Ukrainian mafia

Ukrainian Mafia
Founding location Ukraine
Territory Active in many parts of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, United States (mostly Brighton Beach), Israel and Western Europe.
Ethnicity Predominantly Ukrainian Jews and Ukrainians
Criminal activities Racketeering, drug trafficking, entryism, extortion, loan sharking, murder, human trafficking, construction management, money laundering, robbery, bootlegging, arms trafficking, gambling, bribery, fencing, prostitution, theft, skimming, pornography and fraud
Allies American, Russian mafia, Armenian Power, Chinese, 'Ndrangheta, Camorra, Serbian mafia, Israeli mafia

Ukrainian mafia is a type of criminal organization with origins in Ukraine. Such organizations are regarded as one of the most influential types of organized crime coming out of the former USSR next to the established Russian mafia, Georgian mafia, Chechen mafia, Armenian mafia and Azerbaijani mafia. Ukrainian criminal organizations are involved in a vast amount of illegitimate enterprises. Although Ukrainian criminal organizations are for the most part independently operating enterprises they are most closely connected with Russian mafia organizations, as is the case with Semyon Mogilevich.[1]

History

Following the collapse of the former Soviet Union, there were large stockpiles of arms left in Ukraine. The first prominence of the Ukrainian mafia came through their participation in the illicit international trafficking in these arms. Between 1992 and 1998, some $32 billion in military material disappeared from military depots in Ukraine and ended up primarily in West Africa and Central Asia. Allegedly, Ukrainian criminal organizations were also behind trafficking weapons to war-torn places such as Afghanistan at the time.[2]

From trafficking in arms, Ukrainian crime syndicates entered into the international trade in illegal drugs, becoming a major player in the narcotics traffic from Central Asia to Central Europe. The reach of Ukrainian gangs has become extended, having been reported from Central European countries such as the Czech Republic and Hungary, where they're involved in prostitution, to North American countries and Israel, where they founded a significant power base following the mass immigration of Ukrainian Jews which among the many law-abiding people had also criminal elements profiting from the open borders.[3]

Odessa Mafia

The most infamous form of Ukrainian organized crime, and the one which became the most famous, is the so-called Odessa Mafia named after the Black Sea port city of Odessa. Odessa is an infamous smugglers’ haven and a key hub in post-Soviet global trafficking networks, not least moving Europe-bound Afghan heroin arriving from the Caucasus. Even in Ukraine’s west, gangs are often closely involved in the lucrative trafficking of heroin, people, and counterfeit cigarettes into Europe, often in cooperation with Russian mafia gangs.[4]

Odessa traditionally had an ancient culture of banditry, dating back to the large and impoverished Jewish population. Famous writers such as Isaac Babel often wrote about the infamous exploits of Jewish gangsters, thieves and crime lords in the port city.[5] 20th century thuggery made way for sophisticated organized crime when local crime lords began to use the city's sprawling port to their advantage. The at first locally active Odessa Mafia, sometimes also called the Malina, became well known when it branched out to New York City at first and later on Israel, when both countries gave the opportunity to Soviet Jews to immigrate. Many people from Odessa's Jewish population migrated abroad, among them a large part of the city's most infamous career criminals. Although the gang was born in the city of Odessa, it has since established most of its headquarters in cities such as New York City, Tel Aviv, Antwerp and Budapest with brigades composed of former Odessan or Odessa-connected criminals active in a large amount of other cities.[6]

In the United States the Odessa mafia is based in the Brighton Beach district of Brooklyn, New York. It is regarded as the most powerful post-Soviet criminal organization in the USA and has since expanded its operations to Los Angeles, where it has established connections with locally based Armenian and Israeli crime figures, and the San Francisco Bay. It's known for being a very secretive organization, being involved in protection rackets, loan-sharking, murder-for-hire, as well as the infamous fuel tax fraud rackets and narcotics trafficking.[7] Nonetheless a large amount of Odessa Mafia-connected gangsters have become part of the US' criminal folklore, examples being Marat Balagula, Evsei Agron and Boris Nayfeld. Feuds, often resulting in extreme violence, happened in the 1980s and 1990s between Odessa gangsters such as the internal war between Balagula and Agron at first, and later on between the Nayfeld brothers and Monya Elson.[8]

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Panorama: The Billion Dollar Don". BBC. Retrieved 23 January 2015.
  2. ↑ "Organized Crime". Books.google.be. Retrieved 17 January 2015.
  3. ↑ "Organized Crime in Ukraine: Challenge and Response" (PDF). Ncjrs.gov. Retrieved 17 January 2015.
  4. ↑ "Ukraine's Mob War". Foreign Policy. Retrieved 17 January 2015.
  5. ↑ "Gangsters, beggars, prostitutes and other inhabitants of Jewish Odessa.". Myjewishlearning.com. Retrieved 17 January 2015.
  6. ↑ "In the Golden Land". Retrieved 17 January 2015 – via Google Books.
  7. ↑ "Organized Crime". Retrieved 17 January 2015 – via Google Books.
  8. ↑ "2 DANCE BULLET BALLET". NY Daily News. Retrieved 17 January 2015.
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