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RUSSIAN BIZNES IN THE NETHERLANDS Dina Siegel Willem Pompe Institute University of Utrecht May 2002 ARCHIEFEXEMPLAAR !!! NIET MEENEMEN !!! 53 RUSSIAN BIZNES IN THE NETHERLANDS Dina Siegel Contents Acknowledgements 6 Introduction 7 Dutch media 9 Police reports 10 Scientific reports 11 Present study 12 Chapter 1. Purposes of research and theoretical background 15 1.a The cultural approach 15 1.b Russian organised crime as a study of community 19 1.c 'Mafia', 'Russian Mafia' and other generalizations 21 1.d The research methods 23 Organised crime as empirical study 23 Field work among Russian-speakers in the Netherlands 24 Lies and gossip 26 Chapter 2. From Stenka Razin to Yaponchik — historical development of Russian organised crime 29 2.a History of Russian Organized crime 29 2.a.1 Crime and criminal in Russia in Tsarist times 31 2.a.2 Urban criminals 33 2.a.3 Organised Crime in the Soviet period and its perception in Soviet culture..... 34 Revolutionaries 34 Nomenklatura 37 Underground millionaires 38 Economic criminals — crime for survival 39 Vory v zakone (thieves in law) 41 2.a.4 New Russians and the development of organised crime in the post-Gorbachev period Nomenklatura and KGB 45 New Entrepreneurs 46 Vory v zakone 47 2.b The Present Situation 49 2.b.1 Numbers and size 50 2.b.2 Economic function 50 2.b.3 Structure and organization 51 2.b.4 Geographical location 51 1 2.b.5 Main criminal organizations, activities and crime bosses in the post-Socialist Russia (1990 — 2000) 52 Solntsevskaya 52 Podolskaya 53 Pushlcinskaya 53 21 st Century Association 53 Kurganskaya 54 Other criminal organizations from Moscow 54 Tambovskaya 55 Kazanskaya 55 Brigade of Haritonov 55 2.b.6 Multi-ethnic post-Soviet Mafia 56 Ethnicity as an old problem in the Soviet Union 56 Ethnic criminality in theoretical perspective 57 Stereotypes and racism 58 Ethnic violence 58 Theory and practice 60 Chechens 60 Georgians 61 Azeris 62 Armenians 62 Latvians... 63 Jews 63 Ethnic Russians 64 Ethnic groups from the former Soviet Union in the Netherlands 64 2.c Conclusions 65 Chapter 3. The Russians are coming! The Social life, coping strategies and the image of crime among Russian-speakers in the Netherlands 67 3.a Emigration from the former Soviet Union 68 3.b Immigrant communities in the West and Russian Mafia 71 Israel 71 USA 72 Germany 73 Cyprus 74 Belgium 74 3.c The Russian-speaking community in the Netherlands 75 3.c.1 Immigration and first steps in the Netherlands 77 Applying for legal status: a lottery 78 The JMW case 80 3.c.2 Is there a 'Russian' community in the Netherlands? 83 The case of a 'good immigrant' 85 2 3.c.3 Who is Russian among the Russian-speaking immigrants in the Netherlands? 85 The case of Vachtang 86 3.d The professional occupation 87 3.e The social and cultural life of immigrants and other Russian-speakers 90 3.f Facing up to the criminal image of Russians in the Netherlands 91 The case of Anna 94 Russian call-girls 96 'I lost myself, ' 96 The engineer who could not find job 97 3.g Russian-speaking businessmen in the Netherlands 100 3.g.1 The image of Russian-speaking businessmen 104 The Cosmetic case 106 The case of the 'Wonder-doctor 109 From 'Nes' to `Kalinka' — Russian food and beverage business (horeca) or a meeting place for the Russian Mafia 112 From 'We-East' to Natalia ltd. — International Russian business 114 3.g.2 How Dutch businessmen view their Russian-speaking partners 117 3.h Conclusions 119 Chapter 4. How the Russian-speakers view the Mafia and crime in the Netherlands 121 4.a Organised crime as a social problem among the Russian-speakers 121 4.a.1 What is crime and what is not crime? 124 4.b Illegal Russian-speakers'? 127 4.c What is the Russian Mafia according to the Russian-speakers in the Netherlands 131 4.c.1 On structure and organisation 131 4.c.2 On criminal culture 133 4.c.3 On involvement of immigrants in criminal groups 135 Chapter 5. Russian criminal activities in the Netherlands 137 5.a Reports on criminal activities of the Russian Mafia on the territory of the Netherlands 137 5.a.1 Conventional criminal operations 137 a.1 Trafficking of women and prostitution 138 a.2 Car—business 139 3 a.3 Drug — smuggling 141 a.4 Extortion 142 a.5 Smuggling of human beings 144 a.6 Smuggling of weapons 144 a.7 Smuggling of art 145 The Hardzhiev collection 146 a.8 Contract killings and liquidations 147 Tengis Marianoshvilli 148 Oleg Kononov 148 Mysterious Moldavian 149 Boris Fastovsky 150 Yuri Sentchugov 152 Victor Balulis 153 Vadim Rozenbaum 155 Alexei 157 5.a.2 Other murders 158 Murder in ROA house 158 Georgians against Armenians 159 Murder of a Dutch criminal 160 5.a.3 More complicated criminal operations 161 Criminal sophistication of Russian Mafia 162 Bank operations 164 Real estate 166 5.b Conclusions 167 Chapter 6. Transnational Russian Mafia 169 The Israeli connection 169 The Belgian connection 172 The German connection 174 The Cyprus connection 176 The American connection 177 Conclusion 177 Chapter 7. Russian organized crime in the Netherlands? Conclusions 179 Bibliography 184 4 Acknowledgements This study would never have been finished without the encouragement and advice of 'significant others'. First of all my informants — unfortunately I cannot mention their names, for obvious reasons — who played a crucial role in this research. I thank them all for their hospitality, time, valuable information and the analyses they shared with me, their warm advice and even warnings at the right moments. Many of them remain friends and I appreciate their friendship very much. I am also grateful to all the representatives of various police departments, financial institutions, religious and public organizations for their useful information and the interest they showed in this research. In the world of science I am especially grateful to Frank Bovenkerk for his unlimited patience and lively interest, involvement and concern about my safety during the fieldwork. His comments on theory and style have greatly improved this study. To Menachem Amir I owe my heartfelt gratitude for his advice and help. His knowledge, energy and encouragement were very important to me in the course of this research. Emanuel Marx read and commented on most of the study. Henk van de Bunt gave me his support and advice. I thank the WODC (Scientific Center for Research and Documentation) of the Ministry of Justice for subsidizing the research. And I am grateful to the members of the supervisory commission: G. Bruinsma, R. Landman, E. van de Berg, A. Frowein and 0. Etman for their remarks, practical advice and encouragement during the course of the study. Colleagues and friends were always there when I needed them. I am especially grateful to Hendrik Jan Schwencke, who improved this study and made it readible. 6 INTRODUCTION The first alarm bells on the 'Red Mafia' in the Netherlands went off in 1994 when the Year Report of the Dutch Secret Service issued a serious warning to Dutch businessmen about to venture into Russia and predicted the Red Mafia's arrival in the Netherlands (Jaarverslag BVD 1994). Three years earlier, in 1992, the body of a murdered Russian was found in Amsterdam. Allegedly he was the head of a gang of Russian extortionists operating in Belgium and the Netherlands'. Another early story about the Russian Mafia had come from The Hague in 1994 where the local underworld had kicked a Russian-speaking mob out of the Red Light district. When the Russians were leaving the scene they left a message behind: "We'll be back!" Later it appeared that although they had failed in The Hague, Russians did succeed in pushing out local criminals from other red light districts, especially in the south of the country. With the publication of the BVD report a first official message was formulated: the Russian Mafia is operating in the Netherlands and presents a threat to the Dutch economy and democracy2. What was the basis of this statement? First of all: official information from other countries, such as the United States, Germany, England, France and Israel, which confirmed that there was a potential threat of activities by the Russian Mafia outside the former Soviet Union in general, and in countries of Western Europe in particular. The sources of information were U.S. police investigations and criminological reports (cf. Finckenauer & Waring, 1997) referring to activities of Russian-speaking criminals in the United States. There were also reports from the French authorities on extremely rich Russians who were buying the most luxurious property on the French Riviera. Similar reports came from Tel-Aviv, Vienna, Berlin and Antwerp. The international media reported that the transnational Russian Mafia operated not only in Europe and the United States. Latin America, Australia and Africa were confronted more and more often with the new Russian criminal organizations and their ways of operation. Thus, a branch of the Russian Mafia was reported to be active in Colombia and Ecuador. Russian criminal organizations exported drugs from Ecuador to Europe, according to an Ecuadorian intelligence report. Profits were made from drugs, but also from kidnapping and used to fund arms-running activities 3. There were also reports on the connection between the Russian Mafia and Colombian drug traffickere. According to the Colombian police, the Cali cartel had been supplying cocaine to Russia and was connected to the Solntsevskaya criminal organization5. The media reported that Russian criminals were also forming alliances with Colombian criminal organizations in an attempt to widen their drug trafficking networks, especially for the marketing of heroine and cocaine in Europe, and sales of high-tech weapons For more details about the liquidation of Tangis Mariashvilli, see chapter 5.