I cant sure stupidity...




CBS News.com staff CBS July 21, 2000
Russian Mafia's Worldwide Grip



Brooklyn's Brighton Beach neighborhood has earned the nicknamed "Little Odessa" because it reminds its thousands of Russian immigrant residents of the Black Sea resort back home.
But while it is home to many law-abiding citizens looking a better life, Little Odessa is also ground zero for the Russian Mafia in the United States.
When most people think of organized crime, CBS News Correspondent Bill Plante reports, it calls to mind images of The Godfather or The Sopranos—in other words, the Italian Mafia.

But in less than 30 years, Russian organized crime has grown to pose a threat law enforcement officials think could be greater than that posed by La Cosa Nostra.
"Italian organized crime in America is a pimple on a horse's ass compared with Russian organized crime in America—and globally," says Robert I. Friedman, author of a new book on the Russian Mafia.


Fearing that widespread crime and corruption could threaten economic reforms—and even nuclear security—President Vladimir Putin has said law and order will be a top priority.
Click here to read part one of Bill Plante's report.
The reason for the Russian Mafia's dominance, says Friedman, is that they "have something no crime group in the world has. They have their own state to work from, in fact, a former superpower."

Currently, Russian mobsters are operating in 50 countries.
Friedman says Russian organized crime emerged here during the 1970s era of détente with the former Soviet Union.

Under pressure from the Nixon administration, Moscow agreed to allow more Soviet Jews to emigrate. But in a move copied years later by Fidel Castro, the Soviets opened prison doors in the gulag and thousands of hard-core criminals left for the United States.

Since then, the Russian Mafia has been linked to penny stock manipulation, gas excise tax scams, health care fraud and cybercrime—criminal enterprises where they are pioneers, not just perpetrators. The worldwide reach of the Russian mob was demonstrated by Ludwig Fainberg, a.k.a. "Tarzan." according to Friedman, the nightclub owner arranged the sale of a Russian submarine, complete with a captain and crew, to Colombian drug runners.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/russian-mafias-worldwide-grip/