Russian Transnational Organised Crime: what is it?
We hear a lot about Russian organised crime and its links with the Russian state. But it operates not just at home: its reach is global.
Russian Transnational Organised Crime (TNOC) has many similarities with the late 20th century model of the US Sicilian mafia (Cosa Nostra) and the Italian mafias. The Russian mafia, like the Italian and to some extent the US groups, has combined street level visible crime such as human trafficking and drug smuggling with less visible white collar crimes such as counterfeiting of goods, particularly cigarettes, and tax evasion on an industrial scale. While the boundaries between these types of crime are fluid, the fact that both are operated by criminal groups presents enormous challenges for international law enforcement agencies. The Russian mafia put organised crime on a business footing in a few short years. It took the US Sicilians decades.
Russian Transnational Organised Crime (TNOC) has many similarities with the late 20th century model of the US Sicilian mafia (Cosa Nostra) and the Italian mafias. The Russian mafia, like the Italian and to some extent the US groups, has combined street level visible crime such as human trafficking and drug smuggling with less visible white collar crimes such as counterfeiting of goods, particularly cigarettes, and tax evasion on an industrial scale. While the boundaries between these types of crime are fluid, the fact that both are operated by criminal groups presents enormous challenges for international law enforcement agencies. The Russian mafia put organised crime on a business footing in a few short years. It took the US Sicilians decades.
What is more important for an understanding of the problem is the difference between these national organised crime structures. Unlike the USA in recent decades, although with some similarity to Italy even now, Russian organised crime enjoys significant levels of state protection — the leaked US diplomatic cables were certainly right about that. In Russia and other countries of the Former Soviet Union (FSU), it is not just a question of organised crime being big business. Big business is organised crime. And, given that no big business in Russia can operate without government approval (just ask the numerous exiles who left Russia in 2003 after the arrest of Mikhail Khodorkovsky) it follows that the state and organised crime are inextricably linked.
Where does it operate, and what does it do?
Organised crime is active just about everywhere, not only in former Soviet republics but in the rest of Europe, North America, the Middle East and, less publicised, in Africa, the Indian Ocean and South America. It is also increasingly developing links with China. Its two areas of operation, street level crime and white collar crime, are not always seen together, but any effective countermeasure strategy needs to take into account the fact that the presence of one level often means the presence of the other. Look for one thing, and you may well find something else as well.
In the United Kingdom and Western Europe in general, for example, the different levels of activity occur simultaneously. Street level crimes such as human trafficking (prostitution) and cigarette smuggling take place alongside high level money laundering, through corporate bank accounts, of the proceeds of crimes committed elsewhere. In Germany, Russian involvement in prostitution goes together with car theft; the stolen vehicles are then transported to countries outside the EU, often in concert with groups from EU states such as Bulgaria. In Spain and Portugal, street level robbery and credit card theft is seen alongside high level money laundering through property purchases, the operation of bars and night clubs and cocaine trafficking. What these very different crimes and criminals have in common is that the people behind them will usually socialise together, even if they don’t actually work together.
This is also partly true of the links between street level and high level crime. In the UK, say, street level cigarette smuggling is known to be linked at a social level with human trafficking. It is also linked, in a way that cash crimes such as human trafficking are not, with larger scale cigarette smuggling, which often involves complex bank transactions and collusion with corrupt companies and the staff of major producers. In other words, Russian organised crime operates just about everywhere, and at several levels. That’s what makes it different..
