I see and thanks for the answer . As far as questions go , how much influence do you think vors have within the US based Russian speaking underworld ? Also do vors who operate in the US tend to be of the old school or new school variety or is it more of a mix ?
United States is a completely different territory if we compare to Russia for Thieves in Law. In Russia and ex-USSR states they have very big influence on the groups as Vory V Zakone run majority of prisons in Russia and almost every region has an assigned Vor V Zakone to look it over. In US I guess the influence is less for various reasons:
First of all, they are not the major crime group in US. Second, the prison system in US is different, as I know Russians stick together in foreign prisons, but most of the times are recruited by white prison gangs such as Aryan Brotherhood. So Vory V Zakone probably don't have a straight influence on the inside process of US prisons to make any moves to influence Russian criminals imprisoned there.
On the outside there have been lot of examples of Vory V Zakone operating in US, such as Vyacheslav Ivankov, who by rumors have organized a brigade in Brighton Beach consisting of 100 people in it. Later he got prosecuted for extortion.
Armen "Pzo" Kazarian is a Vor V Zakone arrested few years ago for medicare fraud and has been speculated of running a gang there. On primecrime it is written that Pzo has had a conflict with La Eme.
There is also a story of Aleksey Cvetkov who was crowned as a thief in law in Alenwood federal prison while doing time. It is speculated that the crowning happened trough Skype.
Boris "Borya Ushatiy" Komin is a prominent Vor V Zakone living in US, he is very old traditional and currently 91 in age. There is very little information about him tough, but it is speculated that he is in Yaponchik's place in the US at the moment.
Razhden Shulaya, a Georgian thief in law was recently also under trial in US.
To answer your question about the influence - they definitely are based also in US and run criminal operations there, have close members and associates linked to them so they hold an influence on the Russian speaking underworld in US, but it could be divided in regions and recognition of groups. As not all Russian speaking crime groups are connected with Vory V Zakone and have different ways of operation and ideology.
On the type of Vors in US - there are very less old school ones, such as Komin. I guess there might be a few who have immigrated along other ex-USSR emigrates since 1970's. Also there are new ones like Razhden who was crowned in 2013.
