From Polski Kompott to the Russian Mafia - Part 4: East meets West-Europe as a Geographic Crime Zone

Berndt Georg Thamm, Journalist, Founder of German Association for Research on Drug Addiction Therapies, Berlin

Foreword

In early January 1994, the Russian Federation's first Deputy Minister for Domestic Affairs, Michail Jegorov, said in his statement published by the Moscow agency Itar-Tass, that according to government assessments the so-called mafia already controlled approximately 40,000 (!) government and private businesses throughout the country. According to Jegorov, the trade in weapons, drugs and stolen vehicles was also becoming increasingly professional. In the meantime, the police would appear to have registered an average of 10 to 15 hostage-takings, more than 30 armed street battles between the various rival gangs and approximately 700 other cases of organized crime (OC) per month.

What differentiates Eastern-style mafia from mafia gangs in the West? The Uzbeki author, Raul Mir-Chaidorov, who has studied the connection between political power, the black market economy and the underworld for years, already talked about these ramifications at the time of the old Soviet Union. The all-powerful apparatus provided a breeding ground throughout the country. According to Mir-Chaidorov, the mafia in the old USSR was instituted from on top. In the West, however, organized crime mostly pushed its way into politics from the bottom. In the old Soviet Union, sections of the apparatus even became active and developed connections with the underworld. In contrast to the West, there was only one way to become fairly affluent in the Soviet Union and that was the fraudulent use of political power.

The effective influence of the Mafia lay and still lays in the professional instrumentalization of corruption. Indeed, Vice-Premier, Alexander Ruskoï, observed the plague quite clearly already in February 1993, correctly saying "the whole state is riddled with mafia-style organizations... it is now a question of do or die. Nobody will be spared".

Corruption - the enemy within ... the Army

Ruskoï was not only a politician, he was also a much-decorated Afghan War veteran. For the ex-General, who wished to set up a super police force to comb the entire country, the Russian Armed Forces were also to blame for this state of affairs. He had two Russian Foreign Legions in his sights in the fight against corruption : the Western Armed Forces (WF) in East Germany and the Northern Armed Forces in the Baltics. In the Baltic States, the matter had already come to attention of the Courts 18 months before. Several generals and admirals had been arrested. Now, in the early 1993, the Western Armed Forces (WF), also referred to as the CIS-Army's Western Forces of the (CISWF), was next in line. What had happened?

After capitulation of the German Army on May 8, 1945 and the political take-over by the four Allied Governments, Germany was divided into four military zones. During that time, two generations of more than half a million Red Army soldiers were stationed in the Russian zone, (RZ) and the subsequent German Democratic Republic (GDR), set up in October 1949. The stationed troops' main barracks lay approximately 50 kms south of central Berlin, in Wünsdorf. 700,000 soldiers were stationed at this 590 ectare site, which until very recently was cordoned off in no uncertain manner. Until quite recently, the level of pay for an ordinary soldier was under DM 30 per month. Work was hard. The soldiers came from all the various Socialist Soviet republics, mostly from Russia and a quarter of them from the Ukraine. Nationalistic fighting broke out among the troops, which Anatoli Alexeiev lists, among other things, as the cause of the use of violence. Alexeiev was ordered by the Russian Federation (Yelsin) to draw up a repor

t on the ex-Soviet Union's armed forces. In April 1992, the special representative publicly submitted his report to the Moscow media. In his estimation, the armed forces continued to be a "breeding ground for terror and violence among soldiers". According to Yeltsin's colleague, more soldiers have died violently and through the misuse of excessive force than died in the fighting in Afghanistan (more than 14,000 dead). In 1991 alone, 5,500 soldiers died in service and approximately another 100,000 have become invalids due to bad treatment.

Alexeiev's report does perhaps uncover one of several root causes of the willingness to use violence and its effective use, which seriously shock the West's police forces and the public alike in their fight against crime by mafiosniks.

Now that the Cold War had ended, that the agreement on conventional strike forces in Europe has been ratified and that the Two-plus-Four Agreement was signed in Moscow in September 1990, the allied troops will be leaving their former enemy behind (East and West Germany). This has led to new problems in East Germany, two of which will be dealt with below.

As was previously the case for the Allied Forces, the creation of the economic, monetary and social union of the two German Republics on July 1, 1990, would also allow the Red Army to buy tax-free goods, with value-added tax and duties no longer applying. This, however, led to smuggling and racketeering, especially since the WF's East German locations were and still are foreign territory for the tax authorities and therefore off-limits to German Customs. The WF's military barracks was thus ideally suited to the storing and dealing in a wide range of articles, for instance cigarettes. Handed over to the troops free of tax and free of customs duties, the cigarettes were given counterfeit revenue stamps and subsequently re-introduced into the market and sold on to German consumers at much higher prices (in 1992, the Potsdam customs investigation office discovered a fairly high number of such cases). More than 4 million cigarettes, for which duty had not been paid, were discovered by Customs Officers and the Po

lice in May 1992 at WF-military barracks in the district of Luckenwalde. In January 1993, the special commission "Blue Mist" set up by the Customs Criminal Investigation Bureau in Brandenburg confiscated more than 7 million contraband cigarettes at the WF military barracks in Schönow (District of Bernau) and Falkensee. One month later, Berlin Customs Officers "struck gold" in Fürstenwalde. Not only did they confiscate approximately 1.8 million cigarettes but they were also able, for the first time, to establish the link between the cigarette smugglers and WF personnel. Cigarette smuggling has not only become a million-dollar trade but has also resulted in millions of lost revenue (more than 10 million).

Another lucrative criminal business activity concerns arms smuggling. A result of the welcome disarmament, after the end of the Cold War, meant that considerable amounts of Soviet military equipment had become superfluous, and would later come onto the black market. The retreating WF depots were not always properly guarded. The "arms mafia", which had recruited some of its members from elite army units previously stationed in Afghanistan, used its good army contacts in Russia. It was not just few corrupt army leaders who had become involved in illegal arms deals. Even at the most junior level, a few extra Marks could be earned before the military withdrawal. For instance in January 1994, two Russian soldiers were arrested during a police intervention at a flea market in the Berlin district of Wedding for having offered army smoke bombs for sale. One can but guess what the amount of equipment was that was frequently smuggled out by air from the military airfield in Wünsdorf. Supplies of military machinery fo

r the WF were often not inspected at all.

Another area of criminal activity was the organized theft of vehicles.

In April 1992, four WF soldiers were taken into detention in the Brandenburg district of Neustrelitz for the attempted murder of two police officers on street patrol and armed robbery. The competent Department of Public Prosecution was not aware at the time whether vehicle theft was part of organized crime or not. Information to this effect was given by the Military Police's public prosecutor. The accusations continued to mount against the Western Forces and their General Matwei Prokopievitsch Burklov. On the one hand, Aslanbek Aslanchanov, Chairman of the Anti-Corruption committee of the Russian Federation's Parliament laid out the following in his investigation report of February 1992: misuse of office, unjustified enrichment of officers, smuggling, illegal trade in foreign currencies and last but not least, the setting up of mafia-style organization within the army. On the other hand, Vitali Urachev, leader of the parliamentary working group on "Reforms and the Army", accused the WF o illicit trade in cur

rency and goods with various banks and businesses in Russia; the illegal sale of expensive alcohols from army depots, arms deals and embezzlement. Burkalov denied the charges in February 1993. According to his statement, the accusations of corruption made by the President Yeltsin's fact-finding committees and the Parliament were not justified and the mafia-style organizations referred to in the accusations do not exist. However, the Commanding Officer did agree that "more an more criminal elements were concentrating" in WF personnel's residential areas. Cases of "theft, racketeering and profiteering" had been observed. Six months later, the following accusations could be read in the German press : in October 1992, the newspaper Welt am Sonntag informed its readers of the statement submitted by the Ministry of Defense in Bonn, that the troops in East Germany were increasingly involved in illegal trade, racketeering and the expansion of organized crime. In Germany,according to the report, the loss resulting fr

om this criminal activity already amounted to DM 1500 million. By mid-November 1993, 9 months before the withdrawal of the last Russian soldiers, "Die Welt" wrote that, according to the German Federal authorities, the WF troops stationed in East Germany had been the starting point and target of considerable criminal activity. Corrupt officers accepted considerable bribes in exchange for a signed receipt approving the supply (or removal) of goods, which were actually never delivered to the army in the specified amounts. The WF's high command denies these reports, saying that they are nothing but a "smear campaign by the Federal German media to discredit WF personnel and the leadership". It will, however, be nearly impossible to establish the exact amounts transferred in recent years to banks in Zurich, Geneva and New York. The investigators' wings were clipped right from the start. After inclusion of the former DDR in the territory subject to the jurisdiction of the Federal Republic's Basic Law (reunificatio

n) on October 3, 1990, a good week later, on October 12, the "German-Soviet" agreement on stationed troops was signed in Bonn by Foreign Minister Genscher and the Soviet Ambassador Terechov. The so-called withdrawal agreement dealt with the withdrawal of approximately 380,000 Soviet soldiers and dependants (another 220,000) from Germany - this was originally agreed for end of 1994 but was later brought forward to August 1994. The "withdrawal agreement" confirmed the application of German criminal law (with certain exceptions). It did, however, not mention the preliminary proceedings which were to be applied. Consequently, the WF leadership doubts whether the German investigators are entitled to search the military personnel's houses even when these are outside the military compound.

On January 18, 1994, Burkalov informed Mr Kinkel, the German Foreign Minister, that only 31,436 soldiers and dependants of the original figure of 300,000 soldiers and dependants still remained on East German soil. The last soldier is expected to be back in his homeland by August 1994. Until then, he can still become a victim. Just like some of his colleagues, who were stationed in the region of Eberswalde and who were apparently blackmailed in September 1993 by gangs from the Ukraine and Poland.In order to tackle predatory black-mail more effectively, the police headquarters in Eberswalde set up a special commission. This has clearly confirmed that Germany has for some time now become the battleground for gangs of delinquents from Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States.

Germany - the battleground for mafiosi from the East

In the first half of 1993, the media and police investigators sounded the alarm. The news magazines referred to the situation as "Germany in the sights of Russia's Mafiosi" (Focus April 1993) and "Beware, the Russians are coming" (Spiegel 25/93). The Federal Office of Criminal Investigation's report on "East European criminality - Russian crime gangs" has been kept under lock and key from last June until today.

As a quasi preventive measure, an agreement was signed in June 1989 between Bonn and Moscow to fight drug-related crime. A further agreement was signed in May 1991 which included organized crime (arms trade, trade in human beings, pimping, illicit gambling, fraud and extortion). In the meantime, warnings were sounded. For instance by Lieutenant-General Statis Lissauskas, the USSR's deputy Minister for Internal Affairs. In his estimation, the "Russian mafia" was engaged in expanding its network throughout Western Europe, with the Federal Republic as its "main target". Police forces reacted to this in the magazine "Hauptziel". According to Wolfgang Hertinger, Head of Criminal Investigation in Mainz : "If they are successful in their expansion into Western Europe, then this is comparable to the Italian mafia's infiltration of the USA". No wonder then that a small delegation led by Rudi Geil, Rheinland-Pfalzen's Minister for Internal Affairs, already travelled to Moscow in November 1990. The Soviet security peop

le handed him a file for the Federal Office of Criminal Investigation. This presumably gave the names of Russian mafiosi who had apparently already settled in the Federal Republic and were busily engaged in expanding their syndicate's network. Berlin is apparently the gangs' favoured field of operation.

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Berlin - bridgehead for "raketiry"

Russians exiles had already started up a crime ring in the metropolis in the 70's. This operated for many years fairly unobtrusively in gambling and icon smuggling, later also including extortion. In the early 80's, the community of exiled Russians grew by several thousand Soviet immigrants, mainly from the district of Odessa. Quite a few were of German origin, many were Russian Jews and others were victims of various forms of persecution. These immigrants included a number of members from the underworld, who became particularly active in all forms of gambling. Towards the end of 1988, an investigation showed that 228 Russians were variously involved in 107 gambling businesses, which - according to investigators - operate as money-laundering outfits (for money from criminal activities). Although many casinos only showed a fairly modest level of trade, proprietors recorded monthly turnovers of between DM 200,000 and 300,000. The Federal Office of Criminal Investigation suspects that 85 per cent of all casinos

in Berlin are in the hands of Russians exiles. In the early 90's, new "CIS-gangs" arrived to join the already established mainly Russian-Ukrainian gangs from Moscow, St. Petersburg and even Odessa. While in July 1991, the number of ex-Soviet citizens living in Berlin was estimated at approximately 10,000, this figure was more likely 15,000 by the end of October 1993. Recent indications from the Federal Office of Statistics were not able to say how many of these were Russia and how many belonged to other population groups. Only some 900 were registered in autumn 1993 as citizens of the Russian Federation. These figures did not include WF soldiers, civilian employees and their dependants. There was some justification in June 1993 for thinking that more rich Russian immigrants lived in Berlin than any where else in Europe. Quite a few had made good thanks to imports and exports (with a preference for trade in antiques), as well as other services. No wonder then that antique dealers, hotel owners and proprietor

s of casinos had fallen victim to professional gangs of extortioners. Already in 1991, experts suspected that approximately 100 mafiosniks operated in Berlin, with 20 to 30 of these being Czechs (whose willingness to use force was and still is feared from Moscow to Berlin) extorting "protection money" from their own people. Thus, for example, a gang known by the name of "Moscow's Czech Community" became the talk of the town. In December 1993, insiders suspect that roughly ten so-called CIS mafia gangs were active in all sorts of crime in Germany's capital. As early as April 1991, the Criminal Police in Berlin had initiated some 50 preliminary proceedings against Soviet crime suspects for white-collar crime and major fraud. The Berlin Police had, some years earlier, already taken this development into consideration by setting up a special unit, which was originally manned by a team of 12 and which exclusively dealt with criminal acts by "people of Russian origins". In January 1993, Hans-Jürgen Fätkinheuer, or

ganized crime's senior public prosecutor reported: "We can however state fairly emphatically that Berlin has in the meantime become the mainstay of Russian crime syndicates in Germany". His colleague Andreas Pahl, head of the department for the fight against organized crime added "Berlin's Russian crime gangs are involved in a series of shady business deals. The most conspicuous element in Russian-style mafia activities is their total entrenchment and the incredible level of brutality". Quite extraordinary acts were reported at the Federal German C.I.D. Officers' press conference on November 24, 1993. The Federal German C.I.D. Officers' deputy chairman, Holger Bernsee, informed the Berlin press conference that foreign gangs from Eastern-bloc countries and the former Yugoslavia had staked money on the heads of criminal investigators who informed against the gangs. Uwe Schmidt, deputy leader of the Central Office of Investigation into government crime and that which has arisen after unification, has added to t

he picture of violence : the disloyal elements in the foreign gangs were threatened with the use of Czech killer commandos. When investigators talk of such intimidation against potential witnesses, for example investigating police officers, public prosecutors and even police interpreters, this must certainly be taken most seriously in light of the action engaged in by violent organized elements, whose bloody tail can be followed throughout Germany. The "raketiry" (taken from the English word "racketeering"- organized gangsterism) are in the process of quitting their East German field of operation.

East Germany - operational area for "raketiry"

Since 1990, a series of mysterious deaths has been observed in East Germany. A chronology of events: On August 17, 1990, unknown assailants shoot a soldier, Oleg Kobsar, in front of the WF's munitions depot in Perleberg. His machine gun disappears at first but then turns up again in Bremerhaven, together with some 400 Russian grenades which are in the hands of two members of the underworld. On January 5, 1991, the body of Eduard Beck, the son of Russian immigrants, is found stabbed to death in a burnt car on the Berliner Ring. Beck, who previously lived in Munich, appears to have been involved in racketeering of vehicles with Russians in Brandenburg. On July 7, 1991, Juri Bulgakov and Ruslan Beretschtov, two CIS soldiers, were stabbed to death in the Obersee near Töpchin. They were discovered bound to a concrete post, with their heads smashed in. Both would appear to have been active in racketeering involving stolen vehicles (Ladas). On July 23, 1991, a Czech, recently arrived fro Moscow, shoots at three Rus

sians exiles in front of a pizza bar in the Berlin district of Wilmersdorf. A Georgian, who was later shot by an unknown assailant in Amsterdam in April 1992, shoots back. In the ensuing battle, three Russians and an innocent German tourist are seriously wounded. The Czech, who is said to have received DM 20,000 from his client, was sentenced to seven years in prison. On June 24, 1992, Michael Miosga and his girl-friend are shot in the head and die in their Mercedes car on the Hamburg-Bremen motorway. Miosga and his company, located in Brandenburg, were apparently involved in exchange deals in roubles worth millions of Deutsch Mark with Ukrainian firms. On July 18, 1992, a young White-Russian woman, living in Berlin, is found near Grieben, not far from Oranienburg, with a smashed head and slashed throat. On December 1, 1992, Garri Djibu, a Ukrainian, is shot several times in the chest and killed execution style by unknown assailants in his Berlin flat. In January 1993, the Russian A. Nikoulin is found shot t

o death in the Berlin Nobelhotel Esplanade. The murder enquiry did not exclude the possibility of this murder being a revenge killing by the Russian mafia. In June 1994, the Israeli Aduard Shultz is found dead in his flat in the Berlin district of Charlottenburg. The man, who was from the Soviet Union, had emigrated to Israel but had come to live in Germany since 1989. The police suspect that the murderers belong to Russian mafia circles. In September, a head- and armless body is found on a lay-by near Osnabrück. The murdered Lithuanian was probably an extortioner. A 23-year old compatriot confessed to the murder. In early December 1993, the Russian, Vitali Ljachovski, is found shot through the head in his Berlin flat in the district of Schöneberg. The police suspect that the man had been executed.

Extortion among Ukrainians, murders on motorways among Russians, hostage-taking among CIS-citizens - serious crime in Germany. Anatoli Olejnikov, security officer, expressed his opinions on the matter of "CIS-crime" in Germany in his interview (Spiegel 25/93) in June 1993. Olejnikov managed the German department of the Russian Federation's Ministry for Security in Berlin-Karlshorst. According to expert estimations in the fight against crime, it would appear that more than 300 CIS-gangs are still active in East Germany in a vast range of different criminal activities, such as drugs, arms smuggling, vehicle theft, trade in radioactive substances and antiques, extortion and money-laundering.

As is the case in their home countries, organized crime syndicates from the CIS are generally separated (from each other) according to ethnic criteria. For instance, Ukrainians, Russians and Caucasians (to which one must also add Czechs). The groups then set up zones of influence which are regional and are divided into working areas. It is mainly CIS citizens who become the gangs' victims. These gangs quite frequently had and still have right-hand men in military circles.

Moscow's main department for the fight against organized crime warned as early as April 1991 of the "crooks' march", finding active support by and criminal contacts with West Germany's immigrant populations in large cities. Just to give an example, Efim Laskin, an emigrated Russian lived since 1974 as a political refugee in Munich. The former boxing champion was also involved in gambling. The Russian exile, who was under police surveillance and considered as southern Germany's top gangster in the organized crime jungle, was found knifed to death in Munich in September 1991. For several years, a variety of exotic names were mentioned: the Borscht Connection, the Soviet Mafia, the Balalaika Mafia, the Icon-Mafia, the Russian Connection, the Red Mafia, the Russian Mafia, the CIS Mafia. Investigators now know a little more about the organizational structure, which makes the threat that more obvious.

*8 "Bisnesmeni" in Europe and America

In the CIS, the biggest of the biggest are the "Bratstwa", i.e. big "brotherhoods" which can have up to 2,000 members. At the top stands the "Godfather", who quite frequently has contacts in the Government. Four to six Mafiosi (secretaries) come next in line, followed by two dozen lesser mobsters (the Soviet Mafia) who manage and coordinate an organization, which has virtually divided the business world into "registers". The "bisnesmeni", as the diligent members of the organization call themselves, control an endless range of areas. In Moscow, the taxi and rail-mafia are in full swing. The Kaliningrad (Königsberg) mafia supposedly controls the amber trade. The Kiev mafia controls the trade in humans with asylum-seekers from South-East Asia; a mafia activity in girls has specialized in the "export of dancers" to Vienna. Even so, the native territory does not offer the profitable deals which are possible in the West - beginning from the East-European periphery, via Western Europe to overseas regions. Current c

riminal history compares the current level of the Russian Mafia's vitality and brutality with the Italian Cosa Nostra of the 20's.

From Eastern Europe to the "Golden West"

The "boizy" (front fighters) are also the men used for the rough jobs. In the early 90's, they taught Eastern Europe's underworld the meaning of fear.

Gangsters from the CIS Republics had already settled in Prague, the Czech Republic's capital city, at the time of the creation of the Czech Republic. Two years ago, in April 1992, the Foreign Police estimated the number of illegal ex-Soviet immigrants living in the city at approximately 3,000. Quite a few of these seemed to belong to the large "brotherhoods" of the former Soviet republics - such as Russia, Ukraine and Uzbekistan. According to press reports at the time, the level of brutality and professionalism shown by the "CIS-Mafia" made the "Prague underworld quiver in its boots". The city's criminal police investigators admitted that they were highly organized and showed a good level of discipline, which made the fight against crime much more difficult.

Inspector Andrei Koveszko, of the Warsaw Interpol Office, said that CIS-gangsters had also settled in POLAND. Reporting in August 1992 on the gangs from Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kiev, Odessa and Vilnius, he went on to say that these gangs would become increasingly active. Groups from the CIS-Mafia were already active both in the capital and increasingly throughout the country in an assortment of criminal activities such as forged documents, smuggling of human beings, extortion, blackmail, trade and various forms of racketeering. They control prostitution with an iron grip and work hand in hand with Polish criminals on the drug scene.

The CIS mafia has also set up nerve centres in LATVIA, SLOVAKIA, HUNGARY and BULGARIA.

Helsinki's competent police squad has complained that Russian organized crime has arrived in FINLAND via the drug trade. Western Europe's CIS-Mafia, which has established its bridgehead in Germany - as reported in this article - is now also threatening Eastern and Northern Europe. Said a Scotland yard CID investigator in the London daily The Independent openly about the threat : organized gangs from the former Soviet bloc are a greater threat to GREAT BRITAIN than the Italian Mafia, Chinese triads and the Colombian cartel altogether. In AUSTRIA's capital, Vienna, the police has had longer and more practical experience with the new crime gangs. In the meantime, these gangs have now also set up in BELGIUM (Antwerp) and FRANCE (Paris). This development led State Minister Bernd Schmidbauer to make the following point: "The Russian Mafia is spreading like a cancer into Western Europe". An ever-widening geographic spread is feared in North America, where the US Mafia expert, James Rosenhal reflected out aloud, alr

eady a year ago, on the somber vision of unification of the European and American branches into a worldwide Mafia brotherhood.

America - in the land of Meyer Lansky

Towards the end of the 19th century, anti-Semitism in Eastern Europe,and in particular the pogroms of Tsarist Russia, were reason enough for the more than three million Jews of mostly Polish and Russian origins to emigrate to the USA. Analogous with the likewise millions of southern Italian immigrants towards the turn of the century and thereafter, a handful of criminals assembled and subsequently formed the Jewish and Polish gangs that soon controlled the gambling and loan shark rackets.

The criminal competition from the Italian "Black Hand", later known as "Cosa Nostra" was seldom fought - co-operation was better. The most famous instance of co-operation noted in the crime history of the times took place in Manhattan (New York), when "Lucky" Luciano, born in Naples in 1898 and emigrated to the United States in 1903, (1898-1962) and another young man, Meyer Lansky, born in Grodno in 1902 and emigrated to the United States in 1911 (1902-1983) and whose real name was Mei'or Schovljansky, joined forces and continued working together as criminals for many years. The co-operation between the Cosa Nostra and the "Kosher Nostra" runs through 20th century American crime history like a continuing thread. It is only in the last decade that this close connection appears to be taking on a new lease of life again.

The "honest Meyer" was still around, at the ripe old age of 80, to see the New York crime squad round up Soviet immigrants, who were part of an organized arms and drug smuggling ring. The majority of those arrested at the time came from the Georgian Republic.

Ten years later, the West Coast press reported that a "Glasnost-Mafia" had spread through Los Angeles. The West Hollywood murder of a Russian, Andrei Kusneskov, in January of the same year put the L.A. police's special investigators (for organized crime) on the scent. For the very first time, documents were found which showed the extent of the criminal ramifications of a Russian mafia organization, known as the "Organizatija", and its activities in California. The FBI, together with local police forces in New York, Boston, Chicago and other major cities, had already gained some relevant experience with organized gangsters from the former Soviet Union. Investigators had for some time suspected that "Glasnost-Gangsters" would also spread through Los Angeles, which has the second largest Russian immigrant community in the United States. Some time ago, Russian security forces and FBI specialized forces had come together in the fight against the "Organizatija".

As far as the investigators could assess tax fraud, money-smuggling and - to an increasing extent - drug dealing and narcotics were just some of the so-called Glasnost-Mafia's criminal activities.

"Narkobisnesmeni" - the drug barons

Towards the end of March 1993, the New York-based Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) sounded the alarm: increasingly, high-quality Russian heroin was being smuggled into the USA. As far as narcotics were concerned, Russia and Eastern Europe would develop very rapidly. For the general public, a criminal case being heard at the time was an initial early sign confirming this assessment of the situation. To start with, the members of a Russian-American drug ring had to justify themselves. There was some indication that Russian immigrants involved in the drug trade had collaborated with Italian-American organized crime gangs, i.e. the Cosa Nostra.

That was most certainly a worrying aspect of the investigation.

Individual voices had expressed concern some time ago regarding such conclusions. One of these "voices" was Colonel Tchebotariev, active in the fight against gang crime in Moscow, who warned West German officers, as early as April 1991, of the likely co-operation between Soviet immigrants and West European Mafia organizations. The Police Colonel was proved right. On November 6, 1992, the liberal Prague newspaper Lidove noviny, in reference to the advisor to the Prague Ministry for the Interior Jiri Vacek, wrote that Russian and Italian Mafia bosses had effectively set up a joint drug cartel at a meeting in the Czech Republic. It had apparently been agreed that the Italians would supply the "commercial know-how" for the cartel. The Russians, on the other hand, would provide professional killers to protect the transit routes and the distribution systems. One year later, this unbelievable report was confirmed in October 1993 by the Head of the Italian Parliament's Anti-Mafia Commission, Luciano Violante. He ref

erred in his description in part to a report by the Russian Academy of Science, according to which the "mafiosniks" also had connections to members of the old KGB and KPdSU. According to Violante, privatization in Eastern Europe offered enormous opportunities for money-laundering. He also went on to say that the Russian and Italian mafiosi had held at least two "summit meetings" since 1991 on possible future co-operation. During the same month, the Prague newspaper Mada fronta dnes published an article which reported that Italian and Russian mafiosi had divided up their respective fields of activity in the Czech Republic. According to this report, members of both gangs agreed as early as October 1992 at a meeting in Prague on their respective areas of interest in Bohemia and Moravia. The Italians saw the Czech Republic as the background for deals and pacts, while the Russians wanted to launder money and buy into property by way of bogus companies. The repots were also published in The Times (Russia and Italy

sign anti-crime pact), Times (Underworlds of Russia and Italy seal crime pacts) and other international newspapers. This information was probably put out by some foreign news agencies.

As the case may be, the co-operation between CIS-organized crime gangs and other established gangs is not disputed, particularly in the drug business. The officer in charge of the fight against organized crime in Moscow, Valeri Serebriakov, already said in June 1993, "if this trend continues, our local drug mafia will, in the very near future, reach the level of an international cartel". That same month, the leader of the German Department at the Ministry for Russian Security said in an interview on the changing situation in his country: "the Russian Federation will increasingly become a transit place for narcotics from South America and South East Asia. As far as hashish and heroin are concerned, the route from Afghanistan is clear. There are no boarder controls between Afghanistan and Tadjikistan and none between Tadjikistan and Russia". In the meantime, cocaine is finding its way through Russia, after Colombian gangs had agreed in the early 90's on the Baltic Sea as an ideal smuggling area (see SR 1/94).

In February 1993 in Vyborg near the Russian-Finnish boarder, a trailer was seized on the basis of information supplied by Western news agencies to the KGB's drug squad. The custom's papers stated "meat preserves (corned beef)", which a St. Petersburg company had ordered from Columbia in order to distribute it, according to Olejnikov, to its German and Israeli business partners. A tonne or so of cocaine, with a street value of approx. DM 320 million, was found - and seized - in any of the 236,000 tins, as well as in other hiding places. At the time, this was one of the largest drug consignment seized on Russian territory. Several Russians and one Israeli were arrested at the time. According to Olejnikov, officers from Germany and Israel were also involved in the action. The investigators suspected that the cocaine was not destined for Russia but was to transit via St. Petersburg and finally end up in Western Europe. According to information discovered by the Federal nes agency (BND), Colombian and Russian gan

gs are not only cooperating in the drug trade but also - according to a report in May 1993 - in money-laundering. The cocaine cartel's gold reserves have apparently been stamped and sold with a Russian coining die. It is said that the Russian mafia collected 25 % for this "service", which enabled the cartel to transform its dirty drug money into clean hard currency.

Developments make it clear that all of Europe, from the Atlantic to the Ural, has in the past few years become one gigantic crime area, in which not only new and violent gangs from the Commonwealth of Independent States and Eastern Europe are highly active but in which new and highly organized criminal conspiracies have also been organized, with the impact on democratic European nations becoming a major threat.

Adams, Nathan M. (1983), Drogen gegen Waffen, Der "bulgarischen Mafia" auf der Spur, Das Beste nr.11, November, pp.100-128.

Adams, Nathan M. (1992), Aufgedeckt - die Verbrechen der russischen Mafia, Das Beste 45.Jg.Nr.9/September, S.97-106.

Berliner Zeitung (1992), Prager Unterwelt zittert vor GUS-Mafia -Russen und Ukrainer machen CSFR-Gangstern Konkurrenz, Nr.87, 11 April, S.16.

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