All Blog Posts Tagged 'Russia' (37)

By Niko Vorobyov for Gangsters Inc.

Ross Ulbricht, or Rossman to his pals, was born in 1984 in Austin, Texas, where he smoked plenty of dope before going to study physics at the University of Dallas, then science and engineering at Penn State where he met his on-off girlfriend…

Organized Crime has existed in Russia (former Soviet Union) for centuries. Under the communist regime corruption was as normal in Russia as snow falling during the winter. One of the big money makers for the Russian criminals was selling Western products on the black market, a market they controlled in the 1970s and 80s.



It was also during this time that there was…

By David Amoruso for Gangsters Inc.

Aleksey Tsvetkov (above, left) lived the good life for quite a while. As the leader of a violent,…

By David Amoruso

British crime boss Robert Dawes is one of Europe’s biggest drug traffickers. His influence reaches beyond the borders of the United Kingdom and into dozens of countries where he has the power to make men rich and end lives with one call.

Born in 1972 in Sutton-in-Ashfield in Nottinghamshire, it was…

By David Amoruso

As a vor v zakone, mob boss Razhden Shulaya (above) was an official member of a century-old criminal tradition. As such, he was treated as Russian Mafia royalty. He used that position to run a sprawling organization involved in kidnapping, assault, fraud, extortion, and money laundering throughout the…

By David Amoruso

A court in Spain acquitted seventeen Russian nationals last week of money laundering and fraud charges tied to the Tambovskaya-Malyshevskaya organization, a well-known Russian Mafia group operating out of St. Petersburg. Nine other defendants, including mob bosses Gennady Petrov (photo above, left),…

By Gangsters Inc. Editors

It was a family business. Father and son Guanghua and Fujing Zheng operated a drug ring that manufactured and shipped a large variety of chemical narcotics, including fentanyl, to at least 25 countries and 37 states. An indictment released on Wednesday also alleges the drugs sold by the…

By David Amoruso

After all these decades, James Bond’s license to kill still sounds pretty cool. Though 007 is far removed from the real-life spies working at MI5, they do have a similar license that gives them a pass to commit crime in the United Kingdom, Theresa May, the country’s prime minister revealed in a text on…

By David Amoruso

Ronald Fino’s life sounds like a mix of The Godfather and James Bond. As the son of a Mafia capo, Fino ultimately decided the mob was not for him. Instead, he became an undercover operative for the FBI and CIA, traveling the world and cleaning up crime and corruption wherever he went.…

By David Amoruso

Organized crime syndicates are increasingly getting involved in sports corruption. Fixing a match means a guaranteed lucrative payout by betting on the correct outcome. Criminals operating in this multi-billion-dollar field use different modi operandi and adopt very complex structures, therefore the only successful…

By David Amoruso

Razhden Shulaya’s influence reached far. As a bona fide “Vor” – the Russian Mafia’s equivalent of a made guy – he was feared and revered by his underlings and had powerful connections in the Eastern European underworld. But…

By John Christmas

Years ago, people in America talked about the “3-6-3 Rule” in banking. Bankers paid out 3% interest on deposits, collected 6% interest on loans, and were on the golf course at 3 o'clock.

But now in Eastern Europe, bankers have a new rule. They collect deposits, book “loans” that are actually uncollateralized…

By Gangsters Inc. Editors

Two Eastern European sailors were sentenced to 25 years in prison on Friday for smuggling $10 million worth of cocaine on their boat. 42-year-old Igor Polshyn from Yalta, Ukraine, and 52-year-old Oleskii Tsurkan from…

Grave of KGB lawyer Andris Grutups in Riga, Latvia

By John Christmas

An open secret has been continuing in Latvia ever since the USSR broke up in 1991. The Latvian government is protecting a circle of Kremlin-linked banks catering to non-resident shell-company depositors. Although these…

By Gangsters Inc. Editors

Agents of Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) arrested the deputy chief as well as the head of internal security of its Moscow branch yesterday during raids on the offices and homes of several Investigations Committee officials suspected of taking bribes from members of an…

By David Amoruso

Russian crime boss Sergei Mikhailov (photo above) has been whitewashing his dirty past. Known around the globe as one of the world’s most powerful gangsters, he has used a new law to remove information about his criminal past from major internet search engines in Russia, including Google.

Though 58-year-old …

By Gangsters Inc. Editors

Vladislav Yudichev (photo above) thought he was safe from the long reach of law enforcement when he settled in the coastal city of Pattaya in Thailand, but he underestimated Interpol, the organization that was looking for the gangster for his alleged acts of fraud and corruption.

Last week, the Chonburi Immigration…

By Dr. Gary K. Busch

One of the most interesting aspects of the current Russian problem with sanctions imposed by the West is the rejuvenation of the Russian Mafia and its role in Russian commerce. Just as the rise of the post-Yeltsin Chekists into positions of great power…

By David Amoruso

The FBI dealt a huge blow to one of the world’s most corrupt “legitimate” organizations, yesterday, when it charged nine officials of the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) with racketeering, wire fraud, and money laundering conspiracies after they enriched themselves through the corruption of soccer and…

By David Amoruso

For decades, British criminals have taken advantage of the fact they were citizens of an island nation. Whenever the law came to close they skipped across the pond to Europe, preferably sunny Spain. When Anthony Dennis was accused of importing copious amounts of drugs he did the same. Authorities, however, wised up, and when they…