Someone please help: Russian Mafia info needed (Federal Way: limo, home)

[Rooter48]

Every immigrants group has a criminal element and if criminals maintain ties with crooks in the old country I suppose they could be organized crime, i.e., mafia. Russians have a long tradition of gaming the Soviet system so some arrive with a certain lack of respect for legal boundaries and what is organized crime to us is just a business opportunity to them.

I would suspect that the amount of criminality is directly related to the size of the community. One way to measure the size of the immigrant community is to examine school district statistics as to the number of students who have English as a second language.

Remember, "organized crime" 1) provides a prohibited good or service, 2) is self perpetuating, and 3) relies on a certain level of official corruption.

[texastrigirl]

My burning question is WHY do you need Russian Mafia information??

[AK 47u]

Originally Posted by texastrigirl

My burning question is WHY do you need Russian Mafia information??

It's called wondering about the kind of stuff that happens in the metro are where you live.

[Ira500]

There's probably some Russian mafia activity in the Seattle area but it doesn't get a lot of media attention. It's not Brighton Beach.

[bedrock]

Given, the Russian mob is nothing next to Chicago's crime families (yes they are real), but they do kill people.

Sorry to darken the "light" tone of a thread about organized crime, but the Russian mafia is much more brutal and and dangerous that the Italian mafia.
The feds haven't been able to infilitrate their organization as they have with the Italians and the Russian Vory v Zakone don't have the same code of conduct that limits to some degree the violence of the the Italians and Irish crime families.

Not people to be taken lightly-

[texastrigirl]

Not taking it lightly...I had several American friends live and work in Moscow and Uzbekistan in the mid-90's and they had to have bodyguards with them at all times when they were outside of work. They said the Mafia ran Russia at that time and maybe it still does. It's just not something I had seen in the news here and honestly, it's a pretty odd post for City Data!

[Destructoman!]

Interesting topic. Can't say I know too much about it. I do know however that the Seattle and the pacific northwest in general used to be a place the federal witness protection program would send East Coast and Midwestern mobsters who turned witness and ratted on other members of their crime families. Henry Hill, the guy who the film "Goodfellas" lived in Seattle for a while. Makes sense when you think about it, the northwest used to be even more so remote than it is now, and certainly far away enough from the hubs of organized crime.

[AK 47u]

Originally Posted by Destructoman!

Interesting topic. Can't say I know too much about it. I do know however that the Seattle and the pacific northwest in general used to be a place the federal witness protection program would send East Coast and Midwestern mobsters who turned witness and ratted on other members of their crime families. Henry Hill, the guy who the film "Goodfellas" lived in Seattle for a while. Makes sense when you think about it, the northwest used to be even more so remote than it is now, and certainly far away enough from the hubs of organized crime.

Yes, I definitely understand that. Anyone have crime stats about how much crime the Russian Mafia commits in the U.S yearly?

[Beenaroundabit]

You can make a case that criminal activity in any group - religious, ethnic, political, whatever - is "organized crime". But that doesn't mean that it is in the sense of The Godfather. Or that you should be especially worried about it. Most "organized crime" is simply a label added to criminal activity so that a prosecutor or Assist. U.S. Attorney can prosecute a case under more effective, expanded criminal statutes (expanded ones which happen to apply to "organized" crime, only).

That said, in 13 years as a cop, my interactions with real "organized crime" have been few and far between. So I doubt most average citizens will ever be affected by "organized crime" in the sense of fingers being amputated, people being outfitted with cement overshoes, or having interactions with guys named "Fat Tony" or "No-Nose Pete".

If you think about it, actual, honest-to-goodness, profit-making (a key) organized crime is almost always far enough below the radar to escape detection - which is part of the overall goal. A Russian person being killed or a Russian immigrant committing a crime does not necessarily constitute "Russian organized crime."

[dxenopoulos]

Kids would always have joke about it in high school. There were definitely the Russian kids who were labeled the "Russian mafia" and they'd get in legal trouble occasionally, no clue what their parents were up to but I think there is some sort of Russian organized crime in the Seattle area. I live in Bellevue.