Re: The Storm Troopers are getting bolder and bolder...
Yeah... though not so much as to run after the REALLY bad guys:
Rise of the Red Mafia
By Dale Hurd
Senior Reporter
CBN.com - CBN News -- Many were shocked a few years ago when Russian president Boris Yeltsin called his own nation a "superpower of crime." But he knew then what many others know now: The Russian Mafia has infiltrated and compromised whole sections of the Russian government. From there, it's begun to spread its tentacles around the world, and possibly...into your town.
In a town in Siberia, Russian police swoop in to rescue a little boy before his grandmother can sell him to the mob. Police say the boy was going to be killed so that his organs could be harvested and sold. The Russian Mafia runs a lucrative organ-harvesting racket.
But it does much more than that. There are reports that it was the Russian mob that hacked into Microsoft's corporate website last month and looked at proprietary code worth a fortune. According to the report, authorities traced the hacking operation back to a phone line in St. Petersburg.
Even the Kremlin admits that almost half of the entire Russian economy is now under mob control. And four out of five Russian businesses pay as much as 20 percent of their profits in protection money to mobsters.
"These are the people who (have) now found allies at the very top of the Russian power structure, with ministers and mayors," says analyst Ariel Cohen, of the Heritage Foundation. "It goes all the way to the top. The business deals in which the equity is shared between the godfathers and the government officials. That's what makes it really bad and really scary because this is a merger of organized crime and the state."
"This organized crime, that is merging with the government in Russia, is influencing the court system, is influencing law enforcement, has law enforcement deeply involved in illegal activities and that is a real threat in Russia today," continues Cohen.
It is also a threat in the United States. Russian mobsters funnel their money through American banks. They set up fake companies and engage in stock fraud. It has been alleged that they consort with some of the brightest Russian stars in the National Hockey League, a charge the league denies. The mob has already pulled off the biggest jewelry heist, insurance and Medicare frauds in U.S. history. It successfully counterfeited the new 100-dollar Supernote in about a week.
"Russian organized crime has created a global criminal colossus," remarks Robert Friedman.
Friedman, the author of Red Mafiya: How the Russian Mob Has Invaded America, says the Red Mafia in America began during the Cold War in a quiet Brooklyn neighborhood on the shores of Long Island. Brighton Beach. American officials had been pressuring the Soviets to release Jews and dissidents from prisons.
"(Yuri) Andropov, who was then head of the KGB, said fine, you want Jews?" explains Friedman. "He went to the gulag. There were Jewish criminals, there were others. He said you're all Jews today and he sent them to Brighton Beach where they began to operate. That's the ground zero of Russian organized crime. "
Friedman, who had a contract taken out on his life, calls the Russian mobster a new breed of crook. Smarter, more sophisticated. They view the U.S. as a kind of Disneyland for crime.
"When a Russian comes to the United States, involved with organized crime, he's generally speaking six or seven languages," says Friedman. "He knows people, probably, in 15 or 20 countries. He has friends in these countries that know how the banking system works, how the police system works, how the criminal justice system works in all these countries where he has criminal connections. Russians involved in organized crime often have advanced degrees. You find some of the leadership with Ph.D.'s in mathematics, chemistry, engineering, and computer science. They're a veritable academy of higher education and higher criminal learning."
The FBI says what it calls Eurasian Organized Crime, which includes persons from Russia, Eastern Europe and former Soviet states, is operating in about 33 FBI jurisdictions. The biggest areas for criminal activity are not surprising: New York, Newark, Philadelphia, Miami, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Chicago. But they're also in Houston, Seattle, Denver and the nation's heartland. The mobsters engage in...
"(They engage in) money laundering, health insurance fraud, health care fraud, other insurance fraud, prostitution, drug trafficking, auto theft and stock fraud," notes Fred Bennett.
Bennett is the Chief of the FBI's Eurasian Organized Crime Unit. He agrees that Russian mobsters see the United States as the "land of opportunity."
"They view our multi-jurisdictional law enforcement program in general as being a weakness that they can exploit," says Bennett.
The Russian mob has also moved aggressively into Israel, selling arms to Palestinians, among other things. Israeli officials recently admitted that the Russian mob is now a grave security threat there. Russian mobsters have also formed an unholy alliance with Colombian drug lords, selling them Russian military equipment.
"What are the Colombians flying these days?" questions Cohen. "Antonov transports, medium range airplanes, turbo props and Russian helicopters."
The Russian mob even tried to sell the Colombians a Russian Navy Sub, complete with a naval officer and crew, to be used for drug trafficking into North American waters, but the plan was thwarted. Then the Russians tried to help the Colombians build a submarine in the mountains, 8,500 feet above sea level, but authorities discovered it.
"One of the major threats of Russian organized crime is that they have access to Russian military facilities and Russian scientific facilities that are crumbling," says Friedman. "(This is) where scientists are poorly paid, where guards are poorly paid and one of the things that the American intelligence establishment is worried about, and rightfully so, is that the Russian organized crime could possibly get a pathogen, like a small pox virus, easily concealable and sell it to a terrorists or a rogue state."
The FBI successfully broke the back of the Sicilian mob, but it took decades. The Russian mob, with its allies in the Russian Government, will be a very tough operation to crack. One official said that the Russians didn't come here to enjoy the American Dream, but to steal it.
christianity.com |
