Thread: Russian Mafia

Having agreed to the two pervious posts, ther IS organized crime in Russia. But there is organized crime in most countries... We *over here* hear about assasinations of russian business men, etc. I really wonder how much of it is true...

There is just as much Russian Mafia in America as in Russia. Hollywood is probably so obsessed with it because there is so much Russian Mafia business in Hollywood. Being close to the Mexican border makes it easy for them to run drug and prostitution rings there. Also auto theft, smuggling, and insurance and repair scams.

Judging by the prices for Russian food, they're in that business as well! 7 bucks for a bag of pelmeni! Ужас какой!

It's just economics.

Originally Posted by Tenna

I know this might sound really silly.. but I've got a classmate, who have said that he had been followed by the russian mafia, since he was 12 (now he's 16)

I suppose "russian mafia" was some school bully with russian (polish? ukrainian? etc.) last name. Real criminals have many interesting things to do and "following" kids for years is not one of them.

Ze Rushian maphia iz maide up ov affishials

Originally Posted by tdk2fe

While subtle, this type of "propoganda" (for lack of a better word) has people thinking that in Russia, your either a corrupt government official, part of some Mafia organization, or poor.

Where do you think stereotypes come from? From life.

I read propoganda in a biology book that said people are either male or female.

Originally Posted by TATY

I read propoganda in a biology book that said people are either male or female.

How sad to know that there are she-males as well!

Originally Posted by TATY

I read propoganda in a biology book that said people are either male or female.

You should definitely take this over to the Politics board -- Kalinka and Scorpio love the propaganda over there!

Originally Posted by adoc

Where do you think stereotypes come from? From life.

Haha, yeah I must have forgotten that Hollywood really manages to capture the spirit of the way people live.

tdk

Originally Posted by Barmaley

I hate to break it to you, but teenage guys tend to say lots of things that don't make a damn bit of sense.

Don’t worry.. I don’t really believe in it myself.. I just wanted to hear, if it could be possible.

Originally Posted by gRomoZeka

I suppose "russian mafia" was some school bully with russian (polish? ukrainian? etc.) last name. Real criminals have many interesting things to do and "following" kids for years is not one of them.

Maybe you’re right.. I wouldn’t be surprised if that was his ‘russian mafia’s’. And no, I didn’t think so either.. it don’t make any sense at all. I couldn’t see how come they’d use years on following a kid.

Мафия старается убить меня.

Это статья написана несколько лет тому назад. Интересно, что сейчас происходит с русской мафией?

http://www.cdi.org/russia/johnson/6406.htm

Russian mafia extends tentacles across the globe

AFP

Henry Meyer | Moscow

From cocaine smuggling for Colombian drug cartels to criminal betting syndicates in Asia, Russian mobsters have extended their tentacles across the far corners of the globe, backed up by formidable resources at home.

The scandal surrounding Alimzhan Tokhtakhounov, the alleged Russian crime boss accused of fixing results at the Salt Lake City Olympics with French and Russian judges, has shone a spotlight on the international reach of Russia's mafia.

A Western law enforcement official who is investigating Russian organised crime says no criminal structure in the world has wielded such political influence and wealth as in Russia, giving it the muscle to expand activities ambitiously.

"You talk about Al Capone who had the Mayor of Cicero, Illnois in his pocket and other political connections. But he was the biggest we ever had. He never took over General Motors, he never took over US Steel, He was never in Congress," he told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity.

"Some of these guys are billionaires, they control natural resources such as aluminium and oil," the official added. In Soviet times, crime bosses, known as "vory v zakone" (thieves-in-law), made fortunes from black-marketeering but kept a low profile for fear of being thrown into gulag camps.

But with the chaos surrounding the collapse of the Soviet Union, organised crime flourished with the weak state powerless to resist, seizing control of the fragile banking sector and collaborating with the Soviet nomenklatura (bureaucrats) to pillage state assets.

According to interior ministry figures in the late 1990s, the Russian mafia controlled 40% of private business and 60% of state-owned companies.
In 1989 the Russian mobsters also began to move across to Europe, merica and Israel, using as a stepping stone the Russian emigre ommunities in New York's Brighton Beach district, in Israel and European apitals.

Israel has been a favourite target, with billions of dollars believed to have been laundered there by Russian criminals, many of whom claim to be Jewish to get an Israeli passport.

Unlike the Colombian cartels or the Italian Mafia, Russian crime groups are not centralised hierarchical structures but instead work in small groups, with hundreds of gangs around the world that have thousands of embers.

Their strength, according to Russian mafia expert Mark Galeotti, lies in their willingness to strike up temporary alliances with just about anyone else.

"No one else cooperates like them, they make deals with everyone. You ave even seen Russian mafia cooperating in supporting al-Qaida in getting weapons to Chechen rebels fighting Russians," he said.

"These are internationalists, absolutely amoral criminal gangs," added Galeotti, Director of the Organised Russian and Eurasian Crime Research Unit at Britain's Keele University and a writer on the Russian mafia for Jane's Intelligence Review.

Uninterested in taking over territory, Russian gangsters usually try to work with existing criminal structures. In the United States, Russian mobsters for example paid protection money to the Italian mafia when they got involved in fuel tax scams, said the Western investigator.

US law enforcement agencies got extremely worried when the Russians struck a partnership with the Colombian drugs cartels at the end of the 1990s, arranging cocaine shipments to Europe and providing weapons to Latin American mafias.

In an act of extraordinary daring, one Russian gang in 1997 tried to sell a Soviet-era submarine to the Colombians to help them smuggle cocaine into the United States.

Russian groups, operating out of Miami, New York and Puerto Rico, also opened bank accounts and front companies across the Caribbean to launder hundreds of millions of dollars in drug sales and other criminal activities.

The Russian crime groups' other advantage is that they are extremely flexible about their area of activities, although their strength lies in drugs, weapons and raw commodities.

Recently they have been arranging for foreign toxic waste to be dumped in Russia, according to Galeotti.

Often, Russian criminals simply are paid to provide transport for other people's goods.

Drugs from Afghanistan, the world's main supplier of heroin, are shipped through Russia for sale in Western European markets and Russians are involved in human trafficking of Asian refugees who come through Russia into Europe.

But in the Far East, they have tried ambitiously to get involved in criminalised gambling syndicates. They tried and were rebuffed in Macau but were more successful in the Philippines and Indonesia.

"They have no problem in thinking on a big scale. They will move to whatever is profitable," commented Galeotti.

Originally Posted by basurero

Зачем же российской мафии хотелось бы преследовать двенадцатилетнего школьника?

That would have intrigued the girls from his class

What is mafia, by the way? Organized crime exists in every country of the world. What makes russian organized crime special? I don't think modern criminals pick friends according the nationality. If you looked closer you'd find people of many nationalities in the 'Russian mafia'. We have Chechen mafia, Vietnamese mafia, Chinese mafia, even Jewish mafia here, criminals are just criminals. In the West, they will call every criminal from ex-USSR countries the member of the Russian mafia. There's no such thing as the Russian mafia, there is just mafia (organized crime bands).

Originally Posted by Ramil

Originally Posted by basurero

Зачем же российской мафии хотелось бы преследовать двенадцатилетнего школьника?

That would have intrigued the girls from his class

What is mafia, by the way? Organized crime exists in every country of the world. What makes russian organized crime special? I don't think modern criminals pick friends according the nationality. If you looked closer you'd find people of many nationalities in the 'Russian mafia'. We have Chechen mafia, Vietnamese mafia, Chinese mafia, even Jewish mafia here, criminals are just criminals. In the West, they will call every criminal from ex-USSR countries the member of the Russian mafia. There's no such thing as the Russian mafia, there is just mafia (organized crime bands).

havn't you seen brigada? DUH there IS a Russian mafia. И богатство у них как у майкла джаксона!

Originally Posted by Ramil

... even Jewish mafia here, ...

Почему "даже"?

Originally Posted by Lampada

Originally Posted by Ramil

... even Jewish mafia here, ...

Почему "даже"?

It sounds ridiculous

Originally Posted by Dogboy182

havn't you seen brigada? DUH there IS a Russian mafia. И богатство у них как у майкла джаксона!

They're all dead

Originally Posted by Ramil

Originally Posted by Lampada

Originally Posted by Ramil

... even Jewish mafia here, ...

Почему "даже"?

It sounds ridiculous

Может быть, это звучит смешно, но, я думаю, что, на всякмй случай, с ней лучше тоже не связываться.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_mafia