I’ve read many places that the russian mafia is a growing influence in new york city, Brighton Beach especially. I dont hear much about the Russians besides an occasional bust or so. So why are the Russians looked at as above the level of cosa nostra? What makes them stand out? R they more violent than Cosa Nostra and do they have more street influence?

Growing influence? In NYC? I really don't think so. They made a lot of noise in the 90's, but nowadays Russian mob activity in NYC, although still existent, seems to be on the more dormant side of the equation.

The most recent two busts involving "Russian" (post-Soviet) organized crime were the Shulaya group in 2017 - which were mostly Georgian gangsters - and the Tsvetkov-Gershman group in 2016 - which were mostly Jewish and Slavic gangsters from Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova. Both cases involved theft, extortion, gambling, fraud and narcotics. Not really on an unseen scale and nothing that you wouldn't find the local Cosa Nostra crew being involved in, EXCEPT for the almost frightening extortion the Tsvetkov-Gershman group committed. They were literally following relatives of their shakedown victims throughout the USA, Israel and Eastern Europe. Some scary shit.

Their perceived violence is a bit overstated. Except for the inhuman massacres happening in the Mexican cartel world, any criminal group can be as violent and brutal as the other when they need to be. With the "Russians" there isn't really much of an organization as there is with the Italians. They're slightly smaller crews of sorta sophisticated thugs that can turn on each other as quick as they work together. There were lots of whackings in 90's Brighton Beach, but it only concerned other Russian gangsters. They rarely stepped on the toes of other criminal organizations in the city and kept to their own territory.

Why were thier so many Russian mob killings in the 90’s?

After the Soviet Union was dissolved gang wars were all over the place in Russia. You had the Jewish/Slavic groups, the Chechens, Georgians, Azerbaijanis, Armenians...all feuding with one another and internally. It was mostly the Jewish/Slavic groups that came to NYC in the 90's. Generally speaking Russian OC is extremely divided. Like I said, there isn't as formal an organization as there is with for instance the Italians. The gang that's able to make the most money, is gonna be regarded as the top dog - but being the top dog is never gonna grant you the "untouchable" status. Anyone can be a target when there isn't a formal structure. And in the 90's you had everyone wanting to be the top dog.

Russian speaking OC groups mostly stick to their own business and don't fight for "territory" in the US, they will more be interested in joining forces for business rather than having wars over imaginary things. They have their internal wars for authority, as much as LCN has. The business the big groups do is more financial crimes, such as frauds for example credit card fraud or medicare fraud as it's more profitable and with less risks.

Russian crime groups have more different approach to violence, for example contract killings. There are people who specialize in that and only perform those kind of jobs, simply the other story for LCN where to become a "made man" is must to have killing someone. There are these nuthead groups from time to time as KillingJoke mentioned before, but these are small groups and as they are nutheads then they easy turn on each other when it comes to prosecuting. In Russia it's a different story, violence is used more, not to an extent like with Mexican Cartels and motorsaws, but still if you have feud with certain groups, you might end up getting beaten to death or criple status as the smallest outcome of it.

Difference from LCN is that these groups don't have this all control over each other thing, with one structure and some commission on top. Each groups has different ranking, and structure and all Russian speaking groups are not connected to each other, which eventually makes them just individual groups rather one big organization. I might be wrong, but in my opinion, LCN faces all this attention from Law Enforcement due to their structure and old traditions that they don't change. Once they know the ranks, they just need to fill it in like a middle school quiz for biology.

90's was a period of reforms in the ex-USSR countries, different from the traditional Thieves groups - were born lots of different crime syndicates and groups all over the territory, each one fighting for power. Sometimes in small cities they just fight for one small market to extort potato salesmen(sounds funny, but true). It was a crazy period and lots of killings happened, for different reasons - power, double crossing, money, etc. The ones who survived these years in the criminal world are now very respected people, some turned into legal businessmen, some stayed the same.

https://en.crimerussia.com/organize...ussian-mafia-members-pelmen-and-lenny-g/

New York City Court starts hearing case against Russian mafia members Pelmen and Lenny G

https://citizen.co.za/news/south-africa/2001125/russian-mafia-allegedly-to-blame-for-motis-arrest/

‘Russian Mafia’ allegedly to blame for Moti’s arrest

Life in prison? The Americans don´t fuck around.

Yeezy-wearing Russian gangsters are found guilty of running a mob syndicate - get life sentences

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...unning-mob-syndicate-life-sentences.html

https://en.crimerussia.com/corrupti...rrested-over-accepting-bribes-from-gang/

Former head of Combating Organized Crime Dept in Tatarstan arrested over accepting bribes from gang

Iosif Kobzon, Crooner Known as the Soviet Union's Answer to Frank Sinatra, Dies at 80

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/iosif-kobzon-dead-soviet-era-crooner-dies-at-80-1138892

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-45907655

Russian 'mafia' group and MP Reznik acquitted in Spain

Spanish court rules that investments of Tambovskaya-Malyshevskaya Russian Mafia clan did not stem from crime http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profil...investments-of-tambovskaya-malyshevskaya