THEY trade in everything from stolen art to nuclear technology and leave rivals riddled with bullets in the streets of Moscow.
Now the worst thugs in the Russian Mafia have blasted their way to the top of the global organised crime league.
Moscow’s Solntsevskaya Bratva, known as the Brotherhood, have just been named the worst criminal gang [...]

read more....

The Mafia are ingeniously silver-plating their glimmering stash of South Africa’s stolen gold. The disguise has allowed them to launder money in Swiss bank accounts. Investigations finger top Swiss Bank — UBS, and its subsidiary Metalor, who is the proven recipient of the ‘odd gold’. So shouldn’t Metalor have informed the authorities? Technically they’ve so [...]

read more....

In McMafia, Misha Glenny draws the dark map that lies on the other side of Tom Friedman’s bright flat world. That connected globe not only brings software coders and supply-chain outsourcers closer together; it’s also opened the gates to a criminal network of unsettling vastness, complexity, and efficiency that represents a fifth of the earth’s [...]

read more....

When the dust settled following a bus explosion in Togliatti, Russia, on Oct. 31, few explanations emerged as to who was responsible for the attack, which killed eight people and injured at least 50. Although terrorism is a possibility, two leading theories place the blame on Russian organized crime.
One such theory suggests that a person [...]

read more....

The Sopranos, an acclaimed television drama about a fictional Italian-American mobster, is headed for its last season finale after six years of startling success. But what of the real-world mafias that control illicit trade and terrorize innocent victims from Moscow to Mexico City? This week’s Foreign Policy Magazine List shows that when it comes to [...]

read more....