Putin's Organised Crime Goldmine in Ukraine

On the 24th of February 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin shocked the world with a military offensive against the neighbouring country of Ukraine that has abruptly transformed the world elevating fear and distress at the potential of a world conflict. This eventually sent hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian citizens fleeing to the surrounding countries of Poland, Romania, et cetera.

There are numerous geo strategic and geo political reasons why Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has occurred, however, sitting quietly lurking in the shadows of war are Russian organised crime (ROC) gangs positioning to move into new turf, make new alliances, and open up new crime and trafficking routes. Like rats in the night will flood in filling the safety and security void left by military forces and immediately commencing casting their broad web of criminality in the frail, unstable and disabled environment.

When the old USSR collapsed and a free-market economy emerged, organized criminal groups began to take over Russia's economy, with many ex-KGB (Committee for State Security) agents and veterans of the Afghan war sought out existing crime bosses to offer their skills and services. Gangster summit meetings had taken place in hotels and restaurants shortly before the Soviet's dissolution, so that top organised crime figures could agree on who would rule what and set plans on how to take over the post-Communist states.

Bratva. Red Mafia. Vory v zakone, are just some of the many ROC names possessing a criminal resume that includes just about every illegal activity in existence. ROC is composed of several transnational criminal organizations operating worldwide. Contrary to popular belief, the Red Mafia is not one cohesive organization, but rather an umbrella term for a loose network of autonomous criminal groups. What these disparate groups share, besides their Soviet roots, is a passion for any and every remotely profitable criminal activity. ROC is, if nothing else, resourceful, having a hand in everything from human trafficking to fraud. Unlike other international crime groups—such as La Cosa Nostra (which specializes in protection extortion) or the Mexican cartels (drug trafficking)—ROC is involved in almost every criminal activity and is rather unique in that it does not possess a clearly defined, top-down hierarchy or niche capability.

With the state of Ukraine in chaos, I recall my introduction into ROC in 1998. I was based in Los Angeles and Californian law enforcement authorities were commencing a serious look into the then burgeoning crime group. It was less than a year earlier in his February 1997 state of the nation address, then President Boris Yeltsin admitted that the "criminal world has openly challenged the state and launched into an open competition with it," warning that "there is corruption at every level of power."

In our early 1998 meetings we were warned that Russian organized crime would undermine Russian support for economic liberalization and political reform by co-opting and corrupting institutions within government and the commercial sector. The breadth and depth of Russian organized crime was already running so wide and deep, that Russia was on the verge of becoming a criminal syndicalist state, dominated by a lethal mix of gangsters, corrupt officials, and dubious businessmen. 25 years later, this is the case and those 1997 warnings by Yeltsin were heard in silence!

It's fair to say that Russia is now a "mafia state" that works closely with organized crime networks, is highly criminalised, and the interpenetration of the criminal ‘underworld’ and the political ‘upperworld’ has led the regime to use criminals from time to time as instruments of its rule. Even before Vladimir Putin was made acting president in 1999 and confirmed as Yeltsin’s successor in 2000, the then Russian gang wars were declining. Many criminals at the time feared that Putin was serious in his tough law-and-order rhetoric, but it soon became clear that he was simply offering (imposing) a new social contract with the underworld. Word went out that gangsters could continue to be gangsters without fearing the kind of systematic crack-down they had feared – but only so long as they understood that the state was the biggest gang in town and they did nothing to directly challenge it. The underworld complied. Indiscriminate street violence was replaced by targeted assassinations; tattoos were out, and Italian suits were in; the new generation gangster-businessmen had successfully domesticated the old-school criminals.

Putin’s rise to Presidency has seen Russia become well entrenched in a national mobilisation where he uses organised crime as a tactic and instrument of statecraft abroad. Today, Russian criminals operate less on the street and more in the shadows: as allies, facilitators and suppliers for local European gangs and continent-wide criminal networks.

Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, we have been seeing a police, medical, and firefighting force in shambles. This ultimately leads to a steady increase in criminal schemes on the ground. Among these include narcotic sales, offering “protection” to residences and businesses for a fee, and stealing property using fake documents that makes it appear the owner signed away the rights. Moreover, during the previous annexation of Crimea, Putin’s Kremlin established their new Russian subordinates in the region, criminal groups based in Moscow were also sending “ambassadors” to establish connections with the local clans. An incursion of $4.5 billion in federal development funds this year may be of interest to the Russian organized criminals for embezzlement and other fraudulent crimes.

So, it’s therefore obvious that Putin’s incursion into Ukraine is to secure the most infamous and well known form of organized crime the Ukrainian Odessa mafia, aptly named after the Black Sea port city of Odessa which is a key strategic goal of Putin to capture. Odessa is an infamous smugglers' haven and a key hub in post-Soviet global trafficking networks, not the least of which is 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, sometimes in cooperation with Russian mafia gangs. With its lengthy borders, not only with Russia but also with various EU countries; Hungary, Slovakia, Poland and Romania. Hundreds of kilometres of border with the EU, the port (Odessa) is where import taxes can be easily avoided and provides a great opportunity to smugglers seeking to bring goods into the EU without the checks and taxation that accompanies legitimate trade.

Make no mistake, the current crisis in Russia and Ukraine creates the perfect storm of opportunity for ROC to take advantage in strengthening their ties, capacity and cap[ability to further grow as an extreme player in the global organised crime genre. Furthermore, their ability to expand and consolidate their influence and imposition on legitimate global business as well as spread its tentacles further in the to universal underworld of crime should not be underestimated, all whilst the rest of the world is laser focussed on the ‘battle of war”.