Joseph Kobzon and Russian Mafia - Yyacheslav "Yaponchik" Ivankov - Brighton Beach

[Stefan Lemieszewski]

 

From the Russian language N.Y paper EKSPRESS (May 3-9, 2000):
On May 11, Iosif Kobzon, "beloved national artist of the Soviet Union",
member of the Russian Duma, will stage a concert in Kyiv, at "Dvorets
Ukraina" in connection with the Victory Day celebrations. The
President's Orchestra of the Armed Forces of Ukraine will open the
concert and and accompany the artist.

Earlier comments about Joseph Kobzon ("Russia's Frank Sinatra")
[ http://www.infoukes.com/lists/politics/1999/10/0275.html ]
included his ties to Vladimir Gusinsky (according to the CIA), ties to former
St. Petersburg mayor Anatoly Sobchak, his election support for Leonid Kuchma,
ties to former Russian Deputy Defense Minister Boris Gromov, ties to Moscow
Mayor Yuri Luzhkov, membership in the exclusive Grand Dynamo Club, ties
to pardoned Soviet spy Shabtai Kalmanovich (who had ties to Congressman
Ben "The Fixer" Gilman from the Borscht Belt in the Catskills) whom Kobzon
escorted from Israel back to Moscow in 1993, etc.
[  http://www.infoukes.com/lists/politics/2000/03/0133.html ]
But those comments only scratched the surface. Robert Friedman provides
additional information.

By the late 1980s and 1990s, the KGB was expanding its illegal operations
so quickly, it turned to  organized crime for partnership and assistance in the
"privatization" (i.e. looting) of state assets. Gangland turf wars exploded, between
Chechen, Jewish, Georgian, Armenian and Slavic mafia groups. Ivankov was
sprung out of prison early to provide much needed reinforcement. Two of the
mafia bosses orchestrated a letter-writing campaign for Ivankov's early parole.
One was Otari Kvantrishvili, a Georgian national sports hero from his days
as a Soviet Olympic wrestler, and the president of the Russian Athletes
Association. Ivankov's second sponsor, was the "crime czar" Joseph Kobzon,
"one of the most influential criminals in Russia" according to the FBI. The judge
arranging Ivankov's release was bribed by Semion "Brainy Don" Mogilevich,
the Russian Jewish mob boss from Ukraine that has based his international
criminal empire in Hungary. In 1992, the "Bratsky Krug" (Circle of Brothers) or
ruling council of the vors, ordered Ivankov to Brighton Beach, where he took
over the Old Guard of the Jewish Organizatsiya. As Brighton Beach-based
Jewish gangster Vladimir Ginzberg observed, "We were amateurs compared
to Ivankov and his men."
 

So in 1992, Vyacheslav Kirillovich "Yaponchik" Ivankov came to America,
specifically Brighton Beach, to take over the Russian Jewish Mafia. He had left
Moscow, where he was trained by Gennadiy "The Mongol" Korkov, in extortion,
often dressing up in militia uniforms with forged search warrants before
confiscating goods from store owners. A bit of a show off, Ivankov expropriated
the name "Yaponchik" for himself. The original "Yaponchik" was Mishka Vinnitsky
who ran the seamy Jewish underworld in the pre-revolutionary Black Sea port of
Odessa (Odesa). There was even a film made about the original "Yaponchik"
in1926 titled Benya Kirk, a Yiddish-language subtitled silent film written by
Isaac Babel. Ivankov was caught in 1974 and sentenced to five years in jail,
where he met the old criminal brotherhood called vor v zakonye. Released
in 1979, Ivankov committed hundreds of  extortions and armed robberies before
being caught and sentenced to 14 years to a maximum security prison in 1982
for a home invasion. In prison he murdered a few other prisoners. Even in a
Siberian prison, Ivankov continued to run his operations, for example, having
two of his accomplices from Toronto rip off some Russian banks and investors
of $5 million in a phony Siberian gold mining company. The RCMP later arrested
a hit man sent by the Russian bankers to kill one of the Torontonians.
 

Ivankov came to America on a two-week visa, and was sponsored by a
Manhattan-based shipping magnate, Leonard Lev, an emigre from Kyiv, where
he started a career as a master pickpocket, before becoming a partner with
Marat Balagula in the Odessa restaurant and gasoline operations in America.
Lev created a film company called "Twelve-LA" and requested a visa for Ivankov,
as a "film consultant." Lev then helped Ivankov create a sham marriage to a
lounge singer for $15,000 so that Ivankov could apply for his green card. From
Brighton Beach, Ivankov also established ties with the Italian Genovese Mafia
family (as did "borscht belt veteran" Murray Wilson.)
[ http://www.infoukes.com/lists/politics/2000/03/0270.html ]

Ivankov allegedly took over a hidden share of the Porky's strip club in Miami with
Ludwig "Tarzan" Fainberg, as owner. Fainberg was born in Odesa, Ukraine.
His family moved to Chernivtsi when he was three. After Brighton Beach, Miami
is the next most important Russian Mafia hang out.
[   http://www.ukar.org/friedm02.shtml  ]
Ivankov also did a deal with Fainberg in Miami to provide heroin and money
laundering services to the Cali drug cartel in exchange for cocaine which was
earmarked for Russia.  Ivankov expanded in Denver with another hidden interest
in a Russian restaurant (with Vatchagan Petrossov, an Armenian vor). He also
bought parcels of real estate in the Rocky Mountains. In Houston, Ivankov bought
a used car dealership for money laundering.  In New Jersey, Ivankov met Russian
bankers to discuss deals such as how to steal diamonds in Sierra Leone, a
present-day war zone. Recall that Congressman Ben Gilman's friend,
Shabtai Kalmanovich and Marat Balagula (the John Gotti of the Brighton Beach
Russian Mafia) had virtually privatized the Sierra Leone economy during the 1980s,
taking over everything from diamonds to the nation's internal security services.
The same Russian bankers explained the intricacies of American Deposit
Receipts and international banking to Ivankov.

In 1994, Ivankov presided over two Appalachian-style sit-downs in Tel Aviv with
his son Eduard, where dozens of gangsters met at the plush Dan Hotel to discuss
their investments in Israel, according to U.S. and Israeli intelligence sources.
Ivankov was constantly travelling between Brighton Beach and Europe, Eurasia
and the Middle East. While he was also reinforcing the relationship between
Mogilevich's criminal organization and the Solntsevskaya mafia family based
in Moscow with more than 1,700 members, Ivankov was doing battle with other
crime groups. For example, to dominate the Russian cocaine business, he had
to defeat the Georgian vor Valeri "Globus" Glugech, one of the first to set up a
large scale drug operation in Moscow. When Glugech refused Ivankov's buy-out
offer, Glugech was shot by a sniper in 1993. Three days later, Glugech's lieutenant.
Anatoly Semionov, was gunned down. Two weeks later, another top aide,
Vladislav Wanner was killed. Eventually, at a May 1994 mafia summit meeting in
Vienna, the heads of several Russian Mafia families officially awarded Ivankov
Glugech's drug business. Ivankov also removed other drug kingpins such as
Sergei "Sylvester" Timofeyev, who was running operations out of Cyprus.
Timofeyev was blown up in his Mercedes in Moscow and had to be identified
by dental records.

In January 1995, Ivankov and the Russian Mafia convened a summit meeting
in the U.S. commonwealth of Puerto Rico at the San Juan Hotel and Casino.
The RCMP had wire-tapped Toronto-based Joseph Sigalov as boasting that
he was going to Puerto Rico to meet "..with Yaponchik ... to discuss who we
will kill, ..."   Robert Kaplan, a Liberal Member of Parliament in Canada for 25 years,
former cabinet  minister, and Canada's solicitor general in charge of the RCMP
and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), was Sigalov's business
adviser at the time. Sigalov was publisher of the influential Orthodox Jewish
newspaper, Exodus, in Toronto.  But such activities are merely a cover for
international heroin trafficking, arms smuggling, and extortion. In one incident,
Ivankov ordered Sigalov and Vyacheslav Sliva (the godfather of the Russian Mafia
in Canada) to have their henchmen visit the mayor of Kharkiv in Ukraine.
The Kharkiv mayor was forced to pay protection money for the city-run casino.
But according o the RCMP, the mafia men also took over control of Ukraine's
state-sponsored lottery.

Sigalov and Ivankov were joined at the casino in Puerto Rico by Joseph Kobzon,
Viktor Averin (from Brighton Beach), Sergei Mikhailov (head of the Solntsevskaya
mafia family), and mob leaders from Miami, Georgia, St. Petersburg, etc. When
Kobzon was confronted about attending the summit meeting, he claimed he
was on vacation meeting with his close friend Valery Weinberg, publisher of the
Manhattan-based Novoye Russkoye Slovo, the largest and most influential
Russian-language daily newspaper in America (circulation of 180,000). It routinely
glorifies the Russian Mafia and its vilification by the FBI. In March 1999, Weinberg
received the prestigious "outstanding leadership" award for his work on Soviet
Jewry from the UJA-Federation, a large nationwide Jewish philanthropic organization.
Weinberg's wife is the UJA's New York Russian division chairwoman. Senator
Charles Schumer from New York attended the awards dinner at the Plaza Hotel,
saying to the audience: "as you better yourselves, you better America. Those who
say you should close the doors to immigration should come into this ballroom."
Weinberg had written character references for Kobzon, who had been banned
from entering USA in 1995 because of his Russian Mafia ties. Kobzon continued
explaining his "vacation" saying that he later met Slava Fetisov (NHL superstar;
now coach for New Jersey Devils) at the resort.
 

The Russian government has appointed Kobzon to the Russian Olympic Committee,
dean of the School of Popular Music at Moscow's Music Academy, etc. Kobzon
has been twice elected to the Duma, representing a tiny district in eastern Siberia
bordering Mongolia where he never lived. He was even introduced formally to the
U.S. Senate by New Jersey Democrat Frank Lautenberg.

Kobzon also has an Israeli passport. As senior U.S. State Department official
Jonathan Winer says, "There is not a major Russian organized crime figure
who we are tracking who does not also carry an Israeli passport." Of the 75 he
mentioned Mogilevich, Loutchansky (Nordex), Rabinovich and Kobzon. Recall
earlier postings about Natan Sharansky introducing Grigori Loutchansky to
Benjamin Netanyahu prior to the 1996 Israeli elections and reports in the Israeli
press that Netanyahu had accepted $1.5 million in campaign contributions from
Loutchansky. Says Winer, "The Likud is corrupt, and Bibi [Netanyahu] is
disgusting. He's had meetings with Loutchansky and Kobzon--criminals
promoting their own interests." Some think Kobzon may have more political
influence in Israel than Loutchansky (the attendee at DNC fundraisers for
Clinton and Gore) or even Mogilevich. Brigadier General Hezi Leder, the
Israeli police attache in Washington, says that the Russian criminal aristocracy
covets Israeli citizenship "because they know Israel is a safe haven for them."
Kobzon is a frequent visitor, even flying to Israel in his private jet to pick up
Marat Balagula's eldest daughter once to bring her back to celebrate his
sixtieth birthday in Moscow.

But one of Kobzon's most lucrative activities is arms smuggling. He maneuvered
Victor Atiolkin into the top job at Rossvoorzheniya, the only government agency that
can authorize the export of weapons from Russia. Thus, Kobzon is able to broker
arms deals, such as tank sales, rocket-propelled grenades, surface-to-air missiles
(done with Iran), etc.

In any case, with such a busy mafia business schedule, one wonders how Joseph
Kobzon finds time to sing for Leonid Kuchma.
 

Stefan Lemieszewski