DATE=7/13/2000
TYPE=BACKGROUND REPORT
TITLE=RUSSIAN MAFIA
NUMBER=5-46663
BYLINE=ED WARNER
DATELINE=WASHINGTON
CONTENT=
VOICED AT:
INTRO: The Russian mafia stretches ominously across
the globe, according to journalist Robert Friedman,
who has braved death threats to write a book on the
subject: "Red Mafia" (Little, Brown). Ruthless and
cunning beyond other mobs, Russian organized crime
poses a serious danger not only to Russia, but also to
the United States and Israel. V-O-A's Ed Warner
reports on the book and discusses it with the author
and a top investigator of international crime.
TEXT: Robert Friedman was getting ready to fly to
Miami to interview a gangster who had just been
arrested for selling a Russian helicopter to Colombian
drug barons and preparing to sell them a submarine.
But then a call came from the F-B-I, warning the
author not to go and to stay out of sight for a while.
There was a 100-thousand-dollar contract on his life
for writing too much about the Russian mob.
Mr. Friedman took that advice for a week, but then was
back doggedly pursuing what he calls the world's most
dangerous gang, largely Jewish Russians, many who had
served time in the gulag and were bitterly hardened by
the experience.
Along with the far greater number of honest emigres,
they arrived in America, says Mr. Friedman, as if they
were entering Disneyland. One gang leader told him -
I was free, I could rob, I could steal, I could do
whatever I wanted.
Combing financial sophistication with bone-crunching
violence, the Russian mob, says Mr. Friedman, is now
the F-B-I's most formidable adversary:
// FRIEDMAN ACT //
The Russians are coming over here speaking three
or four or five-languages. Many of them,
especially the top bosses, have two or three
master degrees or P-H-D's in things like
computer science, mathematics, engineering.
They are able to corrupt doctors and lawyers in
their own community to work for them as
facilitators who help them launder money, but
also help them meet politicians and heads of the
community as they move up the social ladder and
then insinuate themselves that way into American
society.
// END ACT //
Mr. Friedman says the mobs operate in more than 50-
nations. They smuggle heroin from Southeast Asia and
sell weapons everywhere. They have plundered gold and
diamond mines in war-torn Sierra Leone. By
controlling most of Russia's banks, they have stolen
billions of dollars of western loans and aid. Sixty-
bankers who did not cooperate have been murdered.
Confounding law enforcement, the mafia spreads like an
e-mail virus, writes Mr. Friedman. Israel is a
special target because it welcomes all Jews from other
countries, though many of the gangsters are only
pretending to be Jewish.
Hezi Leder, Israeli police liaison in the United
States and Canada, told Mr. Friedman the mafia is a
threat to Israel's existence:
// FRIEDMAN ACT //
We know how to deal with the Arab armies. We
are stronger than they are. We can take care of
them. We know how to deal with terrorism. But
we do not know how to deal yet with this
problem. It is a problem from within. The
Russians have so much money that they could buy,
and they have tried in the past to buy companies
that the Israeli army uses. Gas and oil
companies that are part of Israel's strategic
military reserve.
// END ACT //
Mr. Leder says he has nightmares about that.
Nightmare has become a reality in Russia, says Jack
Blum, a Washington attorney who has directed U-S
Congressional investigations into international crime
and money laundering:
// BLUM ACT //
Russia has been looted - the movement of money
and investment funds out, the use of that money
to start up criminal enterprises elsewhere.
Russia has had about one-and-one-half-trillion-
dollars worth of capital disappear from the
country since the collapse of Communism. That
is a lot of money, and it has meant that the
standard of living and the quality of life in
Russia has gone down to levels that are really
unimaginable.
// END ACT //
Mr. Blum says U-S law enforcement has been slow to
react, partly because of the complexity of Mafia
crime: tortuous paper trails that often lead nowhere.
There has also been a failure to coordinate anti-mafia
efforts.
He says a certain naivete has added to the problem.
The mafia took advantage of the intense feelings of
the Cold War:
// BLUM ACT //
At that point, many of these people were posing
as refugees from Communism and religious
persecution, and they got a lot of sympathy from
people without the real understanding that they
were a bunch of gangsters who essentially had
been dumped on us. And there are plenty of
people who really should not be cheered on
simply because they are capitalists. We should
be able to discriminate between the simply
capitalist and the purely criminal.
// END ACT //
The mafia has been blamed for the murder of 13-Russian
journalists. A retired New York policeman told Mr.
Friedman - they will shoot you just to see if the gun
works. But since the publication of his book he has
not received any threats, suggesting the mob may not
want to arouse the full fury of U-S law enforcement.
Though all four of his grandfathers were Jews who fled
Russian persecution, Mr. Friedman has been accused of
anti-semitism by the mafia. But one mob boss,
clutching Mr. Friedman in a bear hug, was more candid.
Oh, we have the same blood - he said - But it went in
a different direction. I am a criminal, and you were
raised to believe in the law. (SIGNED)
NEB/EW/RAE
13-Jul-2000 13:09 PM EDT (13-Jul-2000 1709 UTC)
NNNN
Source: Voice of America
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