It goes against the grain, but sometimes – rarely – I feel Putin and the Russian security apparatus deserve to be given the benefit of the doubt. On 6 October, the interesting but often-sensationalist Russian newspaper Novaya gazeta ran an article ‘Registered Speciality – the Killer’ which claimed that the Russian spetsluzhby, the security agencies, now routinely murder enemies of the Kremlin. The author, Novaya gazeta’s military affairs editor Vyacheslav Izmailov, pulls together a varied collection of killings and kidnappings and asserts that the same sinister hand is behind them all.
All posts in category Crime
‘Contract killing is a continuation of business by other means’
Posted by Mark Galeotti on October 11, 2008
https://inmoscowsshadows.wordpress.com/2008/10/11/contract-killing-is-a-continuation-of-business-by-other-means/
Medvedev’s first police reform: MVD loses specialised organised crime department
Under Yeltsin, under Putin, and now it seems under Medvedev, reorganising law-enforcement agencies and overlaying new bodies on top of the existing ones has been the usual response to dealing with serious and organised crime. Cynic though I may be, this was my first thought on looking at Medvedev’s latest decree of 6 September 2008. The Interior Ministry (MVD) is to lose its specialised department for fighting organised crime and terrorism (DBOPT, but still widely known by its old acronym, UBOP) and its local branches. Investigating organised crime will simply be rolled into the work of the existing Main Directorate for Criminal Investigation (GUUR) and local CIDs, while UBOP staff will be transferred to a new body with a rather incongruous combination of roles: fighting ‘extremism’ and protecting judicial officials and witnesses.
Posted by Mark Galeotti on September 11, 2008
https://inmoscowsshadows.wordpress.com/2008/09/11/medvedevs-first-police-reform-mvd-loses-specialised-organised-crime-department/
Blood Brotherhood: Chechen organised crime
I have just had published in Jane’s Intelligence Review a piece on Chechen organised crime (http://jir.janes.com/public/jir/index.shtml, 28 August 2008), and while it wouldn’t be appropriate for me to reproduce the whole article here, I thought it might be useful if I summarised some of the main findings.
Chechen organised crime is not a specific gang so much as a distinctive criminal subculture. Often known as the bratva, ‘brotherhood’ – although sometimes it is described as the ‘Chechenskaya obshchina’ or ‘Chechen commune’ – it is a characteristic mix of modern efficiency and a bandit tradition.
Posted by Mark Galeotti on September 1, 2008
https://inmoscowsshadows.wordpress.com/2008/09/01/blood-brotherhood-chechen-organised-crime/
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