By the way, could you tell us something about organized crime in Latvia? Who are considered the most important bosses, how is the law enforcement situation etc.
In Latvia there are many type of Organized Crime Groups, majorly they are Russian crime groups with involvement of other ethnics in them as well. So, there are Russian, Chechen and Georgian groups that I know of. As well as some Gipsy, but they are mostly just drug dealers.
There are few Chechen groups, the largest one is known to be ran in Ventspils, there's no real info who is leading it, but it's very feared. Few years ago some members of this group beat up police officers in a club and the guards of the club were scared shitless that they didn't even interrupt that event. But in my opinion, the largest group is led by a businessman named Beslan Abdulmuslimov. He usually drives in a escort with several bodyguards around and has links to political parties.
The Georgian group is led by Zurab Shamugiya, he's the only Vor V Zakone in Latvia. They mainly operate in vehicle theft, by stealing cars and exporting them to Russia and as well in hi-jackings. There's no large information about them, and I don't really know if they're fully Georgian or just a majority of them.
There's a lot of Russian crime groups. The biggest in the 90's were Pardaugava Group, Kharitnov's Brigade, Liepaja Brigade and many other groups that are not known to the media. Currently most groups are paying off to Solnetsevskaya's obschak(the united fund collection of a criminal structure, usually held by one or few person's) There's also information on other smaller brigades that operates/-ed in Latvia, such as Burnov's Brigade that got ambushed by Pardaugava in a gym. Bolderaja Brigada which were known to be ruthless and usually extorted victims to the very core by taking fully everything they had. Kononov's Group that largely operated in contraband smuggling.
The most known current criminal bosses are Beslan Abdulmuslimov(Chechen), Zurab Shamugiya(Georgian), Boris Raigorodsky, Ivan Kharitonov, Raitis Kononov.
There are as well new groups, that for example operate in drug dealing, fuel stealing, contraband smuggling and many other activities, but they're small time and usually being extorted by larger groups.
There is really a lot more information to tell, but I'll finish it up later, currently got to study. Thanks for the questions guys, keep them coming. I'll make sure to post loads and load of information here, was really long time searching for such a forum.
