Tokhtakhounov - Sun Brigade - Russian Mafia's Solntsevo Crime Family - AP - 3Aug02
Stefan Lemieszewski
> http://www.indystar.com/article.php?oly03.html
> The Associated Press
> 3Aug02
> Judging scandal could cost skaters
> By Andrew Dampf
>
> [ . . . ]
> Italian police said they had been looking into
> the Russian [Tokhtakhounov] for his alleged
> involvement with a Moscow-based crime group
> called the Sun Brigade.
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Another name for the "Sun Brigade" (aka "Sun Regiment")
is the Solntsevo (or Solntsevskaya) crime syndicate. The
name originally came from a suburb of Moscow by that
name and where this particular Russian Mafia group
operated before expanding globally. It now numbers an
estimated 9,000 members and is growing.
Professor Federico Varese describes the structure of
Solntsevo and some of its mafiosi in his book "The
Russian Mafia: Private Protection in a New Market
Economy" (2001; ISBN 0-19-829736-X). There are
additional references to the Solntsevo on the internet
newsgroups. Various media reports have linked famous
and not-so-famous names to Solntsevo, including:
Marc Rich, Grigori Loutchansky, Semion "Brainy Don"
Mogilevich, Vadim Rabinovich, Vyacheslav "Yaponchik"
Ivankov, Sergei "Mikhas" Mikhailov, Viktor Averin, Boris
Birshtein, Ludwig "Tarzan" Fainberg, Viktor Averin,
Boris and Benjamin Nayfield, Monya Elson, Murray
Wilson, Elsei Agron, Marat Balagula, Josef Kobzon,
Otari Kvantrishvili, Sergei "Sylvester" Timofeyev, Joseph
Sigalov, Vyacheslav Sliva, Alexandr Volkov, Anzor
Kikalishvili, Yuri Esin, Aleksandr Volkov, Sam Kislin,
Gregori Lerner, and oligarchs such as Mikhail Friedman
(Fridman) and Pytor Aven.
Some of the above people have also had ties wih high-
ranking politicians in countries such as Russia, Ukraine,
Israel, USA and Canada, including Viktor Chernomyrdin,
Leonid Kuchma, Benyamin Netanyahu, Natan Sharansky,
Shimon Peres, Bill Clinton, Al Gore, Charles Shumer,
Frank Lautenberg, Paul Martin, Art Eggleton, Robert
Kaplan, etc.
Stefan Lemieszewski
=====================================
The Russian Mafia: Private Protection
in a New Market Economy
(pp.169-174)
Federico Varese
The Vory-v-Zakone and Territorially Based Groups
The case of Mordaka distinguished vor from Saratovshows
how personal authority is not sufficient to enforce decisions
over parties with stronger military power: Mordak earned in
the past the reputation of being a 'supreme judge', able to
adjudicate conflicts among vory by applying the rules and
traditional precepts of the fraternity. In August 1994 he
interfered in a conflict among two younger vory, Makho and
Ded Khasan. One of the two parties disagreed with the
decision reached by Mordak and resorted to violence.
Makho was almost killed as a result.
The ability to mobilize a number of well-armed individuals
is a crucial requirement for survival in the underworld.
Since the early 1990s, the post-Soviet criminal landscape
started to be populated by territorially based groups with
this ability. By 1995, writes Perushkin, the crime
correspondent for Argumenty i Fakty,
The picture is reminiscent in some way of a classic
Italian Mafia family. As a rule, these are groups
formed on a territorial basis, such as Solntsevskaya,
Dolgoprudnenskaya, Izmailovskaya, Lyuberetskaya .. .
All the members of such a family are called bratva
[brotherhood]. Every group is divided into brigades
headed by a brigadir, who is linked to the avtoritet.
Below we shall review the organizational structure,
the activities and the inter-group relations of these units.
Organizational Structure
In a 1995 interview, a deputy of Egor, the leader of the
Izmailovskaya group, told Cesare Martinetti, a Moscow-
based Italian investigative journalist: ‘The leader of the
group, Egor, is surrounded by six to eight people, not
more, otherwise the structure becomes difficult to
manage. Then we have people in charge of different
crews and the foot soldiers (we call them shestyorki).'
According to Egor's deputy, the entire brigade was
composed of 1,000-1,500 people.
The image of a hierarchical but flexible internal structure
seems to apply to the Solntsevo (or Solntsevskaya brigada),
the largest and most powerful of the Moscow brigady. The
Solntsevo takes its name from the Moscow suburb where
it originated from. For losif Roizis, a former member turned
state witness for the police of various countries, it
consists of roughly 9,000 members. The leading figures
are Mikhas' (Sergei Mikhailov) and Avera (Viktor Averin),
both with Israeli passports. Sil'vestr (Sergei Timofeev)
was also a leader of the group until he was killed in August
1994. Boroda (Sergei Kruglov), another prominent figure,
suffered the same destiny as Sil'vestr. Other prominent
figures are Yura Samosval (Yurii Esin) and Yaponchik
(V. K. Ivan'kov), who was regarded as the American link
of the Solntsevo until his arrest in June 1995, while Semen
Mogilevich is an emissary based in Hungary. The younger
brother of Averin, Sasha, is gaining authority.
The Solntsevo is as an umbrella organization of different
crews (probably twelve) active in different countries.
Thanks to an investigation by the Italian police, the
structure of Esin's crew is rather well documented.
At least until 1997, Esin was leading a crew based in
Moscow but with significant criminal interests in Rome.
Only ten people have been identified with certainty as
being members of the Russian sub-unit, two of them
Italians resident in Russia, but the Italian police believe
the group to be larger. These people went regularly to
Italy and committed crimes in both countries. They
included a member of the State Duma and a former
KGB officer. The police identified twenty people belonging
to the second unit, based in Italy. They included eight
women, and six native Italians (most of the others
were born in the former Soviet Union but acquired
Italian citizenship). Three Russians have been identified
as 'deputies' of Esin, a fourth, Dmitrii Naumov was a
close collaborator but tried to set up an alternative group
and was killed on 23 September 1996 in Moscow. Women
turned out to be very active in the day-to-day working of
the organization in Italy. They also managed the common
funds of the group, discussed sensitive operations,
including punishment, and directly threatened other
members. Some of them spoke both Russian and Italian
and their role as interpreters gave them a crucial role as
go-betweens.
Esin's crew in Moscow operated with a degree of
independence from the overarching Solntsevo. For instance,
in a May 1996 conversation, Esin was discussing the final
details of a shipment of fish to Moscow with two businessmen
from Vladivostok. He told them that, in case they had any
problem in Moscow, they should contact his 'boys': 'If
someone does not pay or tries to cheat you, Sasha must
call the boys immediately.' Most interestingly, he adds, 'It
is not necessary to call Solntsevo or Ismailovo .. although
we are all friends, it is not necessary to stir the waters.
Within the Solntsevo a supreme council operates, formed
by twelve people who have 'great power' and are the leaders
of individual crews. The council meets regularly to discuss
important matters for the organization. Only made vory can
attend the meeting, although there are no special rituals to
join the brigada at the lower end of the pyramid. Roizis was
informed in detail of one such meeting that took place in
Miami in 1993, just after the arrival of Ivan'kov in the USA.
Among others, Boroda, Sil'vestr, Averin, Esin (Samosval),
Mikhas', and Ivan'kov were present. Reportedly, the matter
discussed was the expansion of the Solntsevo abroad. The
Italian police concluded that at this meeting the Solntsevo
decided to start its operation in Italy under the supervision
of Esin.
Some of the proceeds from criminal activities of each crew
converge into a communal fund of the entire brigada, the
obshchak, which is managed by several banks. Various
instances point to the fact that the brigada has its own
accounts, separate from those of the members; for example,
in May 1994 Averin reminded Semen Mogilevich that he
still had not paid into the Solntsevo common fund the sum
of 5 million US dollars. The evidence is still insufficient to
assess in greater detail the financial flows from each crew
to the central brigada, although one suspects that crew
leaders try to minimize their contribution to the collective
fund. This might explain why Esin was wary of informing
the brigada of one of his deals.
In St Petersburg the structure of criminal groups does
not seem to differ dramatically from that of Moscow brigady.
Andrei Konstantinov, a crime correspondent for
Komsomol'skaya Pravda and the author of several books
on organized crime in St Petersburg, writes that various
brigady (from two to five, the most notorious being the
Tambovskaya, Malyshevskaya, Vorkutinskaya, and
Kazanskaya) form a larger unit (zveno), which in turn
is affiliated to either one or another of the larger criminal
groupings.
Activities
An investigator at the Moscow Procurator's Office,
Mikhail Slin'ko, pointed out in 1993 to the importance
of collecting protection money for established crime
groups in Moscow, such as Solntsevskaya,
Ostankinskaya, Lyuberetskaya, Dolgoprudnenskaya,
Podol'skaya, Koptevskaya:
These groups are not simply involved in ordinary
crimes, such as stealing and killing, but also they
extort money in a certain district for 'protection' of
places of public catering, commercial kiosks,
co-operatives, consumer service enterprises,
prostitutes. Often the leaders, once they have
accumulated sufficient money, enter legal business
and become directors of commercial enterprises
and banks. They also bribe politicians and law-
enforcement agents.
This picture matches the one that emerges from the
interview with the deputy of Egor: 'We make money in
the old way, through the racket, this is the basic activity
that allows us to raise capital. But then, one needs to
make this capital grow, so we put the money into
business, banks, import-export ventures.'
In Moscow, the Solntsevo is involved in dispute settlement
and protection in sectors of both the overworld and the
underworld, in particular drugs/ prostitution, retail, oil and
gas. In one instance, a businessman, P.A.K., needed to
retrieve 90,000 dollars from somebody who was under the
protection of the Solntsevo. P.A.K. contacted his own
protector, who in turn tried to contact various Solntsevo
representatives, including Esin in Italy. Esin sent some of
his immediate associates to talk with another Solntsevo
member, Borya. Esin added, 'the matters must be solved
positively. We cannot dishonor the name of the Solntsevskie.’
Esin was directly involved as the krysha of both businesses
and individuals in Moscow. The director of a diamond
company who needed to retrieve a loan turned to Esin for
help. In another instance, an undersecretary of state in the
Russian government owed money to the Medvedkovo brigada
(named after a Moscow suburb), a brigada of 'independents'
according to Gavrilov, a deputy of Esin in Moscow. Esin's
group in Moscow protected the politician. The two groups
met and reached an agreement: the politician would earn
the money by working for Esin and pay his debt, Esin being
the guarantor of the deal.
The mafia world is agitated by anomalies and uncertain
borders, as the following cases show. A major food retailer
in Moscow paid 200,000 dollars every month in protection
money to the Solntsevo, although he complained that more
than one group was trying to extract money from him. A
businessman who was protected by Esin complained that
members of both the Podol'skaya and Leninskaya groups
had been taking money from him to the value of 200,000
dollars. Esin asked why the businessman did not get in
touch before and asked his deputy to contact the rival
groups in order to clarify the matter. Similarly, a banker
was forced to pay protection money twice: to Esin and to
a 'person from the Party', somebody described as having
been very influential in the past. Esin was extremely upset
by the fact. He understood that his credibility as a protector
was put into question if he could not prevent this other
person from extracting money from an individual (the
banker) he was suppose to protect.
In another instance, the Solntsevo decided to victimize
a person who had turned to the brigada for help. Aleksandr
Abramovich, a Moscow jeweller, opened a shop in the
center of Moscow in 1993 and with his partner Vlasov
entered into a dispute with a supplier protected by the
Taganskaya brigada. They turned to the Solntsevo for
help. A meeting with Mikhas' and Averin was arranged in
the gym of a school in the Moscow district of Solntsevo
and the shop was 'officially' accepted under the 'roof of
the group. Between 1993 and 1995, Abramovich paid 1 to
1.2 million dollars as protection money to the group and
eventually was forced out of business. Maksimov suggests
that Taganskaya and Solntsevskaya are allied. This might
explain why Abramovich was eventually forced out of
business. The Solntsevo decided to side with the
Taganskaya at the expense of their client Abramovich.
Even criminal groups specialized in a given sector of the
underworld pay protection to larger groups. Mikhail Slin'ko
observes in his 1993 interview that smaller gangs of robbers,
pickpockets, and even professional killers, with either a
rudimentary hierarchical structure or no structure at all,
pay protection money to the gang that controls the area
in which they operate. One such instance is reported by
Kommersant-Daily. A criminal gang, active in the period
between 1991 to 1994 and dedicated to the production of
explosives, included both explosive experts, an engineer
working in the defense industry, and criminals. According
to Kommersant-Daily, 'during two of those four years, these
producers [of explosives] had found a reliable 'roof with one
of the biggest criminal groups [of the city]'. Relations are
not always smooth, as testified by the following instance:
Sergei Pridanov and Evgenii Ivanenko teamed up with
Sergei Agal'tsov, a member of the Malyshevskaya criminal
group, in order to run some criminal deals. Between 1992
and the end of 1993 business ran well. By autumn 1993,
Pridanov wanted to get rid of Agal'tsov and thereby stop
paying dues to the Malyshevskaya group. Together with
other members, they set a trap for Agal'tsov and killed him.
The reaction was swift and harsh: both Pridanov and
Ivanenko were almost killed in an ambush and then
arrested by militia, a success that could not but have
pleased the Malyshevskaya group.
[ . . . ]
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