All language subtitles for Lords.of.the.Mafia.with.Robert.Stack.S01E01.Russian.Mafiya.1080p.AMZN.WEB-DL.DD+2.0.H.264-playWEB_track3_[eng]

Is savage methods
of persuasion

often include torture
and brutality?

Vyacheslav Ivankov

is one of the most feared
and respected criminals

to emerge from the
former Soviet Union.

There are those who save
Ivankov's reputation

is more fiction than fact.

What is clear?

Vyacheslav Ivankov
of Russia came

to the United States
with an agenda.

During the days of
communist Russia,

the government did not
officially acknowledge
the existence

of organized crime.

Racketeering was thought to
be an American occurrence,

giving Soviets a sense of pride.

But towards the
end of Perestroika,

a strange new phenomenon
began to surface.

Restaurants were blown up,

people were gunned
down in the streets.

Rumors of a Russian mafia

began to circulate
throughout the Soviet Union

and the world.

In 1996, the US government
scored a major victory

with a conviction of
alleged Russian crime boss,

Vyacheslav Ivankov.

Vyacheslav Ivankov was born

in the early 1940s in the
Soviet Republic of Georgia.

As a child growing up in Moscow,

he resisted the
rhetoric of communism

and the reputed
greatness of Stalin.

Many of Ivankov's
family members,

including his grandfather,

had suffered immensely
under the ruthless dictator.

Maturing into adulthood,

Ivankov continued on
the path of resistance,

never accepting the
legitimacy of communism.

He excelled in sports

and had a very successful
amateur wrestling career.

Eventually, he
was crown champion

and attained a celebrity type
status among many Russians.

He did not, for example,

come up as part of some
kind of street gang

or adolescent gang or whatever.

He was from all
outward appearances

of fairly typical
normal person who

after what he claims
was getting involved

in defending a woman's virtue,

got arrested and he
was sent to jail.

And it was then that he
began to make contacts

with fellow inmates in the jail,

and this began to develop his
sense of the possibilities

in criminal activity.

James
Finckenauer is a professor

of criminal justice at Rutgers
University in New Jersey.

He has authored six
books most recently,

"The Russian Mafia in America,"

which takes an in-depth
look at Soviet emigre

in the United States and their
roots in the former USSR.

Vyacheslav Ivankov's
nickname is Yaponchik.

Yaponchik in Russian
means little Japanese.

As I understand it,

the attachment of
this nickname to him

came about because his face

has a certain Asian cast to it.

Upon his
release from prison,

Ivankov began his life of crime

capitalizing upon
the Soviet Union's

thriving black market economy.

In the 1970s, a
black market emerged,

and this was partly
because the money supply

was increasingly getting
out of the control

of the authorities in Moscow.

They were providing
too much money,

and this money fueled a
demand within the public

for more consumer goods,

demands which
couldn't be satisfied

by the increasingly inefficient
Soviet production system.

Yeah,
Yaponchik began to rise

in the Soviet criminal world

and was reportedly involved
in schemes of extortion,

racketeering, and
drug trafficking.

He eventually formed a gang in
Moscow called Solntsevskaya.

One of their scams
was impersonating
Soviet police officers

and burglarizing the
homes of wealthy Russians.

People would've reported
burglaries or whatever

they were going to
investigate these burglaries,

and then they would steal
stuff out of the home.

They saw this, you know,

this role playing
as police officers,

as being an avenue to get
into commit criminal activity.

He was seen by his fellow
professional criminals

as a tough guy, as a smart guy,

as the kind of guy, a
standup guy, if you will,

the kind of guy that if you
are performing criminal groups,

this is the kind
of guy you want,

kind of guy who
doesn't back down,

kind of guy who can
impose his will on others,

both physically and mentally.

And he's this kind of guy.

In 1981,
Ivankov was arrested

and convicted for
robbery, drug trafficking,

possession of
firearms and forgery.

He was sentenced
to serve 14 years

in one of the Soviet union's
toughest Siberian prisons.

While imprisoned,

Ivankov's statue and
reputation continued to grow.

He was a hardened criminal
who stood up to communists

and fought to reform the
Soviet prison system.

Admired by other prison inmates,

Yaponchik was elected to
the status of vor v zakone

or thief in law,

a position held by an elite
few professional criminals

who are powerful, charismatic,
persuasive leaders.

These are
professional criminals

who reject any
relationship or involvement

with what they consider
to be the establishment.

They refuse to cooperate with
the authorities in any way.

They refuse to work,

they refuse to
participate in education.

They just simply reject
all formal status quo,

you know, initiatives,

and they adopt a life of crime.

Reject their family, family
ties, all those kinds of things.

Jim Moody is a
former deputy assistant director

of the FBI Criminal
Investigative Division.

He spent nearly 30 years
fighting organized crime

and is believed to be
the first FBI agent

to officially visit
the Soviet Union.

Yaponchik was a thief in law.

He went through the
coronation ceremony.

He had been serving
a prison sentence

and Soviet prison for torturing

and extorting individuals
out of their money.

So he is a great extortionist
and was in Russia,

and that's what we
convicted for last time.

Like
his predecessors,

Ivankov conducted
business from prison.

Reportedly, he fought for a
more aggressive participation

in drug trafficking

and advocated a war
against the Chechens

and other gangs in order to
break their drug monopoly.

While Yaponchik was
serving his time in prison,

the Soviet Union was undergoing
massive progressive reforms

by his newly elected
leader Mikhail Gorbachev.

Gorbachev's
reforms in the 1980s

were an absolute prescription

of how to make an
organized crime problem.

I mean, the first thing he did
the month he came into office

was institute prohibition,

and that allowed organized
criminals to acquire 10%

of the national
revenues each year.

There was an enormous amount
of capital flight from Russia

during these years,

including money which belonged
to the Communist Party,

which disappeared into
foreign bank accounts.

In 1991, Ivankov was
released from prison.

In that same year,

the curtain finally dropped
on the Soviet Union,

which signified
the end of an era.

The Federal Bureau of
Investigation was informed

by the Russian Ministry
of Internal Affairs

that Ivankov was
sent by other vory

or thieves to the United States.

His mission to take control

and organize Russian criminal
activities in America.

But in order to better
understand Ivankov

he must first
understand the origins

of Russian organized crime.

An old Russian mafia
leader once said,

the Soviet communists
were able to get rid

of the bourgeoisie
and the intelligentsia

that they could never,
ever completely crack us.

We had our own coves

in our individual way
of collective living.

We were for Russia
and not for communism.

By the turn of the 20th century,

Russia's borders extended
from Afghanistan to China

with extensive territory
along the Pacific coast.

In 1894, Nicholas II,

Russia's last czar
ascended to the throne.

There has always
been a great divide

between the haves and
the have nots in Russia.

After the Russell Japanese War,

Nicholas's second was
forced to make concessions

to reformers,
including the creation

of an elected legislature
called the Duma.

With the industrialization
of many Western cities,

Russian workers
began to organize

in local political
organizations,

or Soviets united under the
Social Democratic Party.

In 1912, the social
Democratic party

divided into two
separate parties.

The Radical Bolsheviks
led by Vladimir Lenin

and the more
moderate Mensheviks.

Russian organized
crime was always

from the beginning
of this century,

very closely tied
with the government.

Veteran
foreign correspondence,

Stephen Handelman spent
six years in Moscow

as a bureau chief
of the Toronto Star.

He is the author of
"Comrade Criminal,"

which takes a
comprehensive look into

post-Soviet organized crime.

The early Menshevik
conspirators,

the early Marxists saw Russian
crime groups, Russian gangs

as a model, in effect,

for many of their
proletarian organizations.

One of the reasons
was because of

their very close hierarchical
paramilitary structure.

They were almost
impenetrable to outsiders.

They were very small
groups, small cells

who were very effective
in what they did.

We know that both Lenin
and Stalin saw value

in using the early crime
groups, early criminal societies

as a way of furthering
their own cause.

The Russian
Revolution came about

for one important reason,

and that was the impact
of the First World War,

which led to enormous
human and physical losses,

which disorganized
the political system

and which weakened the czar.

Although
the Bolsheviks

had great support in
Moscow and St. Petersburg,

there were by no means in
control of the country,

which collapsed into Civil War.

Many of the early
Russian crime groups

began fighting against
the early Bolsheviks,

and they began operating in
all parts of the country,

harassing communist officials.

After the
death of Lenin in 1924,

Joseph Stalin became dictator
of the newly formed union

of Soviet Socialist
Republics or USSR.

A decade and a half later,

Vyacheslav Ivankov was born
under Stalin's ironclad rule.

Young Ivankov would
suffer great family losses

due to the strict
totalitarian policies

of Eastern Europe's
most feared rule.

Today you find some of the
older veterans gangster leaders

calling themselves
the early dissidents.

They were the real dissidents
in the Soviet state

because they actually felt

that the communist system
was anti-Russian, anti-God,

anti, just about everything
they believed in.

They saw themselves

as the real carriers of
the Russian tradition.

They themselves called
the vorovskoi mir,

which was the thieves world,

and it was a world
of very small,

tightly organized
criminal groups,

which were brought together by

a very strict and
hierarchical code.

The leaders of these groups
who were called thieves in law,

which meant really thieves
within their own law

they were called vory.

The thieves world has a
deeply rooted history in Russia,

which some say dates
back to the 18th century.

It is a legacy of
political resistance

and lawlessness that
can also be linked to

Vyacheslav Ivankov.

The vory or thief is bound
by a strict code of honor,

the vor v zakone
or thieves code.

He must forsake his family,
refrain from marrying

or having a family of his own.

This does not preclude
him from having a lover.

He must never work.

He must survive by
criminal activities alone,

help other thieves, and recruit

and train young
beginners in the trade.

Limit his drinking and
not amass gambling debts

that he cannot cover.

The thief can have nothing
to do with the authorities

or serve in the military.

He must keep his promises
made to other thieves

and abide by punishment
determined by other
thieves in law.

The thieves in law
survive the gulag

of the soundless labor camps

and maintain the traditions
of future thieves in law.

Within one century, Russia had
experienced two revolutions,

the latter having a
transnational crime effect,

which quickly spread
across the globe.

In America,

Russian organized crime
activities have been reported

in more than 20 states

with staggering economic
criminal activities in New York,

Los Angeles, San
Francisco, and Miami.

In 1991, Ivankov was released
from a Siberian prison

after serving only 10 years

of his original
14 year sentence.

Like so many prominent Russian
mobsters in the late 1980s,

he had high level
political connections.

Again, the claim,

the basis of his ostensibly
early release from prison

is that he,

through some others,
bribed the judge

to order his release,

and he consequently
did get his release.

He was well connected
at high levels.

For example, one of his
contacts was with a person

by the name of Yuri Churbanov.

Yuri Churbanov was
Brezhnev's son-in-law.

Churbanov himself
ultimately went to prison

for being involved in
various kinds of frauds

and schemes in Uzbekistan.

But it shows you that
Ivankov is not a nobody,

that Ivankov, because
nobody's were associated

with people like the son-in-law

of the head of the Soviet Union.

It has been reported

that soon after Ivankov
is released from prison,

a meeting of major
significance took place

in a region called
outside of Moscow

in December of 1991.

In the last month of 1991,

the same month that

the hammer and sickle came
down over the Kremlin,

a large group of
Soviet mafia leaders,

Russian mafia leaders, met
in a dacha outside Moscow.

They had many councils

and many meetings in the past.

This was one of their
ways of arranging

the government, so to speak,

or the governing bodies of
crime in the old Soviet Union.

And on their agenda,

and the top of the
agenda was what to do

as the system was
imploding around.

These powerful
Russian mobsters gathered

to plan the criminal
migration into the US.

The individual allegedly chosen

to organize a Russian's
criminal enterprises

in the United States
with Russian high ranking

for Vyacheslav Ivankov.

So in this meeting
and over a series

of other meetings in 1992,
the early part of 1992,

they began working out how
to develop a new structure.

But with this structure
came conflicting interest

for the first time among
the various groups.

By early 1992,
Ivankov entered the US

and settled in the
Brighton Beach section

of Brooklyn, New York.

Brighton Beach houses one of
the largest Russian communities

outside of Russia's borders,

sometimes referred to as
little Russia or little Odessa,

it is frequently cited by
the New York press as the hub

of Soviet emigre
organized crime.

In the early part
of the eighties,

Brighton Beach in Brooklyn
became a focal point

for Russian immigration.

Well, Brighton Beach is really

the premier Russian community
in the United States.

This is where that most
of the emigres who came,

and they've come
in various waves,

but particularly those
who came in the 1970s,

when you had an opening up
of the immigration by Jews

from the former Soviet Union,

they would come typically
to Kennedy Airport

and they would arrive
at Kennedy Airport.

And as many has often
been the case historically

with emigres,

they spread out
within a narrow range

of the port of entry
into the country.

I remember going to
Brighton Beach in the 1970s

and visiting a restaurant,

and the manager of the
restaurant came up to me,

and I knew that this restaurant
was one of the centers

of organized crime in Moscow.

And he had been the vice
director of the restaurant

and started to tell me about

how many times he'd been
arrested under Soviet rule,

and every time he'd managed
to get himself out of it.

Once
in Brighton Beach,

Ivankov wasted no
time in setting up

and organizing the Russian
community's criminal activities.

By the mid 1990s, due to the
fall of communist Russia,

many Russians were free
to leave the country.

This mass exodus also allowed
many former Russian criminals

to exit as well.

Late mid 1970s to late
1970s, early eighties,

there were about 200,000
Russian immigrants

that came to the United States.

About 2000 of those
were hardcore criminals.

However, by the 19, mid 1990s

when the Russian Communist
system broke down

and it was free and open for
anybody to leave the system,

you began to see

the formal classical
Russian crime groups leaving

sometimes on assignment from
the godfathers in Russia

to settle in the US

and to begin to invest money

and get involved in
criminal activities.

And they often shoulder aside
these small time gangsters

who began in Brighton Beach

and took over more and more
and more of their operations.

To gain entry
into the United States,

Ivankov claimed he was a
film director on his visa.

Ivankov was
probably at that time

one of the larger members
of Russian organized crime

that was operating
in the United States.

He had capabilities
of having support

with other members of organized
crime in the Russian area,

and he was able to infiltrate

the ethnic communities
in the United States,

the Russian ethnic communities,

because of his notoriety and
his reputation in Russia.

Russian organized crime
members came to the US

and more than just a plan of
how they were gonna make money,

they're also armed with
years of experience

in manipulating
bureaucratic red tape.

These Russian criminals
had a wealth of knowledge

and forgery,
counterfeiting, and fraud.

Richard Ward is the
executive director

of the College of
Criminal Justice at
Sam Houston University

in Huntsville, Texas.

The Russian mafia is an
extremely problematic group

for law enforcement, and
what makes them different

is that here you're
talking about

some extremely
bright individuals

who are experts at carrying
out a whole range of activities

that are illegal.

Everything from illegal
immigration, to insurance fraud,

to crimes within Russia,

to a growing involvement
here in the United States.

Russian organized crime
in the United States

is very violent.

All organized crime is violent,

there's just different
elements of sophistication,

like the American
La Cosa Nostra.

One time we had five
La Cosa Nostra members

that cooperated with us

and started telling
us about murders,

and they told us about
over 230 murders,

but we only had about
three or four bodies,

most people just disappeared.

The Russians are different
in that they kill people

and they're not as
sophisticated about it,

but they also do a lot
of torturing of people

before they kill them.

One of
their most profitable

and sophisticated
schemes was so complex,

it confounded all but
the highest levels
of law enforcement.

This scheme was called
the daisy chain.

Russian criminals
perpetrated this fraud

by first creating a
fictitious company,

which would purchase fuel
from the state of New Jersey

and transport it across
state lines into New York.

There the fuel was shipped to
a second fictitious company,

which was set up to
forge tax documents

sent to a third
fictitious company.

This third company would
then distribute the fuel

to the public and then collect
the federal and state taxes.

These taxes were pocketed
by the criminals.

By the time the government
attempted to collect the taxes,

the companies had banished
without a paper trail.

The daisy chains are, I mean,
this is the personification

of the Russian
criminal mentality

because I mean,

these guys who are now
involved in crime here,

for the most part,

came out of the old
black market system

that operated in
the Soviet Union.

And this scheme is
made to order for them.

For one bug that was
placed on John Gotti

revealed that he wanted to hire
some of these smart Russians

to run a tax evasion
scheme on the gasoline.

So they controlled the gas
stations within their territory,

but they couldn't do the complex
mathematical computations

to deprive the US
government of tax revenues.

So teaming up with these
smart Russians, as they said,

they were able to deprive the US

of a quarter of a billion
dollars in tax revenues.

The Russians,

in exchange for protection
from the Italian mafia,

gave Gotti a piece of
the fuel scam action.

Vyacheslav Ivankov,
who in Russia

had admired the
New York mob boss

would attempt to
emulate his idol

and take control of Russian
organized crime in America.

Ivankov poses a police officer

and entered Holmes under the
guise of official business.

He was a thief, he was
a thug, but he was smart

and he was in New York.

He became the personification

of the so-called Russian
Mafia in America,

particularly in the
eyes of law enforcement

and the New York press.

As the highest ranking member

of the thieves world in America,

Ivankov brought with him
a legacy of brutality

and a tradition of surviving
outside of governing rules.

To say that he was the major
figure in the United States,

yes, he was.

There's no question
in our mind about it,

there was no question in
the Russian authorities mind

about it.

You have to kind of understand
that Ivankov's reputation

is even bigger in Russia than
it is in the United States.

The news of his
arrival in Brighton Beach

sent fear throughout
the community,

which would ultimately
become his base of operation.

Yaponchik quickly
began to organize

and establish front companies
for his illegal activities.

The illegal activities that
he was in were extortion,

prostitution, some
gambling, narcotics,

and he never really
left extortion,

he was always
involved in extortion.

And he also was very
active in money laundering.

Some of the companies that
he used in money laundering,

we don't know whether they were
actually participants in it

voluntarily because he's
still a strong arm man.

He noted for torturing people

and extorting them
at the same time.

So some of the people
that were working with him

were actually victims
at the same time.

He paid
a Russian woman

who had become an American
citizen, $15,000 to marry him

so he could gain
resident status.

It was business as usual
for the career criminal,

but the FBI had become aware
of his presence in New York

and quickly began
building their case.

Primarily his
base of operation

was throughout the metropolitan
area, New York City,

but obviously because
of his ethnic background

in the Russian community,

he spent a lot of
time in Brighton Beach

because of the community nature,

'cause of the people
that were there.

He also spent a lot of
time in Miami, Los Angeles

and Denver,

and he was able to utilize
contacts in those communities

with other members of
the Russian community

to foster his
criminal activities.

I first became
aware of Ivankov

whenever I was talking to
the Russian authorities

and asked them to
help us identify

the major criminals
in the United States

that came outta Russia,

and they provided me
the name of Ivankov.

When we first started
looking at Ivankov,

he was bouncing from
one city to another.

He was primarily
in New York City,

but he was in Boston

and he was in Denver,
and he was in Los Angeles

and he was in Miami,
and he in San Francisco.

Then he may go back into Russia
to meet with other thieves.

So he was bouncing around,

and we had a difficulty in
identifying where he really was

or who he really was

and we found out later
whenever he was arrested

then he actually
had seven passports.

As you investigate
organized crime,

there's a few things that
you have to understand,

dealing with
professional criminals.

Their strength is their secrecy,

their weaknesses
is their secrecy,

but their weaknesses also

is they cannot stop
conducting illegal activity.

If they ever stop
conducting illegal activity,

they lose their position
in organized crime.

So regardless of
what's going on,

they have to continue
conducting illegal activities.

The Ivankov
investigation was initiated

in the early 1993 timeframe.

We were working primarily ad
hoc investigative activities

with the New York
City Police Department

to focus on Ivankov's
criminal enterprise.

We were able to utilize
the investigative expertise

from the FBI in Manhattan

and also the New York
City Police Department

to focus on
Ivankov's activities.

He was primarily
active in Russia,

but he also had some
involvement in some activities

in Israel and the United States.

Kevin Donovan
is a special agent

in charge of the New
York division of the FBI,

which houses the Russian
organized crime task force.

In operation since
the early 1990s,

the special branch
investigates organized crimes

perpetrated by Soviet emigres.

Since the early 1990s,

we have worked ad hoc
task forces with members

of the New York City
Police Department

and other law
enforcement agencies

to focus on criminal activities.

The use of task forces by
the New York office is not

something that's new.

We have focused on criminal
activities in drugs,

organized crime, terrorism,

and violent crimes through
the use of task forces.

In 1995,

three years after Ivankov
entered the United States,

he became involved in a scheme

to extort several
million dollars

from a Wall Street
investment advisory firm

operated by two Russian
born businessmen.

- Who is this?
- Clearly, they were targeted

because they were Russians.

They were targeted
because they were seen

to be successful
businessmen in this country.

If they're successful
businessmen,

they must have
financial wherewithal,

therefore, they make
lucrative targets for this.

They also were targets

because they still had family

back in the former
of Soviet Union.

Apparently the
money that was at target

of the extortion
had roots in Moscow.

Ivankov learned that
the two businessmen

had been wired several
million dollars

from Moscow Bank without
the usual paper trails.

Therefore, everyone involved

assumed that the money had
been transferred illegally.

Wanting to capitalize
on the situation,

Ivankov had an associate
attempt to arrange a meeting.

The men refused.

Ivankov reverted back to
some of the street tactics

he perfected in Moscow.

The father of one of the
businessmen was beaten

to death on a Moscow
subway station platform.

The murder has
never been solved.

It became brutally apparent
that there was no way

of escaping Ivankov as
associates or was there.

We became aware of the scheme

that he was involved
in through the victims.

The victims came forward,

and as a result of the
victim's cooperation,

we were able to again,

engage in sophisticated
investigative techniques

to bring this case to
a logical conclusion.

From
his cellular phone,

Ivankov ordered his associate

to set up a meeting
with a two businessmen.

The message was given
and the men submitted

to paying him three and
a half million dollars.

Another Ivankov henchman
then drew up the papers

documenting the amount of
money that was to be paid.

Everyone agreed and
the papers were signed.

A few days later
on June 8th, 1995,

Ivankov was charged
with extortion.

We hope to identify
his entire organization

and to develop a significant
prosecution of them,

and we really wanted
to put him in jail

for the rest of his life.

In Russia, they don't
have long prison terms.

You know, 20 years is
a very long prison term

and the concept of
life imprisonments
not known over there.

However, we were
unsuccessful doing that

because of the investigation,

the way the investigation went,

we developed an
extortion case on him

and we thought people
were about to get killed

and to save their lives,

we brought the case down early.

The arrest of Ivankov

sent shockwaves through the city

and added to the
growing fascination

surrounding Russian
organized crime in America.

The reported godfathers
incarceration

was a leading story in Moscow

and generated in-depth
television profiles

on his criminal activities
in Russia and abroad.

Defense
was so weak that they knew

that if I was given
a chance to speak,

I would dispose all the lies.

That's why they
didn't let me speak.

They not only
didn't let me speak,

but moreover, they authorized
my defense to convince me

to give up my right to speak.

It's been a long time.

I figured out it was a
conspiracy against me.

I was often interrupted,

they did not let me deliver
in full volume the body effect

in chronological order,

so that I would prove
that it was all falsified,

that it was a cynical and
cruel crackdown on me.

A professional criminal,

an organized crime member in
a day-to-day basis is involved

in illegal activity.

He must maintain the conduct

of his illegal activity
on a day-to-day basis

to maintain his position in
the organized crime group.

Consequently, if you go
after him and target him,

you will be able to identify
the illegal activities he's in

and develop evidence for
successful prosecution.

Mr. Ivankov has
pled not guilty.

We expect that we trust the jury

and we start the process today.

Ivankov's case is a major case

because it demonstrated
the ease with which members

of the Russian organized crime,

families have been able to
infiltrate the US communities.

We were able to focus on
his criminal activities

through the cooperative efforts
of members of the community,

other law enforcement,

entities throughout
the United States

and throughout the world.

We specifically were able
to develop cooperation

in this investigation
with members of the MVD,

the Royal Canadian
Mountain Police,

and other international entities
that continue to allow us

to track and focus on
Ivankov's activities.

Ivankov was sentenced
for 10 years

and is currently in
the Allenwoods Prison
in Pennsylvania.

Vyacheslav Ivankov's
arrest in 1996 conviction

is viewed as a
significant victory

in a fight against
Russian organized crime.

Until that time, there
had been no major arrests

of any Russian crime figures.

There have been a
number of killings

that had taken place
in Brighton Beach

or in the New York
metropolitan area.

Nobody had been
arrested for these.

There was more and more
mystery that was developing.

For example, some
of these killings

took place in public settings,

in nightclubs, in
full view of people,

and yet no one saw anything.

No one was willing
to come forward

and say anything about this.

Ivankov was a Russian
godfather, no question about it,

and I think we were
successful with his arrest

and with his conviction
and with his sentence,

although it's not as
much as we wanted,

it sent a message back
within the criminal community

in Russia that you
better watch out

coming in the United States.

A question
surrounding the scope

of Ivankov's criminal
activities in the United States

may never be answered,

but experts agree
that with the demise

of the Soviet Union

and the formation of
the independent states,

Russian organized crime
is a growing phenomenon.

It's the most diversified form

of organized crime activity
one sees in the world today.

The Colombians are
concentrated in drugs.

The Mexicans are
concentrated in drugs,

the Russian organized
crime out of Russia

and Ukraine has the greatest
variety of illicit activity

of any criminal groups
in the world today.

What I find doubly
fascinating about Russia

is that you have a phenomenon

where you once had a
classic crime world,

where it was a
classic underworld,

which is basically located
in the prison camps of Russia

who ran, for the most part,

the black economy of the
Soviet Union, 40, 50 years

knew very well how to
act as manipulators

and wheelers and
dealers in that system.

They have in effect
handed on their power

and their influence
and their methods to,

in what is in a sense a new
generation of Russian criminals

who are in Russian
called avtoriteta,

or authorities

who are much closer linked
with the government itself.

Many of them are former
KGB, former army,

former communist
party, apparatchiks,

who are very well versed
in the official world

of operating in Russia.

Handelman calls
him comrade criminals

because they have one
foot in legitimacy

while the other foot
walks in the underworld

that thrived in the
shadows of communism.

The Russians are
particularly different

than other mafia groups

because they have a
level of professionalism

that really comes from their
long record of being able

to deal with a very difficult
totalitarian system.

They know how to get around it,

they know how to get
around the police,

they know how to suborn
and corrupt officialdom,

and most of them
are quite shrewd

and intelligent businessmen.

Part of the problem,
as we've seen,

is the laundering
of Russian money

into legitimate businesses

and their criminal activity
through legitimate businesses.

What is especially pernicious
for the former Soviet Union

is that the money moves only
out in Italy, in Columbia,

in Mexico,

organized crime groups
invest in the country,

but they don't invest
hardly anything

in any of the countries of
the former Soviet Union.

So they're just parasites
on their economy

without returning
any of the capital.

A lot of business transactions
are cleared in Russia,

in offshore banks, in Cyprus,

and another offshore havens.

The reason for this
is quite simple,

to avoid paying taxes.

The mafia does this,

but also perfectly
public businesses,

private businesses do so.

In part, it's illegal,

but there are ways of doing,

using offshore havens,
which are not illegal.

The reason is just
straightforward
profit maximization.

If you pay less tax, you
have more profits to keep,

and that's essentially why

some islands in
the Mediterranean

have been making so much money

at the expense of
the Russian economy.

Post-Soviet organized
crime is involved

in all kinds of activities.

You can find them in the
construction industry

in different parts of the world.

That's one of the prime
areas they've moved into

to launder money.

You can find them
in the stock market.

We just had a
criminal convictions

of organized crime
manipulating stocks,

which is sort of the
most advanced side

of organized crime
activity that you'll see.

There are just so many
ways for organized crime

to obtain huge amounts
of money very quickly

in an undeveloped,
inexperienced banking system.

There was always
a Russian mafia.

It's not like it's new,

it's just that the
breakdown, if you will,

of the social structure.

The breakdown of the economy
offered opportunities

for the organized criminal
groups to take over,

and they've taken over
a whole large segments,

if you will of the economy.

There isn't global law
enforcement, that's the problem,

and so therefore

there isn't a international
law enforcement effort

that is capable of
addressing this problem.

The United States is gearing
up to fight organized crime,

but they're dependent on
dealing with the law enforcement

of other countries,

and sometimes these crime groups

are committing their
activities in seven

or eight different
countries simultaneously.

It's impossible to keep track

of a lot of Russian activities,

the laundering of money
from country to country

because much of what Russians
do is overtly legitimate,

overtly legal like many other
transnational crime groups.

Lately, law enforcement in
America has had some success,

has been able to get into
some of these groups,

and they've been able to nab

a couple of key leaders
who've operating in America,

but it's still a very
much of an uphill battle.

To this day,

Ivankov proclaims his innocence

and believes that his arrest

and subsequent
conviction was a result

of a conspiracy
concocted by the FBI

and the Russian government.

They would
never treat in the same way

a representative of
any other nation.

My right for the final word
was taken away from me.

I tried several times
to say something,

my defense said no to that,

but I was not
given the right to,

through the restrictions
of trial regulations.

They tried to play on the side
of Russia's Secret Services.

My defense, who were American,

played on the side of
Russian Secret Services.

They said, we are Americans,
help us with this trial

and next time we'll help
you with what you need.

According to various
law enforcement agencies,

the Vyacheslav Ivankov

is just one of the many
sharks swimming in an ocean

of transnational crime.

It is estimated that Russian
organized crime is operating

in 50 countries
around the world.

Well, I can hardly think
of any place in the world

that they don't operate.

I mean, one of the things that
they're extremely good at is

operating an offshore
islands in the Caribbean,

or the South Pacific that you
may never even have heard of.

The challenges
facing law enforcement

in dealing with organized crime

really focus on
communication, intelligence

and cooperation in
the legal systems.

We don't have an
international court,

criminal court, for example,

so there's no place to take
criminals, if you will.

So jurisdictions change.

One of the real problems

is the legal
definitions of crime.

What is a crime in one country

might not be a crime
in another country.

But according to
author Stephen Handelman,

the greater threat is to the
stability of Russia itself.

The one thing that has
to be emphasized is that

although Russians have
come to the United States,

Russian criminals have
come to the United States

in great numbers,

this for them is
not a major center,

United States is for them,

is not a major
center of operations.

For them, it's a
good place to bank,

it's a good place to keep money

in case things get really bad,

but their interest

and their attention
is still focused on

the power politics of Russia,

where the fight for the spoils
of the old Soviet system

still goes on,

and where people are
still in a vicious fight

for power and for
economic control

of the old of
Russia's resources.

According to the Russian
Ministry of Internal Affairs,

roughly two thirds of
the Russian economies

under the sway of
crime syndicates,

Swiss banks are estimated
to hold $10 billion

of Russian organized
crime money.

Russia has truly become
a superpower of crime

and Vyacheslav Ivankov is
just one figure in a country

riddled with criminals.

I'm Robert Stack.

Thanks for joining us.