They were small groups in the 50s and 60s, specializing in one form of crime such as narcotics, scams, armed robbery, gambling, ect. Some of then were independent others worked for one of the crime families as associates, Genovese and Lucchese being the ones with the most. They were not that powerful and many of them kicked up to one of the families. By 1970s the US allowed Soviet Jews to immigrant to the states, which many members forged their documents to get in. This led to an influx of members in Brighton Beach, and allowed a few bigger groups to operate and not kick anything up to the Italians. The biggest of these mobsters was Agron who worked with the Sicilians and was building his organization up slowly taking in members from Belarus, Ukrainians, and Georgians who were into different crimes, and by the 1980s he was the most powerful Russian in New York thanks to the backing of the Genovezi family. The Potato Gang, which was a scam crew was big, according to Nayfeld in a wire tap, a couple of the members would join Agron by 1980. Mikhail Markovits who would eventually join Agrons organization. Marat Balagul who would serve as Agrons adviser. Boris Goldberg a major drug dealer, and rival to both Agron and Balagul. Pauol Mirzoyen was also a drug dealer becoming big in the 1980s. The 1980s had even more relaxed immigration from the USSR, that more members were going to New York. Once the Soviet Union fell in 1991, was when the Russian mafia in New York really became a force to reckoned with, and the floodgates were opened. In 1992, the russian mafia sent Vyacheslav Ivankov to the United States and the Russians really became organized throughout America, those that did not fall inline were killed, fled, in a couple of cases held out.