Russian Organized Crime

Phil Williams

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781135251093
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Geschichte
• Subtopic: Militär- & Seefahrtsgeschichte

First Published in 1997. During the 1990s transnational criminal organizations of all kinds have received increased scrutiny from law enforcement agencies, intelligence analysts, and academic researchers. While there are many differences of both interpretation and assessment regarding a whole range of issues, divisions are particularly acute in the area of Russian organized crime. This title gives a brief history of Russian Organized Crime before exploring recent trends, major mafia gangs and their relationship overseas.

DOCUMENTATION

An Analysis of Russian Emigré Crime in the Tri-State Region

NEW YORK STATE
ORGANIZED CRIME TASK FORCE

NEW YORK STATE
COMMISSION OF INVESTIGATION

NEW JERSEY STATE
COMMISSION OF INVESTIGATION

JUNE 1996

New York State Organized Crime Task Force

GEORGE E. PATAKI, Governor; DENNIS C. VACCO, Attorney General ERIC SEIDEL, Deputy Attorney General – In Charge

New York State Commission of Investigation

STEPHEN L. WEINER, Chairman; EARL W. BRYDGES, JR.; THOMAS J. CULHANE; JOSEPH S. DOMINELLI; SALVATORE R. MARTOCHE; WILLIAM F. PASSANNANTE, Commissioners

New Jersey State Commission of Investigation

LESLIE Z. CELENTANO, Chair; LOUIS H. MILLER, JUSTIN J. DINTINO M. KAREN THOMPSON, Commissioners

THE TRI-STATE JOINT SOVIET-EMIGRE ORGANIZED CRIME PROJECT

The Tri-State Joint Soviet-émigré¹ Organized Crime Project (the ‘Project’) commenced on March 1, 1992, as a two-year joint intelligence and investigative/prosecutive effort by the New York State Organized Crime Task Force, the New York State Commission of Investigation, the New Jersey State Commission of Investigation and the Pennsylvania Crime Commission.² The goal of this effort was to identify the nature and extent of Russian-émigré crime within the tri-state region of New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania in order to assist law enforcement in its ongoing effort to combat the threat of organized crime. In furtherance of this goal, the Project set out to gather and analyze intelligence information about Russian-émigré crime within the area through research, investigative effort and the creation of an informational database.

The participating agencies assigned a total of six to eight investigators, supported by attorneys and analysts, to the Project staff. Staff members were responsible for gathering information and intelligence within their respective jurisdictions and for initiating investigations whenever warranted. Project staff met on a bi-monthly basis to report on investigative results, discuss and exchange ideas, and plan future investigative strategies. To assist the Project staff, a police officer on loan from the Belarus Ministry of Internal Affairs was hired for a two-year period to develop informants within local Russian communities and serve as a liaison with law enforcement agencies in the former Soviet Union. In addition, the officer assisted the Project by regularly reviewing local Russian newspapers, providing insight on Russian customs and traditions, and assisting in the pronunciation and spelling of Russian words and names.³ The Project was further augmented by a grant provided by the National Institute of Justice to a Rutgers University, School of Criminal Justice, research team. Members of this research team took part in Project meetings and assisted Project staff by analyzing the Project’s database of accumulated information regarding Russian-émigré crime.

Fueled by a growing perception within the law enforcement community that Russian-émigré crime has become a more serious problem in the United States since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the expansion of the European Common Market, the Project directed its efforts at identifying the nature and dimensions of Russian-émigré crime in the tri-state area. Project staff sought to:

1. Determine the extent to which Russian-émigré crime is organized,

2. Ascertain whether any type of structure exists within the Russian-émigré criminal community,

3. Identify the methods and techniques Russian émigrés use to carry out their criminal activities, and

4. Define the relationships maintained with other criminal groups operating in the United States or abroad.

As part of their efforts, Project staff conducted extensive interviews with various law enforcement personnel involved in the investigation and prosecution of Russian-émigré crime and reviewed records pertaining to the arrests and prosecutions of Russian-émigré criminals. The staff also gathered and reviewed public information concerning Russian-émigré crime, including government publications, public hearing records, and newspaper and magazine articles, and conducted interviews with academicians, journalists, authors, businessmen and residents of the region’s predominantly Russian communities. Conventional law enforcement techniques, such as surveillance, informant development and telephone toll analysis, were also employed to gather information about Russian émigrés known to be, or suspected of being, engaged in crime.

Additional information was developed by the Rutgers University research team which, in collaboration with Project staff, conducted a nationwide survey of law enforcement agencies to determine what experience, if any, law enforcement across the country was having with Russian-émigré crime. The response to this survey, which is described in greater detail in Appendix C, was overwhelming. The research team received nearly five hundred survey responses from various federal, state, county and municipal agencies. Many respondents indicated their agencies had at least some contact with Russian- émigré criminals and nearly half of those considered Russian-émigré crime to be a major law enforcement problem in their area. Based on this information, Project staff concluded that Russian-émigré crime in this country is more widespread than originally suspected.

In gathering the information described above, the Project was forced to overcome several problems. For example, it is widely recognized within the law enforcement community that informant development within any immigrant community is extremely difficult.⁴ Having lived in a society ruled by an oppressive government, Russian émigrés tend to be inherently distrustful of government and, generally, are more reluctant than most other émigré groups to speak with or seek assistance from law enforcement.⁵ Thus, voluntary cooperation from the Russian-émigré community is frequently minimal.

Moreover, opportunities to obtain information from Russian émigrés are further hampered by the lack of Russian speaking police officers. Most law enforcement agents investigating Russian-émigré crime do not speak Russian and are unfamiliar with the peculiarities of the language, such as the use of the Cyrillic alphabet, the feminization of surnames, and the inversion of birth dates. This often results in inaccurate recording of biographic data. In addition, interviews of Russians who are suspects, witnesses, or victims of crime often require the use of translators with varying skill levels. Information obtained from these persons, which might otherwise provide insight into the workings of Russian-émigré criminal enterprises, is, therefore, often limited or obscured.

Furthermore, Russian émigrés tend to be highly educated. Those who engage in crime are very resourceful and sophisticated in their methods of operation.⁶ They often carry false identification documents or use variations of the spelling of their names to conceal past criminal histories and/or facilitate present criminal conduct. These tactics, coupled with a transitory lifestyle, make identification and apprehension of Russian-émigré criminals an arduous task.⁷

Notwithstanding these difficulties, Project staff constructed a computerized database to store information regarding Russian-émigré crime. The database, which represents an accumulation of all information obtained by the Project, presently contains the names of over four thousand persons and businesses. These names have been periodically reviewed to eliminate duplicates caused by the problems described above.

Analysis of the information in the database has permitted Project staff to identify relationships among criminals within the various Russian-émigré communities in the tri-state area as well as between Russian criminals operating in different communities. For instance, telephone toll records obtained and analyzed by Project staff revealed a high level of communication between Russian-émigré criminals in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, and northeast Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The database has also been an invaluable aid to numerous law enforcement agencies in their investigations of Russian-émigré crime. To date, the Project has taken part in or assisted more than thirty-five international, federal, state, county and local investigations of Russian émigrés. Several of these have resulted in the indictment and conviction of Russian-émigré criminals.⁸

The Project’s success in assisting these other agencies can also be attributed, in part, to the liaison developed between Project staff and law enforcement agencies in the new Commonwealth of Independent States (the ‘CIS’). This unique relationship has enabled the Project to obtain information which otherwise would have been unavailable. The Project intends to continue to maintain the database and provide assistance to law enforcement agencies investigating Russian-émigré crime by making the information in the database available upon request.

RUSSIAN-EMIGRE CRIME IN THE TRI-STATE AREA

During the first two decades of the twentieth century, more than two and one-half million Russians entered the United States along with millions of other European immigrants.⁹ This first large ...