Hello, I'm ThePolakVet. I live in Latvia, which is an ex-USSR state bordering with Russia, Estonia and Lithuania. I have a large knowledge on Russian Organized Crime and crime groups in ex-USSR states. So, I would like to share with you guys with this information so you would get a better glance on how it is actually. Yeah, I'm making this type of thread as it would take me days actually to write a proper info thred.

So yeah, feel free and post your questions. I'll hopefully will try to answer all of them.

How many clans are there in Moscow alone since its the capital of Russia and whats the total manpower of those clans combined?

I know of 'Russian' crime lords from these ethnic groups from the former USSR : ethnic Russians, Sovjet Jews, Georgians, Chechens, Azerbaijanis, Armenians, Kyrgyz, Uzbeks, Abkhaz and Yazidis.
Which other ethnic communities from the former USSR are big players in organized crime ?

This is a map of the largest groups currently in Moscow.
Here's another map from another source.
The apparent number of largely memberbased crime groups in Moscow is around 20. Not all of the are Russian ethnic, there are Chechen, Georgian, Azerbaijan and also various other ethnic crime groups in Moscow.

The total amount of Russian Crime groups in Moscow is around 150. The largest groups such as the Solnetsevskaya has up to 5000 members, however some sources state that there's a lot less by that. But apromoxitely there's around 30,000 to even 50,000 criminals in Moscow connected to an organized crime group.

They're mostly the one's you mentioned. There are also also figures as Bellarussians, Ukrainians, Kazakh's who are largely known in the Bratva.

I remember a big massacre that took place in Irkutsk when I lived there in 2002 when the gangster Pavel Kiselev was killed with his bodyguards and a couple of witnesses (including a 15-year-old boy). It took place just on the street I often passed through while going at the marketplace in the center of the city. Good thing I wasn't there.
There is a powerful organization with international ties in that region, the so-called Bratskaya organized crime group, based in the city of Bratsk. The boss is Vladimir Tiurin, a thief-in-law (vor v zakone), although I have no idea how did he manage to get that title considering the fact he was convicted for rape. A real b#@$%^d, that one. He has been arrested by interpol a couple of years ago at the Spanish authorities request, they hoped he would be extradited because he had no Russian citizenship since he was born in Kazakhstan, but he managed to get the citizenship during the hearings, and my country with its idiotic extradition law doesn't extradite its citizens.

ThePolakVet, by the way who do you think is more powerful - Sergey Mikhailov, the head of the Solnzevskaya, or Aslan Usoyan? I haven't been in Russia for years, so I don't really know the present situation.

Great info! thanks!

That's due to that nowdays Vory V Zakone have changed really a lot just like any other criminal organization. But it's not that they allow people who have raped someone in their lines, they still have this rule. But it's the money thing. More or less it's all based on money nowdays and even an eighteen year old boy spending few months in a prison can be crowned as a Vor V Zakone if he pays an enough sum to another Vor V Zakone who'll crown him.



Mikhas definetely as Solnetsevskaya is a large and international crime group and the largest in Moscow, by now with having several brigades almost in every well developed world's country. Nowdays Solnetsevskaya controls the Russian crime groups in Latvia making them to pay up to Solnetsevskaya's Obschak(organization's fund collection).

Ded Hasan on the other hand has control on the Kazakh groups within many ex-USSR states, but still his organization is not so large as Solnetsevskaya. Thus Solnetsevskaya has a far greater history with battling Chechen crime groups in 90's.

There's no doubt Mikhailov is well more respected and more powerful than Ded Hasan with his empire.

Is the Solntsevskaya Bratva mostly ethnic Russian or mostly ethnic Jewish ?
Because I've always considered the myth that 'The Russian Mafia is Jewish' bullshit. This may be true for the USA since it were mostly Russian/Ukrainian Jews who migrated to the USA. But in Russia and other European countries there also are a lot of ethnic Russian mobsters.

Mostly ethnic Russian, there are of course individuals who are other ethnics but speak Russian, such as Georgians, Ukrainians, Belarussian, etc.

Yeah, you're completely right on that. Never happened in Russia. Maybe in the 70's that was what was going on in America due to the mostly emigrated people being jewish, but still a lot of Russian criminals just made fake documents to show that they're jewish while really they weren't.

But now in these years, this has even changed in America. They're mostly ethnic Russians.

Dont know how true is this(sounds to me like a fantasy talk)but here it goes...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FG_bACkcDL8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dlGdisZfFBU&feature=channel&list=UL

I remember I once saw in the news Mikhailov was beaten by a policeman (he went around showing the wound on the head in front of the cameras). Don't remember when it was, maybe 10 years ago. I don't like police violence, but was good to know there was at least somebody around there not afraid of that hypocritical scumbag. I once went to his site, so many people in the guestbook seemed to like licking his boots. Disgusting... I hope so much he meets a bad end sooner or later.

Yeah I've heard about this.
There are a lot of 'Russian' and 'Ukrainian' criminals who are ethnically Ashkenazi Jewish. Mogilevich is Jewish, Agron, Balagula, Nayfeld, Fainberg,...all Jewish.
But then we have Mikhailov, Kumarin, Timofeyev, Ivankov,...and they don't have a Jewish bone in their body.
There are a lot of Soviet Jewish crime bosses, sure. But there are also lots and lots of ethnic Russian mobsters. Like PolakVet said, a lot of ethnic Russian gangsters faked Jewish background just to hide in Israel. The 'Russian' Mafia is neither fully Jewish, nor fully Russian.

ps : I live in Belgium. Antwerp used to be a big place for the 'Russian' mob. The main bosses were Rachmiel Brandwain and Mosche Ben-Ari, both Ashkenazi Jews from Ukraine, and Abraham Melikhov, a Georgian Jew ( ethnically Georgian Jews differ from Ashkenazi Jews). In Belgium citizenship was applied to people of Jewish origins. Just like it in the USA. That's why a lot of Jewish crime bosses are around in these countries.
Nowadays these crime bosses aren't that active anymore in Antwerp. They used to run prostitution, drug trafficking, arms trafficking, contract killing, money laundering,...nowadays (the ones who are still alive) they only launder money.
Albanians in Antwerp mostly control drug and weapon trafficking and prostitution nowadays, but there also is an increase in Chechen gangsters over there. They have tried to take over some Albanian businesses which has resulted in shootings a couple of times.

I always found Mogilevich much worse than Mikhailov for some reason.

^^^ Ye me too

I think they are equally despicable. Mikhailov just bothers me more because so far he is more successful in escaping prosecution. Mogilevich at least is wanted in the USA, so if the Russian laws change one day, there is hope he will be extradited, while Mikhailov isn't wanted or indicted anywhere and even presents himself as a sort of benefactor!

I remember reading about Mogilevich' torture chambers. That was some pretty effed up stuff

I didn't know about that. I guess I should inform myself more about the gangsters of my homeland.

Mogilevich Torture chambers

These torture chambers were ran in Prague by members of Mogilevich' organization ( mostly Ukrainian Jews I thought)

Criminals in Russia in arrests are treated worser than dirt, just look at these videos on youtube. They usually get brutally dragged to the ground, forced with their faces in the asphalt or mud or even slammed with their head against a cars hood. I've even seen how a guy got dragged with his face on the asphalt, damn. When it comes to Russia, police is brutal there agains the criminals.

Well not that I dislike or admire criminals, but in ex-USSR states the majority of criminals have turned to this lifestyle just because they had no other chance to survive in the 90's.

Interesting information.
By the way, even though I don't want to start a political discussion and I am not a communist, I can't help noticing that before the 90s those characters, such as Mogilevich, Usoyan etc. were at least regularly sent to prison where they belonged, while now they are all "respectable businessmen". So much for the so-called "liberation of the country" by Gorbachev. From communism straight into the hands of the mafia. Don't know which of the 2 is more sinister.

I agree, many are treated like that, but not the crime lords. The police are afraid to do something to them as far as I know, they prefer beating their underlings, while the big criminal businessmen are usually treated with hypocritical deference because of their connections. But I agree that small-time hoods are often forced in the life by the circumstances, that's really horrible.

In communism people got sent to prison for completely nothing sometimes. Such as starting in the early years when communism started you got sent to the Gulags for owning a property. During the WW2 you got sent to prison just because in the war the German army had forced you to join their lines and fight on their side, so when the war ended you got sent to prison due to that. If you went to the countryside and for example brought to your place a bag of potato's and sold it to your neighbor, you also got sent to prison. That's the communism system of prisoning people.



Many of the facts in that article I find untrue, for example the friendship between Mogilevich and Elson. The same goes for Mogilevich buying out Ivankov, when that actually was Ivankov's lawyer. As well as Ivankov sitting in a Siberian Prison, while he actually sat in Moscow. You shouldn't fully trust that article.

Thanx 4 the article...the most devilish part of the article that i hate OC for is this...

"In another deal, an FBI informant told the bureau that one of Mogilevich's chief lieutenants in Los Angeles met two Russians from New York City with Genovese crime family ties to broker a scheme to dump American toxic waste in Russia. Mogilevich's man from L.A. said the Red Mafia would dispose of the toxic waste in the Chernobyl region, ''probably through payoffs to the decontamination authorities there,'' says a classified FBI report."

And almost evry OC group in the world do this!

I wasn't talking about Stalin's times. I was actually comparing the 90s to the later years of the Soviet Union - the 70s and the first half of the 80s. However bad the those times may have been, at least there were not so much shootings in the streets. The economy was worse, I agree, as was the "freedom" situation, but the organized crime wasn't nearly as powerful as today. Trust me, in today's Russia, unfortunately, the concepts "big businessman" and "mafia boss" are almost the same.
During the Soviet Union times there wasn't any economical freedom, I agree, but in my opinion there isn't any even today, but for other reasons. A honest businessman has no hope to enter the market.

I totally agree on this!

Till the time when people were allowed to get back their businesses, these laws still worked about selling stuff. That's like till 1989 if I'm not mistaken. In Soviet Union everything happened as everywhere else. Russian Organized Crime Groups operate since the 60's, the majority of nowday crime groups operate since the 80's. There were shootings, crime and everything else. Of course it wasn't like in 1994 with bombings, but still stuff happened. The fact you think that it wasn't there, is just that USSR censored it's news and such events were not advertised.

Polak vet what do you think of the gasoline scam the russians had going along with the italians in new york and why do you think that they gave in to the italians demand for a cut of the action?

WElcome PolakVet... here's a question... do you know of any linkages between cyber criminals, organized crime, and Russian? state

There was crime, but how could it be as powerful as today if there were no businessmen and no private property? The mafia is strong where there is BIG money. You couldn't have a bank business account and legally export money. As for the shootings, I am only telling what I know and what my parents and grandparents know about the part of the country we lived in: independently from the injustices of communism, in the 70s if you walked through the streets, the possibility of being beaten up and robbed or killed were not nearly as high as today.
I repeat, I am not a communist and I don't defend the USSR, I am just saying that the mafia today has become more powerful because now there is big money and the power made it become more vicious. I am not saying the Soviet Union was better - there were MANY infamous things equally bad as the mafia, I am just saying that the crime situation has worsened. It's like in Italy - if I say the mafia situation during fascism was worse for the mafia, it doesn't mean I am justifying fascism.