Moscow News, No. 8, March 5 - 11, 1998
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"No Heroes, Only Victims" was the feature by Lev Timofeev (MN No. 3/98) that opened a series of publications on the drug addiction, drug trade and drug policy in Russia. We would like to remind our readers that several major newspapers and television channels are currently trying to join forces in order to give society an idea of the scale of the drug world. The biggest nongovernmental body, the Council fot Foreign and Defense Policies (chaired by Sergei Karaganov) has also mapped out a set of discussions about this topic. Under the auspices of this body an investigation called "A Treat to the Nation" has already been completed. Printed below is a piece from this work.
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Until the late 1980s, the Soviet Union had the reputation of being largely free from drug sales and consumption.
The country did have a well-run production of various narcotic drugs, albeint in small quantities, but it was geared towards the needs of a fairy exclusive set restricted to criminals. Besides, a portion of the drug market was confined to Central Asian republics where soft drugs were often looked on as part of the national way of life and not particularly frowned at.
Taking shape in Russia at the moment is the drug mafia in the literal sense of the word, that is, a miltiple entity in charge of organizing production, processing, transportation, and distribution of illegal substances on a national scale.
In terms of makeup, the domestic drug mafia consists of three elements that form a classical mafia pyramid.
The first underlying element is made up of bottom-level drug pushers, of whom there are of several thousands in Moscow alone.
The second element consists of medium-scale wholesalers and couriers with "combat groups" to protect the merchandise en route and the drug pushers on the market.
The third one is the upper echelon, which is not directly involved in drug trafficking; its purpose is to plan operations and launder the money made from drug sales.
The distinguishing feature of this mafia is that, for obvious reasons, it cannot consist only of Russians. Criminal groups active in various parts of Russia are rarely monoethnic and have to cooperate with their brethren elsewhere in what used to be the Soviet territory, primarily with criminals from Tajikistan, Georgia, and Azerbaijan. In particular, 100 percent of heroin and mathadone sales in and around Moscow are controlled by ethnic Azeris, who also supervise a hefty chunk of the marijuana market.
As the police statistics suggest, several communities of foreign nationals engaged in drug trafficking have been doing business in the capital these last three years. The biggest among them are the Afghan, Chinese, and Vietnamese groups.
Several hundred drug pushers from Nigeria are also active in Moscow and the Moscow Region. These pushers prefer cocaine and heroin. Interestingly, Nigeria itself does not produce narcotics, but Nigerians, chiefly university students, are among the most active drug couriers and specialize, in particular, in smuggling drugs to Russia from Western Europe.
While in 1992, 1,549 citizens from ex-Soviet republics were detained in connection with drug-related offenses, in 1996, the number practically doubled, reaching 3,188 people.
As for foreigners (barring CIS citizens), there were only 19 such detainees in 1992, and all of 2,882 in 1996. This figure, among other things, points to the rapid expansion of the Russian drug market, which in the meantime had grown 151.6 times!
It should be noted that despite expanding cooperation between this country's main drug groupings and their growing international contacts abroad, Russia still does not have a full-fledged drug cartel of the Medellin kind that could actively integrate itself not only into the economy but into political government as well, given the right conditions. This, however, does not mean that there is no risk of this in the long term.
Within the last three years, at least four "summit" meetings between Russian criminal group leaders and the more influential drug barons from the U.S. and Latin America have taken place. As far as the available information suggests, the discussion there focused on globalizing cooperation in drug dissemination and creating favorable political conditions for it at the national level.
There is reason to suppose that the main drug partner of Russian organized crime groups is the Cali cartel, Colombia's biggest, which specializes in suplying the Russian market with cocaine.
The mafia's drug money laundering in Russia deserves special attention. The sums of money involved add up to a staggering $1 billion or so. The laudering is typically done through front companies that legally turn over cash, such as restaurants, gambling joints, and so on. In addition, the cash receipts handed over by sellers are actively exchanged for ready hard currency in various banks. The latest example in point was Sherkhan, a firm founded by Afghan nationals, exchanging dozens (and on occasion even hundreds) of millions of rubles daily at exchange offices of MDM Bank and Russian Financial Initiatives Bank.
A new line in money laundering first tested in 1996 is to purchase shares of various Russian enterprises, chiefly in the fuel and energy complex and telecommunications. By some estimates, at least 900 billion rubles' worth of shares was bought with drug money in 1996.
It has to be admitted that the formation of "drug lobby" in Russia has already been accomplished, and now it is making sure that suffeciently strong pressure is exerted on various circles in the country, including the legislature both at the federal and regional level, in order to dissuade more effective anti-drug laws from being adopted.
A part of the lobby is public, for instance, the Radical Party and several other associations openly engaged in a promotion campaign, which includes books, leaflets, pamphlets, and periodicals with pieces on the philosophy and practice of drug taking. The number of copies of drug editions that have been published in the last five years exceeds one million, by the most conservative estimates.
Another worry lies in the fact that the advertisement of drugs is connected with many role models of youngsters, especially rock and pop culture stars who fully realize whom they are influencing.
Who has made a bundle here, the Cali cartel or the local drug traffickers?
