Nice stats, the thing is though with Italian organized crime you know that the members and associates are closely interlinked - hence have an organized structure. With Russian mafiya groups , they may have something like 100 000 members but a lit of them aren't all Russian and a lot of them are small groups of fraudsters , traffickers etc. like that fraud ring in Miami where waitresses ripped of clients , how can that be considered mafia?
If a group of Italian fraudsters got busted with no links to the mob the media wouldn't call them Mafiosi , why is it different within soviet ethnic groups ?
Oleg Simchuk was from Riga, Latvia and was associated with one of the largest groups here in the 90's. Then as many others after reaching power he moved into his own rackets.
The Russian Mob differs from the Italians very drastically. Such as there's no united guide by which you make a Russian mob or consider one to be. More or less nowdays Vory V Zakone have the most influence over every criminal group. Not all of these groups respect them, tough.
There are no ceremonies or anything "family based". Russian speaking organized crime is mainly a group of men(Bratva) who engage into criminal activities together to make profit. The system differs also. There aren't such things as "being made".
Practically in Italian Mob you get made as you're choosen to be made by other higher people. In Russian Mob, made gets only Thieves in Law, and a lot of them are nowdays those who have bought their status. The real criminals, those are criminal authorities. That's how we call them - criminal authority. As my father explained this to me - a person who everyone knows that he is a criminal but the law enforcement can't do shit to him. And no-one inducts you to become a criminal authority. You have your own head, your own hands and you do your thing to become one till people start to recognize you as one.
Practically there's up to 300 000 people who are connected to organized crime groups that are registered by police in Russia. There's also those which aren't registered.
