Red Mafiya

The first thing I did after opening this book was to go online and see if Robert I. Friedman was still alive because I found it hard to believe he could write a book like this and not get whacked. I was relieved to discover that, while he is deceased, death came from a blood disease as opposed to the hands of Mr. Ivankov or any of the other criminals he exposes in these pages. Simultaneous to reading this work I have open a recently released book on the Mexican Mafia which greatly pales in comparison to the artfulness of this account. I had no problem with Mr. Friedman's organization. The chapters, for the most part, tell differing tales of different characters which together provide a stunning and horrifying description of the Russian mob in America. The personalities depicted are every bit as interesting as those in la costa nostra. Indeed, that Italian gangsters played bocce ball while the Russian ones played chess goes a long way in explaining why they have been as successful as they are. The best writing rolls forth like a movie and that's true in the case of Red Mafiya. This was a magnificent book.

This reviewer was surprised that America's Red Mafiya are Russian Jews, but after reading another book on Perestroika, Jews were given preference in immigration into the US. Also Gulag prisoners who just claimed to be Jewish, had their records sealed, were allowed to immigrate too.

It appears that most information that is in this book comes from working closely with the local police, local multicultural media, court records, state and federal agencies, such as FBI, DEA, IRS, CIA interviews. There are only a few footnotes and there are no reference cites. Because of this informal structure, the book is an easily read narrative.

The TOC has 11 Chapters organized into two parts: 1) "The Invasion" and 2) "Colonization and Conquest." The book has 8-pg B&W pixs or maps, 8-pg index. Again, there are no references and only a few footnotes.

Chap1 "The Hit Man," p3-21 was about Monya Elson, born in a poor Jewish family emigrated in 1978 p15 from the Dniester River banks in the Ukraine to Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, NYC, aka "Little Odessa" where NYC's finest vodka, caviar, lox, borscht, knishes, and blintzes are served. He establishes a street thievery and extortion ring which lasted until his execution by a rival Vor gang in the 90s p41.

Chap2 "The Little Don," p23-39 was about Evsei Agron, a real Russian Vor who immigrated in 1975 and set up a prostitution and extortion ring. He also tried emulating with the Italian mafia, the Genovese crime family, including bilking Las Vegas casinos. A rival Vor gang, Boris Goldberg, cut down Agron in 1985 after a couple botch assassination attempts.

Chap3 "Brighton Beach Goodfellas," p41-67 was about Marat Balagula (non-practicing Jew), was college edu in Russia, starting as a small food coop and rose rapidly within the party to supply luxury black-market goods to the Soviet apparatchik. To get these supplies he had KGB issued passports and visas. His entire family immigrated to NYC in 1977 and quickly becomes an Elson protoge. After Elson's execution, Balagula rapidly converts the gang into a "Organizatsiya" with structure and plans. He creates a vertically integrated gasoline distributorship and gas stations syndicate. His org embezzled the Fed and State excise and road taxes collected at the pump, amounting to $8billion in 1985 p48. Finally the Feds got him for credit card fraud in 1989 and 18 years prison for tax evasion.

Chap4 "Operation Red Daisy," p69-95 was about the development of NYC Russian mafiya with strong ties back to Eastern Europe and former USSR.

Chap5 "Red Tide," p97-117 was about Monya Elson and other RU characters in his gang, success during 1990-3. DEA involvement p101; FBI involvement p107. Then new "Vor" came Vyascheslav Ivankov p108-117 with extortion and armed robberies and its expansion with Gulags in Siberia.

Chap6 "Invasion of America," p119-39 was about extends the Ivankov story into films. FBI involvement p131-2.

Chap7 "Tarzan," p141-169 was about expansion into the Miami area. Drug cocaine smuggling with Columbian Pablo Excobar.

Chap8 "Power Play," p173-201 where the mafiya are controlling professional hockey in North America, as well as controlling the import of East European hockey talent. Control and rigging of games in the NHL.

Chap9 "The Money Plane," p203-35 was about how Alexander Konanikhine evaded a KGB extortion to sign over his fortune while in Budapest, Hungary. Additional stories on how a daily Delta flight from JFK to Moscow carried up to a billion in US$100s per trip. Over 80 billion was transported to RU to prop-up RU Central Bank p207. The RU corruption was so pervasive with the RU Mafiya that no one dare hijack these shipments. Furthermore, "the federal Comptroller of the Currency office...stands to gain $99.96 from any $100 bill that leaves the country (US) and never returns p221" Republic National Bank NYC was infamous for laundering Russian money. In 1999, Republic was acquired by HSBC, London just when the Feds were closing on Republic on massive fraud p230.

Chap10 "The World's Most Dangerous Gangster," p237-261 was about Semion Mogilevich, a Economics educated Ukrainian-born Jew. The FBI, MI-5, and Israeli intelligence have books about him, masterminding the Bank of NY money laundering scheme p240. He even broadened his biz scope by coordinating with the JP Yakuza and IT Camorra crime syndicates. He controlled flow of heroin from the Asian Golden Triangle p243, and smuggled weapons from his home-base in Budapest.

The last Chap11 "Global Conquest," p263-88 concludes that the CIA knew how bad it was in Perestroika during the 1990s. They know that the oligarchs and billions of money needed conversion to US$ and was fleeing Russia and the establishment of a RU Mafiya in the States that would become more powerful than the Italian mafia. With more weapons, depots and networks all around the world. The Vor secret society was propagated by Yeltsin and both the Bush I and Clinton administrations unwittingly perpetuated the capital flight out of RU via US$2billion IMF p265 and US$7billion via Mogilevich and the Bank of NY p266. The Miami mafiya via Sergei Mikhailov rise and fall p272-276 who was based in Switzerland. Also in the Middle East, Israel took in 800,000 Russian Jews since the 70s. Israeli banking rules made it easy to launder large cash amounts with no reporting requirements p278.

If you want an entertaining, yet factual and visual introduction, watch movies such as "The Dark Knight (08)," "Eastern Promises (07)," "Babylon A.D. (08)," on the Russian mafiya and the HBO TV series, "The Sopranos (99-07)," on DVD as a modern look at the NYC Italian mafia. If you want to see about surviving a Gulag, RU language movies with EN subtitles, find a large rental place with a large foreign language film selection or a large RU grocery store for "Brat 2 (2K)" by director Balabanov, "Lost in Siberia (UK 92)" by director Mitta, "UK Title: Freedom is Paradise (90)" by director Bodrov, and "Little Odessa (1995)" by Amer director Gray.

I like this book for what it is which is an overview of a very complex and intriguing issue of Russian mobsters operating in the US. It is under 300 pages so it is not an all-encompassing work on the subject. If you want to get an idea of the subject without having to trudge through an exhaustive study, this is an excellent book that you can pull through in a day or two and get something out of. If you want a complete and thorough history read something else. I am kind of puzzled over anti-Semitic accusations though. The fact that many Russian mafia figures are of Jewish decent is only brought up in the context of Russian Jews being able to leave the Soviet Union because of their heritage. It is not really touched on in any other way. Oh well.

Having grown up very close to Brighton Beach It was interesting to read about some of the crimes and events that happened in the area.I thought the book was very interesting in terms of portraying the leading underworld figures and their rise to the top. Some of the information the author imparts is very disturbing, how far-reaching the mob is and the different things they are involved in. Having said that it's a very colorfull history of the Russian Mafia.