
How organised crime took over Russia - charlysl
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/mar/23/how-organised-crime-took-over-russia-vory-super-mafia
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pdm55
Bill Browder tells the story of his financial dealings in Russia in “Red
Notice”. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, Browder saw an opportunity to
buy stakes in Russian firms in the 1990s. Then, state ownership of companies
was being portioned out to workers in the form of shares. Needing cash for
daily living, the workers were on-selling their shares at impromptu auctions
at a fraction of their true value. Browder took advantage of this and spent
millions, on behalf of wealthy western investors, buying shares whose true
value was in the billions. Criminals or state officials then came after the
shares that he had acquired. To get at Browder, their methods included
imprisoning and killing his auditor friend, Sergei Magnitsky. The scheme to
get Browder’s clients’ money included the illegal transfer of ownership of a
Browder company to themselves, have it declare a loss and get a multi-million
dollar tax refund. The US and the UK have recently passed Magnitsky Acts aimed
at restricting the travel of those directly involved in the detention and
murder of Sergei Magnitsky.

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charlysl
In Shalamov's "Kolyma Tales" there are some fascinating accounts of how the
criminal underworld operated in the Soviet era, and its brutal contact with
the political prisoners in the Gulag. 'On Tick' is particularly memorable.

The wikipedia page "Thief in law" is very interesting and a serious time sink
if it prompts you to read more about all these characters, and so is
[https://en.crimerussia.com/](https://en.crimerussia.com/)

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mtreis86
"The Gulag Archipelago" is another good book on the Soviet era prison system.

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DyslexicAtheist
anyone interested in the how the Mafia has gone global like any other
multinational I highly recommend McMafia (the book not the Netflix series)
[https://www.amazon.com/McMafia-Journey-Through-Criminal-
Unde...](https://www.amazon.com/McMafia-Journey-Through-Criminal-
Underworld/dp/1400095123)

The Guardian writes

 _" The effects of the Russian organised crime boom have been experienced as
far afield as Tel Aviv and New York, and all parts of Europe. In this reading,
the East is little more than an opportunistic supplier to the West's
insatiable demand. 'Organised crime is such a rewarding industry,' writes
Glenny, ' ... because ordinary Western Europeans spend an ever burgeoning
amount of their spare time and money sleeping with prostitutes; smoking
untaxed cigarettes; sticking €50 notes up their noses; employing illegal
untaxed immigrant labour on subsistence wages; admiring ivory and sitting on
teak; or purchasing the liver and kidneys of the desperately poor in the
developing world.'"_

[https://www.theguardian.com/books/2008/apr/06/society](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2008/apr/06/society)

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DyslexicAtheist
PS: the Netflix series wraps the topic into a plot/story and is nothing like
the book. Although I did like the Netflix production, the fact that every
scene was shot in Croatia (mostly Zagreb) was annoying to my eyes and made it
feel like they didn't care too much about production details (whether the
story played out in Nice, Marseille, Warsaw ... it felt annoying to me because
the architecture between cities (if you know them) are very different. It just
didn't seem to fit. But don't let that take you off. If you liked Sopranos,
Gomorrah you will enjoy this (and probably forgive Hollywood's ignorance
toward locations within Europe). :-)

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paulie_a
I recommend the books: McMafia and the Red Mafia.

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qaq
The ruling elite in russia a literally gangsters.

