Russian Mafia

One of the most notorious organized crime group in the modern world is the Russian Mafia aka Bratva which is a slang term for "brotherhood." The fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 had seen the powerful emergence of diverse crime syndicates in Russia. These crime groups became influential in various criminal activities around the world most especially in the Western world. It was during communist Russia when these thieves in law took control of the black market with the help of corrupt Soviet officials in supplying the products to the ordinary Soviet consumer.

In my opinion, the fall of communism became a double edged sword for modern Russia, it was great that the country is more open and tolerant to different ideologies but it opened doors to criminal activities when in the early 90's most former government workers turned to crime and some others moved overseas and extended the activities of the Russian Mafia into new places where they re-located. Corruption and poverty pushed a lot of poor Russians to join these syndicates. The early members also consisted of former KGB agents, sportsmen and veterans of the Afghan war and the Chechen wars. They believe that being part of these crime groups would be easy money.

The group is so huge, consisting of individual gangs which carry out different tasks within Russia and around the world. Wow, to name the criminal activities they do will take up space, though here are some of them: arms trafficking, arson, art theftt, auto theft, bank fraud, blackmail, child pornography, contract killing, credit card fraud, cyberterrorism, prostitution, witness intimidation, etc. and the list goes on and on. Members are mostly Russians and those from former USSR states including Iranians and Tajiks. Membership is said to 100,000 to 500,000 worldwide.

Photo Credit: Russian Mafia Tattoo
Photographer: Unknown