I also read there later was a big confusion about who did what: some crimes of the Butorin's Orekhovskaya were attributed to the Kurganskaya etc. There is also that Sergei "Sylvester" Timofeev story, nobody knows who killed him, if it was Butorin, the Kurganskaya, or did he fake his death.
Anyway, you are right, those groups were really out of control and played dirty even by the underworld standards. There is also Dmitriy Belkin, the leader of the "Odinzovskaya" part of the organization, who is still on trial and is mostly famous for ordering the 1998 murder of Yuriy Kerez, a law enforcement official who was the first one to open an investigation using the article n.210 (organization of the criminal association - something like the American RICO), that is usually very hard to prove.

Hello, PolakVet. I'm quite interested in organized crime in the CIS countries that you post.
Yes, you're right about the drug business that they're involved in and they do have quantity but that's not always the case. Well it's not all teens but a mix of adults too. Matter of fact is that some of these kids don't care who is the threat and will kill anybody.

Indeed prison is vastly different and actually this is where the gangs are more of a mob inside illinois prisons. Actually La Eme have only some gangs under thier control but others refuse them per say.