My latest publication on post-Soviet crime is an overview in a comprehensive three-volume Transnational Crime Manual (Wolf Legal Publishers, 2010) edited by Prof. Martine Herzog-Evans of the University of Rheims. My chapter explores how the collapse of the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact satellite states not only created but also revealed a wide range of social, political and economic problems, from the underground economy to corruption. While the 1990s saw the post‐Soviet states working through crises that allowed organized and disorganized crime to flourish, since then there has been a diversification of the post‐Soviet experience, with some countries beginning an effective campaign to control criminality (take a bow, Baltic states), others reaching a symbiotic equilibrium with it (bizarre Belarus, for example) and a number – frankly, most – seeing a convergence between corrupt elites and organized crime.
All posts in category Organized Crime – Russia
‘Crime in Post-Soviet Societies’, in Herzog-Evans (ed), Transnational Crime Manual
Posted by Mark Galeotti on January 7, 2011
https://inmoscowsshadows.wordpress.com/2011/01/07/319/
Wikileaks (3): Moscow – Luzhkov and the ‘other’ mafia
From the New York Times comes a wikileaked cable on since-deposed Moscow Mayor Luzhkov and his alleged (OK, rather credibly alleged) corruption and criminal connections:
Posted by Mark Galeotti on December 3, 2010
https://inmoscowsshadows.wordpress.com/2010/12/03/wikileaks-3-moscow-luzhkov-and-the-other-mafia/
Wikileaks (2): Mogilevich and Ukrainian gas
In many ways, Semyon Mogilevich is an atypical Russian organized crime figure. He does not command an army of thugs, does not shake down storefronts or traffic drugs, does not even fit within any of the gangs or networks dominating the Eurasian underworld. Instead, he is first and foremost a service provider, a one-stop shop for laundering and moving money and criminal finance of every kind. However, he also has an interesting role within Russia’s gas industry, and especially exports to Ukraine, something noted, if not explored that deeply, in two new leaked US State Department cables published in the Guardian.
Posted by Mark Galeotti on December 2, 2010
https://inmoscowsshadows.wordpress.com/2010/12/02/wikileaks-2-mogilevich-and-ukrainian-gas/
Wikileaks (1): the Spanish take on the Russian state and OC
Others (notably Sean Guillory) are doing a sterling job of generally covering the Russia-related cables being exposed through wikileaks, and to be honest I don’t have the time to write much this week, so I just want at present to confine myself to making a few comments on some of them relating to Russian organised crime.
Posted by Mark Galeotti on December 1, 2010
https://inmoscowsshadows.wordpress.com/2010/12/01/wikileaks-1-the-spanish-take-on-the-russian-state-and-oc/
A side-thought: we need new terms for new types of organised crime figures
This morning I gave an interview via skype with the Danish TV channel DR2 on the case of Semyon Mogilevich. One point which quickly became clear is that modern organised crime has in some ways evolved beyond the language; Mogilevich is clearly a powerful figure within the transnational Russian underworld. However, he is not a ‘boss’ or a ‘godfather’ – he has a small organisation of his own, but essentially he is a specialised service provider, a mafiya banker. He is not a ‘leader’, as he does not control large numbers of slope-foreheaded leg-breakers or sharp-eyed gunmen, does not traffic in drugs or people. Nor is he even ‘in’ any specific crime network, although he is probably closest to Solntsevo. But for all that, he is undoubtedly powerful and influential, just in more indirect ways. So what do we call him and those like him, whose role as providers of specialised services have made them underworld powers in their own rights?
Posted by Mark Galeotti on November 29, 2010
https://inmoscowsshadows.wordpress.com/2010/11/29/a-side-thought-we-need-new-terms-for-new-types-of-organised-crime-figures/
Conspiracy theories and Semyon Mogilevich
One of the occupational habits of following Russian politics is contracting conspiracy theorism. The problem is that Russia is truly machiavellian and intrigue-ridden often enough that you can’t rule out all the the theories all the time, even if in the main you really are getting what you see. The latest potential conspiracy gnawing at me relates to the arrest (and probable release) of FBI-Most-Wanted gangster Semyon ‘Seva’ Mogilevich, currently going as Sergei Schnaider.
Posted by Mark Galeotti on October 26, 2010
https://inmoscowsshadows.wordpress.com/2010/10/26/conspiracy-theories-and-semyon-mogilevich/
-
Latest Books
Osprey: Essential Histories ‘Russia’s Wars in Chechnya, 1994-2009’ Coming late 2014
