Russian mob a worldwide threat
Transkript
Russian mob a worldwide threat
The Russia Journal O U T LO O K SEPTEMBER 6 - 12, 1999 Page 17 Russian mob a worldwide threat By BARRY RENFREW The Associated Press P erhaps the most successful business in Russia today is organized crime, which is spreading across the world and threatens to do more damage than Soviet spies ever did during the Cold War. Reports of alleged money laundering that link Russian organized crime to billions of dollars channeled through the Bank of New York could show how Russia's crime syndicates are multinational operations. Although often dubbed the “Russian Mafia,” organized crime in Russia does not fit the usual picture of underworld mobsters. It is far bigger and more complicated: a three-way alliance of officials, businessmen and gangsters reaching into every level of society and the economy. Organized crime and corruption reach the highest levels of the Russian government, with some analysts saying it's no longer possible to distinguish between the two. “It has been known for a long time that the entire government system is corrupt,” said Konstantin Borovoi, an independent liberal member of parliament. “Corruption has drained the nation's resources beyond all imaginable limits.” At its core, corrupt members of Russia's political and business elite have plundered billions of dollars in government funds and assets with the aid of criminal gangs, authorities say. The money has been sent overseas to secret bank accounts or used to create hundreds of Russian companies and banks that combine legal and criminal activities. Through these companies and other rackets, the Russian Interior Ministry estimates that organized crime controls 40 percent of the economy, although other observers say the figure is higher. Corrupt officials and gangsters work with these criminalized businesses, helping them get insider deals, avoid taxes and even kill rivals. “The situation in our country differs from Western Europe and the United States. There, organized crime controls only ‘criminal’ activities, like prostitution, drugs and gambling. In our country, it controls all types of activity,” a Russian government study of organized crime concluded. Top political and business figures, including members of President Boris Yeltsin's entourage, have repeatedly been linked to corruption allegations in the Russian media. Very few have ever been charged or convicted. Russian law enforcement agencies are seen as hopelessly incompetent or corrupt, with many prosecutors and police officers taking kickbacks. Russia's top policeman, Interior Minister Vladimir Rushailo, admits his forces are not winning the struggle. “Organized crime is occurring on an extremely dangerous scale,” he said recently. About 5,700 criminal groups are thought to operate in Russia and many of them are expanding abroad, according to Russian and Western estimates. Russian criminal syndicates are burrowing into other countries, buying up legitimate businesses while also manag- AP file Key export for nation A law-enforcement official in a raid at a Moscow apartment as part of Russia’s attempt to fight organized crime. ing rackets like prostitution, gunrunning and sophisticated banking and computer fraud operations, Western officials say. Corruption has been a problem in Russia for centuries. It reached unprecedented levels following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, when some officials and their cronies divided state assets among themselves. While the government talked of creating wealth by selling off factories and other state property and sharing the money with the Russian people, insiders skimmed off some of the most valuable assets. As a few people became fabulously wealthy, many Russians slipped into abject poverty, souring their beliefs in democracy and the market system. At the same time, insiders were getting government licenses to buy oil, diamonds and other stateowned natural resources at artificially low prices and making millions by selling them overseas, investigators say. Government funds were diverted and disappeared without a trace or were used by private banks to purchase state assets in rigged privatization deals, they say. Borovoi gave an example of how government funds are looted: If a ministry wants funding, it must allocate up to 3 percent of the requested sum for bribes to lawmakers and officials. Lawmakers then approve the request, and the ministry must then pay up to half of the funding to the lawmakers and officials to get the money. “A corrupt official can't act alone. It's always a chain, and there is always a mob connection,” he said. Working alongside the corrupt Police hold 6 for smuggling uranium alloy Bliss ‘spy’ lawsuit wrapped up in U.S. The Associated Press S The Associated Press AP R ichard Bliss, briefly jailed in Russia on espionage charges, has reached a settlement with Qualcomm Inc., the wireless communications company that sent him there. Bliss filed a negligence lawsuit for an unspecified amount of damages against the company after his return to the United States last year. Although his attorney reportedly tried to settle the lawsuit for $1 million, the amount of the settlement was not disclosed. “The case is resolved,” the former engineer's attorney, Kim Roberts, said. Bliss, 30, went to the city of Rostov-on-Don, about 965 kilometers (600 miles) south of Moscow, to install a phone system for the San Diego-based Qualcomm in 1997. officials and businessmen are criminal gangs whose members fit the Hollywood image of ruthless killers in leather jackets and dark glasses. Their activities include drug, prostitution and protection rackets, with up to 80 percent of Russian businesses estimated to be paying for protection. Corrupt businessmen use the gangs for contract killings of rivals when there are disputes over turf and political clout. Police said there were 567 contract killings, mostly businessmen, during the first five months of 1999 — more than double the number during the same period last year. Arrests and convictions for contract killings are almost unknown. Convictions of any kind are rare against corrupt officials or organized crime members. Richard Bliss buys Sen. Richard Bryan (right) a beer earlier this year for helping him obtain his release from Russia. Russian authorities charged him with espionage because they said he took land surveys of restricted sites using illegal satellite receivers, and brought the equipment into the country without disclosing it to customs inspectors. Bliss has said he relied on Qualcomm to secure the correct permits for the Global Positioning Systems equipment, which the company told him to transport into the country in his suitcase. GPS equipment is commonly used to make land surveys for cellular phone systems, using satellites to pinpoint locations on the Earth's surface. But Russian authorities confiscated the equipment and jailed him as a suspected American spy. After pressure from Vice President Al Gore and the State Department, Russian officials released Bliss after 12 days in jail on the promise he would return to Russia for trial, if necessary. He faces 20 years in prison, if convicted. Bliss resigned from Qualcomm in November 1998 and sued, saying the company failed to file the proper paperwork for the satellite equipment and didn't work hard enough at helping him to get the charge dropped. ix people were arrested in Vladivostock for trying to sell highly radioactive uranium alloy stolen from military facilities, police said. The alloy, a mix of uranium-238 and nickel, was stolen from defense factories and facilities belonging to Russia's Pacific Fleet, police said. Among the arrested was a woman who worked at the Zvezda plant that repairs and dismantles nuclear submarines. The suspects tried to sell six kilograms (13.2 pounds) of the alloy to undercover police for $130,000 last week, according to news reports. The alloy emitted radiation 2,500 times higher than levels considered safe for humans, police said. Russia has been rife with reports of smuggling of nuclear and other toxic materials since the weakening of safeguards with the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. Russian officials insist that weapons-grade nuclear material has never been stolen or sold, but admit there have been scores of thefts of radioactive substances in the years following the Soviet collapse.