Russian prison mafia games7/30/2023 ![]() ![]() Punishment cell block of one of the subcamps of Vorkutlag gulag, 1945. ![]() When the Bolshevik Revolution came around in 1917, the Thieves’ World was alive and active. Vladimir Lenin attempted to wipe them out, but failed, and the criminals survived into Joseph Stalin’s reign. In time, the Vorovskoy Mir (Thieves’ World) emerged as these criminals grouped and started their own code of conduct that was based on strict loyalty with one another and opposition against the government. Most of the population were peasants, in poverty at the time, and criminals who stole from government entities and divided profits among the people earned Robin Hood-like status, being viewed as protectors of the poor and becoming folk heroes. The Russian criminality can be traced back to Russia’s imperial period, which began in the 1720s, in the form of banditry and thievery. The Russians also dabbled in uranium trading, stolen from the Soviet nuclear program, and human trafficking. The level of political corruption and arms sales in a post-Soviet Russia allowed for massive expansion and incorporation of many government officials into the crime syndicates. The Russian mafia, however, differed from the Italians due to their environment. ![]() The highly publicized Italian Mafia is believed to have inspired early criminal groups in Russia to form Mafia-like organizations, eventually spawning their own version. The two groups also share a similar portfolio of criminal activity. The Russian mafia is similar to the Italian Mafia in many ways, the groups’ organization and structure follow a similar model. In December 2009, Timur Lakhonin, the head of the Russian National Central Bureau of Interpol, stated “Certainly, there is crime involving our former compatriots abroad, but there is no data suggesting that an organized structure of criminal groups comprising former Russians exists abroad”, while in August 2010, Alain Bauer, a French criminologist, said that it “is one of the best structured criminal organizations in Europe, with a quasi-military operation.” Criminals of these various groups are either former prison members, corrupt officials and business leaders, people with ethnic ties, or people from the same region with shared criminal experiences and leaders. In 2012, there were as many as 6,000 groups, with more than 200 of them having a global reach. With the end of World War II, the death of Joseph Stalin, and the fall of the Soviet Union, more gangs emerged in a flourishing black market, exploiting the unstable governments of the former Republics. Louis Freeh, former director of the FBI, said that the Russian mafia posed the greatest threat to U.S. Organized crime in Russia began in the Russian Empires, but it was not until the Soviet era that vory v zakone (“thieves-in-law”) emerged as leaders of prison groups in forced labor camps, and their honor code became more defined. Sometimes the initialism is translated and OCG is used. The acronym OPG is Organized Criminal ( Prestupnaya in Russian) Group, used to refer to any of the Russian mafia groups, sometimes modified with a specific name, e.g. Russian organized crime or Russian mafia, otherwise known as Bratva (“Brotherhood”), is a collective of various organized crime elements originating in the former Soviet Union. The Russian mafia is similar to the Italian Mafia in many ways, sharing a similar portfolio of criminal activity. ![]()
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