RUSSIAN ORGANIZED CRIME (ROC)

Russian Mafia

My name is Anton. I moved to Anchorage from Magadan in 1993. I would like to tell you about organized crime in Russia and America, or what is known as the Russian Mafia.

The Russian Mafia is all over the United States, but Brighten Beach, Brooklyn, in New York City is the place where you can definitely find the Russian Mafia. There is a part of town which is called "Little Odessa" which has many Russian stores, casinos, restaurants and hotels. In America the Russian Mafia is involved in smuggling drugs, guns and nuclear materials. They also control prostitution. Another way of making money for Russian Mafia is to hustle rich Russian sport stars. Some Russian hockey players have been threatened by the Russian Mafia. In some cases Mafia would kidnap athletes' parents who live in Russia and hold them for ransom or as a way to blackmail the athletes.

In Russia the Mafia's influence is becoming huge. They manipulate the economy of Russia by controlling banks, industry and commerce. They also have infiltrated the world of politics through bribery and by placing their members in public office. Russian Mafia provides security for business. If business has a problem with labor or another business, the business owner contacts a Mafia representative who takes care of the problem and problem is quickly, quietly and efficiently resolved. Also the Mafia signs contracts on those people who don't want to be part of illegal scams. The Russian government is trying to fight against the Russian Mafia, but it's extremely difficult because of the mafia's strong influence in the government. Last year in Russia around 40,000 people were murdered and 70,000 disappeared-probably never to be heard again. The murder rate in Russia is three times higher than in New York City. The Russian Mafia is considered one of the cruelest organized crime families.

Vagit Alekperov - Oil Magnate
Vagit Alekperov, 52, was born in 1950 in Baku, Azerbaijan, one of the earliest centers of the international petroleum industry. His father worked in the oil fields all his life and inspired Alekperov to follow in his footsteps. He was 18 when he landed his first job in the industry. Alekperov attended Azerbaijan Institute of Oil and Chemistry, then trained as an engineer to work in the nearby Caspian Sea oil fields. In 1979, he was sent to western Siberia, where he would later become general director of local oil and gas producer Kogalymneftgaz, a position he held until 1990. By 1991, Alekperov had established himself as an industry expert, winning an appointment as first deputy minister of fuel and energy, then as acting minister. He used his newly attained power to lobby for the consolidation of Russia's three oil producers into one company -- then assumed presidency of the new company. His nicknames, "the General," "Alek the First" and "the Don," are indicative of his indisputable authority at LUKoil, whose name came from the first letters of the three companies that consolidated-- Langepas, Urai and Kogalym. Today LUKoil is among the world's most powerful oil companies, with reserves second only to Exxon. Like many other oligarchs, Alekperov has moved into banking and media.

Estimated Worth:
$1.3 billion

Current Position:
Chairman, LUKoil

Major Holdings:
LUKoil

Other Interests:
Imperial Bank; in the television industry, TV-31, REN-TV, and TCN; the newsdaily Izvestia; Russian Oil magazine

Political Connections:
While acting minister of fuel and energy, Alexperov conceived of, created and secured the presidency of LUKoil.

New Plays:
In 2003, LUKoil negotiated new exploration contracts in western Iran, Egypt's Gulf of Suez, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan. In 2002, LUKoil signed a six-year contract with Ecopetrol (Empresa Colombiana de Petroleos), the Colombian state oil company, to explore and produce in the Llanos petroleum basin. LUKoil also owns its own refineries and filling stations, including 1,300 in the United States, which it acquired after its purchase of Getty Oil in 2000. LUKoil was the first Russian company to acquire a publicly traded U.S. corporation.

Notoriety:
In 1997, the Russian newsdaily Izvestia detailed allegations linking top LUKoil officials to organized crime. In a blow against press freedom, LUKoil, a major shareholder in the newspaper, promptly took over a majority on the newspaper's board and fired its top editors.

Giuliani is associated with criminals......

FBI Tracked Alleged Russian Mob Ties of Giuliani Campaign Supporter

By Knut Royce, The Center for Public Integrity

WASHINGTON, December 14, 1999 — The Center for Public Integrity is investigating how billions of dollars of allegedly corrupted money from the former Soviet Union have found a haven in the United States, despite strict anti-laundering laws. Last month, the Center reported how a small San Francisco bank became a conduit for questionable funds as it, like many other banks around the country, aggressively pursued the cash from the former Soviet Bloc.

Today the Center reports on how political campaigns, also aggressively chasing after cash, end up with equally questionable contributions as suspected Russian organized crime figures seek to move into the U.S. political mainstream In future articles, the Center will show how the failure to sift the good money from bad is being replayed all over America.

A prominent commodities trader who acknowledges a business history with a reputed Soviet Bloc crime figure and a notorious arms dealer has been one of (then) New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani's top campaign supporters. Giuliani is expected to be the Republican candidate next year for a U.S. Senate seat from New York.

Commodities trader Semyon (Sam) Kislin and his family also lavished thousands of dollars in contributions to Democratic Sen. Charles Schumer, to the Clinton-Gore re-election campaign, to former Republican Sen. Alfonse D'Amato and to a number of state and city politicians. Kislin sits on the New York City Economic Development Board.

Denies Laundering Funds. Kislin denied that his firm had ever laundered funds. "Never, never," he said. New York FBI spokesman Joseph Valiquette, told that the Center was preparing an article about Kislin based in part on FBI documents, declined to comment. What the FBI and other law enforcement organizations knew or suspected was never shared with the public.

To his neighbors and friends, the 64-year-old Kislin, who immigrated from Odessa, Ukraine, in 1974, is an enormously successful businessman who generously shares his wealth with charitable causes. And to Giuliani, Kislin is one of his staunchest supporters. Kislin and his wife, Ludmila, gave Giuliani a total of $14,250 in direct contributions between 1994 and 1997. In addition, when Giuliani's campaign chest approached the maximum he could spend for re-election in 1997, $9.7 million, Kislin was one of several top backers of the mayor who supported the Liberal Party, which had endorsed the mayor and helped finance his campaign, according to The Village Voice. One of Kislin's companies gave $30,000 to the Liberals.

Kislin also kicked in $7,700 to Jules Polenetsky, who was running with Giuliani for the city's office of public advocate and could share political advertisement costs with the mayor. Giuliani's campaign manager had asked the mayor's major contributors to help finance Polenetsky's campaign.

Giuliani Fund-Raiser. In 1996, Kislin hosted a fund-raiser for Giuliani, a former hard-charging federal prosecutor, at the Lido Restaurant in Brooklyn. And last May 25, Kislin also was a co-chair for a Giuliani fund-raiser at the Sheraton New York Hotel and Towers. The bash raised $2.1 million for his probable run for the Senate next year.

"I did a lot of fund raising for Giuliani," Kislin acknowledged. "He's a good man, doing a good job for the city of New York." Bruce Teitelbaum, the spokesman for Giuliani's Senate campaign exploratory committee, refused through an aide to comment on Semyon Kislin's support of Giuliani. Teitelbaum refused to return calls himself. The mayor's press secretary, Sunny Mindel, said "I don't know anything about the mayor's contributors," and referred the question to Teitelbaum. The campaign did return a $2,000 check last August that it had received at the Sheraton Hotel fund-raiser from Philip Castellano, son of the late racketeer Paul Castellano, even though the younger Castellano has never been accused of a crime. Arik Kislin, Semyon's nephew, contributed $1,000 to the mayor in 1995.

--SNIP--

Here is a partial list of prominent politicians who have received campaign donations from Kislin and other people mentioned in police reports. Records were checked from 1994 to the most recent available.

LONG READ/GO HERE FOR LIST:

http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:hEltFDTB_aYJ:www.publicintegrity.org/report.aspx%3Faid%3D323

Another excerpt from that link:

Emphasis: >>>One of the Russian companies allegedly shipping money to be laundered by three "affiliated" companies in the United States was Magic Ltd.<<<

Elaborate Scam

According to Russian authorities, the Chernoys in the early 1990s defrauded the Russian Central Bank of more than $100 million through an elaborate scam involving dozens of fictitious companies. The brothers then used the funds as seed money as they and a London-based holding company, Trans World Group, through a maze of offshore companies and alliances, rapidly gained control of Russia's aluminum industry and acquired a large stake in the processing and distribution of other metals and petroleum products.

Kislin said Mikhail Chernoy tried to enlist him as "cover" or "legitimate front" in the plan to grab control of the aluminum industry, but that he declined. "I said aluminum is not for me," Kislin said. "I cannot do with aluminum because aluminum is a very dangerous business (in Russia)." Indeed, what followed has been dubbed "The Aluminum Wars" by the Russian press, as many businessmen, most of whom opposed the Chernoy takeover, were killed.

Kislin said that the brothers obtained licenses "to buy the aluminum for $10 and sell it for $1,500" by bribing top Russian officials. "The corruption is unbelievable," he said.

And, he said, he severed his business relation with Mikhail.

In the mid-1990s, Russian investigators asked U.S. law enforcement for assistance in tracking allegedly embezzled funds that had been laundered in the United States around 1993. One of the Russian companies allegedly shipping money to be laundered by three "affiliated" companies in the United States was Magic Ltd., according to a federal law enforcement official who did not want to be further identified. He said that Trans Commodities was one of those "affiliated" companies identified by the Russian authorities.

It is unclear whether U.S. investigators provided the Russians with significant information.

But Kislin said that he and his company were cleared of any suspicion in that investigation and that he received a letter from the U.S. Attorney's Office in Los Angeles in 1996 notifying him that he no longer was a target. He provided the Center with a copy of the letter, which says, in part, that the prosecutors had "declined to pursue a civil penalty action against Trans Commodities or Sam Kislin."

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