Organization in the U.S. he sure wouldn't be the last.

About Boris Goldberg's sentence:

http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?navby=search&case=/data2/circs/2nd/952216.html

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT
S U M M A R Y O R D E R
THIS SUMMARY ORDER WILL NOT BE PUBLISHED IN THE FEDERAL REPORTER AND MAY NOT BE CITED AS PRECEDENTIAL AUTHORITY TO THIS OR ANY OTHER COURT, BUT MAY BE CALLED TO THE ATTENTION OF THIS OR ANY OTHER COURT IN A SUBSEQUENT STAGE OF THIS CASE, IN A RELATED CASE, OR IN ANY CASE FOR PURPOSES OF COLLATERAL ESTOPPEL OR RES JUDICATA.
At a stated term of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, held at the United States Courthouse, Foley Square, in the City of New York, on the 10th day of January, one thousand nine hundred and ninety-six.
Present: HONORABLE J. EDWARD LUMBARD,
HONORABLE RALPH K. WINTER,
HONORABLE JOHN M. WALKER, JR.,
Circuit Judges .
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
BORIS GOLDBERG,
Plaintiff-Appellant ,
- v. - No. 95-2216
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Defendant-Appellee .
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Appearing for Appellant: Boris Goldberg, pro se .
Appearing for Appellee: Emily Berger and William Gurin, Assistant United States Attorneys, E.D.N.Y.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York (Nickerson, Judge ).
This cause came on to be heard on the transcript of record from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York and was submitted.
ON CONSIDERATION WHEREOF, IT IS HEREBY ORDERED, ADJUDGED AND DECREED that the judgment of the District Court is hereby affirmed.
Boris Goldberg, pro se , appeals from Judge Nickerson's order denying his motion to vacate his sentence and set aside his guilty plea pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2255. We affirm.
On January 9, 1992, Goldberg pleaded guilty to one count of conspiring to violate the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1962(c). As part of the plea agreement, the government agreed that the criminal activities encompassed in the plea would be limited to events occurring prior to November 1987 and thus the United States Sentencing Guidelines would not apply. Judge Nickerson sentenced Goldberg to a prison term of 15 years, a fine of $250,000, and a special assessment of $50.00.
On June 8, 1994, Goldberg filed a petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2255 alleging that the district court erred in accepting his guilty plea because the allocution was insufficient and the court did not fully appraise Goldberg of the maximum sentence he faced. He also raised a challenge to his sentence based on ineffective assistance of counsel. The district court dismissed the petition.
On appeal, Goldberg contends that he received ineffective assistance of counsel at his sentencing proceeding. He further argues that the district court erred in failing to determine whether he could afford to pay the fine imposed by the court; in not ordering an evidentiary hearing to consider whether he could pay the fine or whether a new presentence report (PSR) was warranted; and in denying his motion for a new presentence investigative interview and PSR. We reject each claim.
Goldberg is unable to demonstrate that his attorney's performance fell below an objective standard of reasonableness as required by Strickland v. Washington , 466 U.S. 668 (1984). His argument that counsel should have mounted a statute of limitations defense is without merit because the indictment charged Goldberg with a predicate act of mail fraud that clearly occurred within five years of indictment. See United States v. Persico , 832 F.2d 705, 714 (2d Cir. 1987)(only one of the predicate acts charged needs to have occurred within five years of the indictment), cert. denied , 486 U.S. 1022 (1988).
Goldberg's claim that counsel promised him a sentence of no more than seven years is also baseless because he stated during the plea colloquy that he had not been promised anything with regard to his guilty plea. See United States v. Gonzalez , 970 F.2d 1095, 1101 (2d Cir. 1992)(a defendant's statements during plea colloquy should be regarded as conclusive in the absence of a believable reason for justifying a departure from the apparent truth of those statements). Moreover, even assuming that his attorney provided a mistaken estimate of Goldberg's likely sentence, this is insufficient to support a claim for ineffective assistance of counsel. Cf. United States v. Sweeney , 878 F.2d 68, 69-70 (2d Cir. 1989)(lawyer's "erroneous estimate" of guideline sentencing range not ineffective assistance of counsel).
Appellant's argument that his attorney was informed of alleged inaccuracies in the PSR and nevertheless failed to challenge them is also meritless. Goldberg's attorney at the presentence hearing challenged the credibility of the hearsay witnesses at the presentence hearing who alleged Goldberg's involvement in various criminal activities in order to rebut the PSR's contention that Goldberg was a "leader" of the enterprise. The attorney also argued the unreliability of those witnesses on direct appeal. Moreover, other than disputing the PSR's characterization of him as a "leader" of the criminal enterprise, Goldberg did not articulate any specific flaws in the PSR until this appeal. Thus, his counsel responded to the PSR in an appropriate fashion. Finally, Goldberg praised his counsel's performance in a letter to Judge Nickerson requesting that the same counsel be assigned for sentencing. Thus, his ineffective assistance of counsel claim is wholly undermined by the record.
Because Goldberg did not raise in his direct appeal or in his original Section 2255 motion before the district court his claim that the sentencing court failed to determine his ability to pay the fine, he is procedurally barred from raising it here. See Campino v. United States , 968 F.2d 187, 190 (2d Cir. 1992). Moreover, his claim lacks foundation in law since, under the pre-Guidelines regime, a fine may be imposed regardless of a defendant's ability to pay. See United States v. Torres , 901 F.2d 205, 247 (2d Cir.), cert. denied , 498 U.S. 906 (1990) (indigency does not bar a substantial fine).
The district court did not abuse its discretion in failing to hold an evidentiary hearing on the questions of whether a new PSR was required or whether the fine imposed was too harsh because Goldberg did not raise either of these issues in his petition. Similarly, because Goldberg's ineffective assistance claim is meritless, Judge Nickerson did not err in refusing to hold a hearing on this question.
Although Goldberg requests a new PSR, he failed to designate any inaccuracies in the PSR in his district court petition, and he is thus barred from making this claim now. See Sales v. Harris , 675 F.2d 532, 540 (2d Cir.), cert. denied , 459 U.S. 876 (1982) (appellate court cannot consider claims not raised in habeas petition in district court); cf. United States v. Brody , 808 F.2d 944, 947 (2d Cir. 1986) (issue not raised at sentencing or in Rule 35 motion is waived on appeal).
We therefore affirm.


He is already out if there were no other convictions, does anybody know if he is still active in the USA ?

I doubt he could operate in Brighton Beach, maybe in another state. But as long as I'm getting info, Brighton Beach is still under Yaponchik's old Brigade that also is basing itself in Moscow.

I know there are Uzbeks and Kyrgyz involved in drug smuggling, but are they as influential on the street or in the big cities as the Russian, Jewish, Chechen, Georgian, Armenian, Azerbaijani or Kurdish gangsters ?

They are influental yeah, they hold their rackets in their area which they control. Most of the times in Moscow these groups are either paying up to a larger Russian crime group or to a Vor V Zakone, that stands for them.

In the 90's, Orekhovskaya had a hitman nicknamed Soldat - he was responsible for various murders of gang bosses done. There is info that he sat in prison first of all in when he tried to stop bank robbers in a robbery they performed, the police were also involved in it, so they made the blame on him. After coming out of prison, he started to work in the local market. There his girlfriend was picked on by the Uzbek gang that controlled the market. It all went to the thing that Soldat got beaten up and told by the Uzbeks to bring them ten thousand dollars or he would die. In prison he had become friends with a high ranking member of Orekhovskaya. So, he decided to go to them and become a criminal working for them in exchange for protection from the Uzbeks. Eventually the Uzbek gang leader came and apologized to his girlfriend on his knee's with flowers in his hands.

This shows that larger crime groups in Moscow have control over smaller. On the other hand in south cities of Russia where there's a majority of one such nationality for example like Uzbeks, they'll be a dominant force there. As well that would happen in Uzbekistan.

I also know that in smaller cities of Russia, groups usually don't divide by ethnicity, for example if there's 10 guys who have been in the same school since first class and they all turn to crime later because they're good friends, they'll be all criminal, even if there's like one of the is Russian, another is a Chechen and somebody's an Uzbek in the gang.

The most influental criminals in Moscow are Russians, then comes Georgians and then you could put up Chechens there. It's very rare nowdays that criminal groups would go in war with each other over ethnical feud's, it's not the 90's anymore. They work together to earn more money or they don't work together and kill each other.

I read Kamchibek Kolybayev (Kolya the Kyrgyz) turned himself in after being deported from the UAE. Why did he do that? So nostalgic of his beloved prison walls?

In terms of 'Caucasian' organized crime I've heard that, although the Chechens have been the most significant Caucasian group in the history, the Ingush criminal groups have also become a major force and that they make tons of money.
Dagestanis, from what I've heard, seem to be more involved in rape and assault and less in the major organized criminal activities the Chechen and Ingush gangsters conduct.

Yeah, Chechens are very violent. All these Hachi* groups are violent and they kind of have their own laws to deal with stuff. If you look at Russian Groups they more or less nowdays tend to put the approach in a more civilized manner like the Cosa Nostra with sitdowns. But still usually these sitdowns end with one part being the loosers and then eventually someone gets killed.

In Chechenya/Dagestan and that region down there in the map, I've heard people say it's still the 90's. Terrorist rebels aren't the only groups ruling the game there. There's also criminal groups that control their areas, extortion, murder, robbery and general crime happens there.

I for fact know that in Latvia there's also a Chechen criminal group which is very large and very thight-knit organized. But they weren't let to do criminal activities in the capital city Riga in the 90's, they were forced out of the city by the local Russian groups.

*Hachi - Middle Asians/Caucasians/Churki in Russia.

Haven't heard really a lot about him. And yeah, have no real idea why did he do that either. But I know he's a Thief in Law, maybe he's one of those types who are close to prison and wants to achieve more in the Vorovskoi Mir. There have been even situations when Thieves in Law go into a shop and do shoplifting just to get back into prison.

What role do russian neo nazi gangs play?Are they powerful?
i heard their pretty active and also are they in favour with the general public and police?

Sorry for the long answer, man.

Anyway, neo nazi gangs play the role to fight against other ethnicities in Russia, generally that happens in Moscow.

They are not so powerful, I got two friends living over the Ural mountains in Chelyabinsk and Magnitorsk, what they stated to me - In the 2000's there were nazi's around, then they usually got beaten up very hard and so on, so they didn't have any big force. The people who were doing this were small time criminals(gopniki) now in these days these gopniki already have their own things going on and they make good money.

Some Russians support these gangs, there's even politicians who support them. But the general public doesn't. Due to all the ethnic disputes there's been a lot of killings when Russian nazi's kill some Caucasians or Caucasians kill Russians.

The big role is now played by higher organized groups that concentrate on making money, not beating Kyrgyz old ladies in the metro.

However these nazi gangs have got big trainings, they have their own gyms where they train in hand to hand combat, they train also in military and so on.

Thanks.
Their pretty brutal, didnt they murder a girl and then film themselves mutilating the girls corpse.
Is there alot of beef between them and armenians?

Nazi's have beef with everyone who's not Slavic, some groups even go so far that they only accept Russians and no-one else. But mostly they're just against the Middle Asian ones.

Maybe someone got a question?

Lol, That's funny because the original Nazi Ideologies look down upon slavs and here are a bunch of idiots saluting the swastika.
I have a question, can you name some Russian criminal groups in the US today, say similar to that of the Five families or the Albanian Rudaj organization.

Is it possible to say which Russian OC (Organized Crime) group is the most powerful one right now? I would think it would be between the Solntsevskaya Bratva and the Semion Mogilevich organization. Maybe I am wrong though.

I know that the brigade made by Vyacheslav Ivankov in USA still runs in New York and also bases itself there. They're also present in Russia.
The guy that I met in prison, who was doing time in America, he stated that from all major groups of Moscow like Solnetsevskaya or Izmailovskaya, their brigades are operating also in USA.
Don't know other group names, I know there are a lot of them tough, mostly small brigades, and then bigger organizations. As my prison friend stated, all Russian criminals in USA aren't into small things, when they do time, they're doing for big and serious stuff, that's why in prison they're very well respected by everyone else.

I think it is Solntsevskaya, they got really good cover, rumors say they're under FSB's and government's protection even. Mogilevich is a powerful figure, but all I know about his criminal connections is that he was with Lyubertskaya group. Maybe he has his own, but I haven't heard anything about it yet.

Ahhh okay interesting thanks. I did not know that Mogilevich was part of the Lyubertskaya group. For some reason I thought that he had his own organization. I think I read that somewhere before but I could be wrong.

Another thing that I do not fully understand is how does one even end up in prison in Russia when everything is so corrupt? That is to me it seems like the OC groups in Russia control pretty much everything. Who goes to jail then people who go against them of people high up in the government? It just does not seem as clear cut as it does here in Canada or in the USA. Maybe I am wrong about this though and my mind has been a bit brain washed by living in the West lol.

There is too much corruption, but there are honest cops even in Russia. However, to put a REALLY POWERFUL gangster in prison in Russia, he has to step on the toes of somebody more powerful than him: for example, Vladimir Kumarin (the boss of the Tambovskaya in St Petersburg) was arrested after some of his underlings tried to extort a friend of the regional governor who had connections in Moscow.
As for smaller and middle-sized groups, their bosses sometimes get arrested when they become too violent or flashy and too much complaints reach the capital. In case the gangsters whom the complaints are made against have no direct ties to the people in charge of the country, there is a chance the investigation is delegated to people from Moscow and taken away from the local police which is already bought by gangsters. However, this doesn't mean the Moscow police is honest: they are compromised with the mafia too, but have no problem in investigating groups from other cities they have no ties to.
Also, it is always easier to put a gangster-politician in jail if he doesn't belong to the "United Russia" party which is the one in charge.
However, things are not so bad now as they were in the 90s: it's not like you can't walk on the streets without getting shot, most of the trouble stays in the big business.

Usually to prison goes small time people. Like a guy who stole a bottle of vodka from a store. Or some guy who killed his wife while he was drunk. Big organizations go down only when they step on someone's toes, as Dwalin said it.

Ahhh okay thanks again for the answers that makes sense then. So basically it all changed a lot after the Soviet Union collapsed correct? That was when the OC groups in Russia stepped into the power vacuum and pretty much took over everything right?

Yes, before the collapse of the Soviet Union the situation was different because private economy was non-existent, you couldn't become a banker or president of a big corporation. The gangs at those times extorted money from illegal businessmen who paid also because, their activities being illegal, they couldn't report the extortion to the police. I think I read the first gang that really made extortion their large-scale business was active in the 70s and was headed by one Gennadiy "The Mongol" Korkov. The future thief in law "Little Japanese" Ivankov made career in the same gang. However, whatever there was before the 90s, in terms of economical power they were just angry babies compared to the nowadays' Russian mafia.

Right okay that is pretty much what I thought. So then before the 90s gangsters in Russia could be locked up pretty easily just like anyone else?

Major part of the ROC groups were born in the late 80's and most of them in 90's. Before the 90's in communism, everyone could get locked up easily for the smallest shit. Such as like if you today offered your friend to buy your euros that you got left from the last trip to Europe, in USSR you'd get in prison for that. My grandfather was in prison three times, twice was for selling meat and aluminium spoons.

Wow for just selling meat and spoon! That is crazy man lol!...I am curious..Are the Solnetsevskaya or Lyubertskaya groups operating in Canada as well at all?...BTW Happy Birthday!

Big thanks man! I never heard of them working, tough Mikhailov and Mogilevich was in some fraud in Canada, YBM Magnex International I think it was named. So, I guess they have groups also based there or at least had.

By searching about Russian Mob in Canada, I found this: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/soc.culture.ukrainian/H8n2ZTw7ErQ Don't know if it's real, anyone got information on this?

Yes I remember reading about YBM Magnex before. I just was not sure if those Russian OC groups actually had any establishment within Canada or not. I bet some are present at least in Toronto though. Thanks for the link!

I am also quite interested in the Chechens and Ingush. I find their cultures to be very interesting! You mentioned that they tend to be very violent. Just curious as to how they are more violent than say ethnic Russian gangsters?

Im certainly no expert, but ive read the line between chechen OC groups and chechen terrorists is pretty blurred. And that there has been a big rise in islamic fundamentalism in chechneya, and some OC groups there that are active in arms dealing and drug dealing also have connections with al queada alfiliated groups.

Yes I had read that before as well about Chechen OC groups being connected to Islamic fundamentalists.

The thing about them being Islamic Fundamentalists and connection to Al Qaeda is right from the info I've read.

A lot of Slavic groups went into war with Chechen groups in the 90's, like Solntsevskaya and Orekhovskaya for example.

Chechens are like hot heads, for example if you have beef with them, and set down a sit down. Then most probably you'll get the Chechens just arriving and shooting everyone up without a word being said. They are like gypsies, they stick for their own kind and stand for each other no matter what. They are like wild animals. A lot of Russians hate them for that and other Souther USSR nationalities. Because nowdays Russians tend to do everything trough sit downs and only then someone gets shot after it. But these animals don't do the thing.

The Chechen crime group in Latvia is pretty major, as they have even Political connections.

Are there any Chechen OC groups operating in Moscow at all anymore do you know?

There probably are, but I can't find any information on them. I asked my Russian friends and they said they also have no idea about Chechens. I guess, got to find a Chechen friend then.

You see, there in Moscow now are a lot of also other souther national criminal groups, like Georgian, Uzbek and others.

Anyway, about Chechens in Moscow. I found two articles in Russian on kompromat.

In the 90's there were 3 groups that were operating in Moscow:
Tsentralniy OPG - leader Lecha Islamov, controls around 300 businesses, men and women prostitution in central hotels and markets.
Ostankinskiy OPG - leader Mahmud "Bolshoi", controls furniture sales, as well other products, computers, their delivery to Grozny
Yuzhnoportoviy OPG - leader Nikolay "Hoza" Suleimanov, controls vehicle business in the city.

Hmmm interesting stuff thanks.

It is true though that during Communist times the Soviet government wanted to wipe out the old Russian crime groups and Thieves World correct?

Yeah, that's right. Tough, some information states that Stalin himself was a Thief in Law. It was in the starting years when all criminals were put in gulags, together with a lot of intelectual people. The Soviet Regime was based on if they put all the smart people in the gulag, there won't be no people against them. So that's why you see that nowdays Russian criminals are very smart people.

By the way, I'll try to post up some information from time to time about ROC, like some groups and their history, so this thread doesn't die out so fast.

Sounds good man.

Anyway what people do not understand is that there is a war for vast resources in Russia and that the US would like to get them as well as total domination in the world. Russian OC is pretty strong and does not let US to commit something similar to what they did in Iraq therefore they are upset that things do not go their way. Additionally and it is obvious FSB and OC are elements of the same structure working together towards mutual benefits. No one would like to see Russia follow in the footsteps of Irag and obviously they are the obstacles that prevent Russia from collapse. It might be strange to say things like that but democracy is actually a propaganda tool to defeat your competitors, some sort of ideology similar to communism or fascism- in reality none of these ideologies can ever exist. This is some sort of high level analysis and does not look into normal crime matters

Of all the Russian OC figures I am personally familier with in the US, with a handful of exceptions,all are either Russian Jews or Lithuanian.
As far as the element in the US, lets not overcomplicate it.
These same people were scamming in the old UUSR.They knew how to play the system, and they knew how to fill a void
Here in Chicago they got their feet wet in buying distressed properties, gutting them for any resellable material, and then dumping them on the county, cities or twons for unpaid property taxes. They mixed that with legit rental properties which is why today they own a good portion of the rental property in Elmwood, Jefferson park, in joint ventures with Outfit guys.
Most recently their major racket both here and back east is a hybrid human trafficing/Adult entertainment racket. They promise you women in Russia and other parts of eastern Europe a job and a green card in America, and when they arrive they farm them out to mail otrder husbands for a fee, escort services, massage parlors and strip clubs. Half the women working in the adult industry in the Chicago area arived by thie route. If they complain to try to bow out, they threaten to have them deported or to harm their families back in Europe. It it a shame some outfit guys have been lured into this business, it's ugly

What is the structure of a typical Russian OC group ? Is the rank system of Pakhan , Two Spies , Brigadier , and Boyevik as described by Wikipedia an accurate reflection of the structure of present day Russian OC groups ?

What started as a usual financial disagreement led to one of the most notorious armed fights in central Moscow since the 1990s.

Russian police released CCTV footage of the shooting at the Elements Korean restaurant that left two dead and eight injured.

As I am officially active and back to the forums, you guys can ask questions which I will answer.

FSB has some control over various criminal groups in Russia, especially the big ones. These are mostly businessman crime groups, or people from authority structure who went to the crime side - such as ex cops, army men, kgb agents. There are rumours that few Vory V Zakone have contacts in such structures, but the main thing is that their code is against that. However it doesn't stop criminals being criminals, they will turn and work the rules their way whenever they can.

Yeah, back in 2013 I was in prison for few weeks and met a guy who got deported from US after serving a sentence there. He stated something familiar that most Russians coming from Russia are actually jewish, but those ones coming from Baltic states are real ethnic Russians.
The errands with the properties - generally if you come from a poor country where you used to have survive with scheming how to get more funds and save up money, then more advanced countries have much more easier systems where you find flaws in the system and can save up or earn an extra dollar.
About the prostitution rings, it's a known fact that Russian OC groups specialize in this. However the threats to family matters from the group. By ponyatiya you cannot touch someone's family as they are not responsible for their relatives choices and wrongdoings.




Russian OC is more different and complex than Italian crime groups which most people are here discussing. There is not an exact Rank structure that these groups go by.
Bigger crime groups have structures and ranks, smaller ones limit themselves to less ranks. Some considered mafias are just networks of groups working together on a deal or solving a conflict.

Small groups usually are organized by a leader or few, often named as "authority"(avtorityet). Some groups hold a rank "Obshak", which is the person or many of them who hold the groups funds. This comes from the prison system, as they have an Obshak.

Sometimes small groups will divide roles or tasks, also interpret more ranks, such as the hitman. Bigger groups will have more ranks, but there is no exact names or guidelines what these ranks need to be. It is up to the group to have them. Such as there will be leaders, close people to the leaders, obshak, brigadiers if the group runs several brigades, hitmen, security for the higher ranking members, etc. As bigger the group, the more the ranks there could be.

Thief in Law Ranks or Status?
Vory V Zakone by basic western understanding is a large and loose prison gang covering all ex-USSR countries and some prison outside(such as a Cyprus prison is ran by Georgian thieves in Law, several prison in Western Europe hold ex-USSR inmates and they tend to stick together and live by the ponyatiya).

Vory V Zakone do not have ranks, but more like status system. There is no kingpin or main leader - Vor V Zakone is the highest status in the system, but he is equal with all other Vory V Zakone, who can at any time decide his faith. Usually they are leaders of a prison when they are locked up. They look over it, their role is to have prisoners a fair life inside by the ponyatiya. Also gaining funds and other good for the inmates. Outside they more pull off roles as crime group leaders or respected members in the groups - however it is against the ponyatiya to take orders from anyone. They control criminal funds and hold responsibility for them - this is a serious offence in the Vorovskoi Mir if a Thief in Law has spent the funds unrightly or for his own needs.

Then there are several other statuses in prisons - such as Pacani(Lads) and Blatnie(Respected criminal), which are the ones living right by ponyatiya and follow the prison lifes and it's rules made by Thieves in Law.

Downed Kasta/Roosters - these are people who have been raped or downed(can be pissed on or sexually abused in other ways). They don't have any say in the prison life and are not respected by anyone. They have different statuses there, such as there can be leaders called moms, or their significant status for they were downed for Rats(stealing from other inmates), Goats(snitched), Roosters(people who are gay by sexuality or are in prison for rape/pedophilia).

Thanks for answer TPV .


By the way what do you think of the claim ( that I'm quite honestly partial to ) that certain Western governments overstate the influence and power of Russian organized crime in order to score political talking points for their anti Russian agenda ?

I'm not pro Russian government FWIW , but I can't help but agree to a certain extent that the most recent Russian OC busts here in the States were ( at least somewhat ) politically motivated .

I generally have an opinion that Politicians and Media overstate a lot of things and not always say the truth. Politicians especially are very tricky people who have to compete with other politicians in order to succeed, so they will use anything they can to gain recognition. So ROC for them would be a good treat to use the situation and show that they "care for people". Russian Mafia is familiar to other crime groups in the world, just with their traditions and system of work. There are many more crime groups in the world from other countries that bring as much threats to Western Countries as same as the Russian Mafia.

I'm not sure if they were politically motivated, but with all the attention to Western Countries vs Russia situation at the moment, it could be that these structures who do investigations on ROC have somewhat motivation from their higher-up's. Such as if a president would be killed, the investigation and recognition would be much bigger than any other usual murder case. In short words - you need to show that you do your job.