Organized Crime and the Russian Mafia
Few observers would have predicted that when President Ronald Reagan implored Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to "tear down this wall!" In 1987 that not only would the Berlin Wall be torn down, but the entire Soviet empire would collapse just a few years later. Even fewer observers would likely have predicted that the collapse of the Soviet Union would be followed by an explosion in organized crime. Many authorities today are quick to argue that this explosion in criminal activity was largely the result of decades of oppression and authoritative rule that left little room for high profile criminal activities which was replaced with a veritable "Wild West" environment in which crime was the career path of choice for aspiring Russian millionaires. This paper provides a review of the literature concerning the rise of organized crime and the Russian Mafia following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, followed by a summary of the research and important findings concerning these events in the conclusion.
Review and Discussion
The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 resulted in the introduction of numerous persona freedoms and a capitalistic economy in Russia and 14 other former Soviet states (O'Neal, 2000). An unfortunate concomitant of these fundamental reforms was the emergence of an organized crime element that had simmered for nearly a century under the Soviet government (O'Neal, 2000). According to O'Neal, "In particular, organized crime has proliferated in Russia and now has expanded far beyond the confines of the former Soviet borders" (2000, p. 1). Today, law enforcement authorities typically refer to all criminal groups that are comprised of members who were originally from any of the former Soviet states including most especially Georgians, Chechens, Ukrainians, and Armenians as "Russian organized crime" (O'Neal, 2000, p. 1).
To date, organized crime groups have...
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