Gangsters from the former Soviet Union have established a strong and abiding presence in the New York/New Jersey/Pennsylvania region, engaging in a wide array of crimes that range from sophisticated financial frauds to narcotics trafficking to murder.
Evidence also shows that members of disparate Russian-emigre crime groups here have the potential to develop into one of the most formidable organized crime challenges to law enforcement since the advent of La Cosa Nostra.
These are among the key findings of the Tri-State JointSoviet-Emigre Organized Crime Project, a cooperative research andinvestigative effort launched four years ago by four agencies in New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania - the New York Organized Crime Task Force, the New York State Commission of Investigation,the New Jersey State Commission of Investigation and the Pennsylvania Crime Commission.
Investigative agents and staff from these agencies conducted the project in conjunction with criminal justice experts from Rutgers University. The Project's report presents the first comprehensive publicassessment of the threat posed to this region by criminal elements emanating from within the former Soviet Union.
The report catalogues the history and growth of Russian-emigre crime networks, from their core base in the Brighton Beachsection of Brooklyn to their current reach well beyond the New York metropolitan area into the counties of central New Jersey and the suburbs of Philadelphia.
One of the most troubling aspects is evidence of links between individuals here and criminal elements in the former Soviet Union, a phenomenon that lends a disturbing and complex international dimension to this emerging domestic law enforcement problem.The range of criminal and illicit activities linked to these groups is impressive.
The Project report details Russian-emigre involvement in a variety of highly sophisticated frauds and confidence schemes, financial crimes, including money laundering, counterfeiting and securities fraud, narcotics trafficking and an assortment of vice crimes.Russian-emigre criminals are no strangers to violence either.
THE NATURE OF RUSSIAN-EMIGRE CRIME
Crimes of Deception
Motor Fuel Tax Fraud
Insurance and Entitlement Fraud
Confidence Schemes
Counterfeiting
Violent Crimes
Homicide/Attempted Homicide
Extortion and Kidnapping
Drug Trafficking
Money Laundering
Vice Crimes (Regpay, a Florida credit card processing company operated by Byelorussians, was nailed for processing online child porn payments; Minx, Belarus, once a constituent republic of the Soviet Union (independent since 1991) is the country of origin of many of these predators now thieving on US soil.
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SOURCE http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:Ahm0dOHcKHEJ:www.state.nj.us/sci/pdf/russian.pdf
A young Russian con man was sentenced to at least 3½ years in prison yesterday for a daring identity-theft scam that rooked wealthy Americans out of $1.5 million, and nearly cost a major backer of President Bush $7 million. Operating online from Moscow, Igor Klopov, 24, found many of his targets through the Forbes 400 list. He would target those from states like Texas and California, where property-deed information is available through the Internet.
He would then use that and other online or forged information to impersonate his marks, and plunder their accounts. His scams included assembling a complete identity dossier, with driver's licenses, birth certificates, utility bills, blank checks and brokerage statements. Klopov was foiled by Manhattan prosecutors as he tried to score his biggest payday - $7 million - from of the home-equity credit account of Texas billionaire Charles Wyly Jr., who donated $2 million to Bush in 2000.
Posing as Wyly, Klopov called the billionaire's bank and asked that a new home-equity line checkbook be sent to the home of an accomplice, who then tried to write a $7 million check to a Westchester gold dealer. Klopov was busted in May after coming to New York to claim the gold. "I can assure you I will change my personality," Klopov told Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Gregory Carro, who answered, "I hope you're sincere about that."
http://www.nypost.com/seven/11202008/news/worldnews/russian_jailed_in_id_theft_scam_vs__rich_139658.htm