Talk:Russian mafia

Added Info
I added a bunch of valid information that should help grow this article and hopefully keep making the article better, I'm really just trying to improve the article with better information because the article seems all over the place so I'm hoping the information I added can help more towards the article growth. I hope what I added can help that. — Preceding unsigned comment added by KingRice27 (talk • contribs) 00:13, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

Nonsense
i am sorry- as much as i like wikipedia, this article is absolute nonsense, i know more then most people do about the russian mob- and i am not trying to brag, it is just a matter of fact, this article is absolute tom foolery, nonsense and quite misleading! if you want to read an accurate book about the russian mafia- any of alexander litvinenko's books will do. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.166.104.26 (talk) 04:22, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Then change it and source it. I thought I'd manage to clean and source up the mess it was before but improvements are always welcome. But Litvinenko is quite the contreversial figure, and Wikipedia needs agreeable sources. Nicknackrussian (talk) 20:02, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

any article on the russia mafia that doesn't mention the term 'krysha' is woefully uninformed, especially if trying to connect it to business and politics. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.67.75.112 (talk) 18:23, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

It does have a long-time reputation as one of the toughest and most dangerous criminal networks in the modern world. 192.121.232.253 (talk) 09:22, 3 February 2017 (UTC)

Links to Icelandic outvasion
There are 2 sources. One is in Russian. The other specifies that the information in the newspaper article (in the Guardian) about Russian mafia connections are "unsubstantiated", which could not be considered verifiable information. This part of the article should be removed as it is based on rumors being put forth in encyclopedia form. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Johndoe187 (talk • contribs) 17:40, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
 * I've edited this section to improve its tone, which might address some of these issues. The question is not so much whether the matter is substantiated, but that fairly reputable reliable sources (national media such as The Guardian) report on the topic. It's much the same as how a hoax may be non-encyclopedic but the hoax as an event may be covered if discussed in reliable sources. FT2 (Talk 03:22, 20 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Sources such as The Guardian are not reliable, particularly concerning information about Russia. Sorry, but this needs pointing out. psic88 20:15, 14 June 2016 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Psic88 (talk • contribs)

Fan page
This article reads like a fan page. It needs major cleanup to make it more encyclopedic. —Preceding unsigned comment added by UDFy-38135539 (talk • contribs) 09:07, 26 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Agreed. Niteshift36 (talk) 18:45, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

"Russian"
Give me a break. 90% Jewish. Also the Armenians are a separate gang. This article needs serious work-I don't have the time. 72.209.63.226 (talk) 17:10, 1 December 2010 (UTC)
 * "Russian" also means "of the former territory of the Russian Empire", "Rossiyskiy". Not only "of the Russian ethnicity". --Methylcarbinol (talk) 12:50, 12 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Most members are of pure Russian descent. I doubt it's 90% Russian Jews, but perhaps that population fits in somewhere. About the Armenians being a seperate gang, you're probably thinking of Armenian Power.  Tom  US  A   20:22, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

This page gets better, then worse, then better, then worse again
And right now it's pretty shit to be honest. Not very encyclopedic at all. Needs MAJOR reworking. The majority of the stuff on this page seems to be based on speculation by the writers themselves. Also not a very good understanding displayed of the various ethnic components to the organised crime (Slavic, Caucasian, Jewish, etc.) and no mention at all mentioned of the involvement of organised crime with politics. I'm doing my dessertation on this so I can rework this later, unless someone wanna save me the time. 91.85.169.34 (talk) 17:09, 11 March 2011 (UTC)


 * It looks a lot better now with ethnic backgrounds and different groups within the Russian mafia. I've ehard of their affiliation with politicians, but it's not official to Wikipedia unless you have a WP:Source.  Tom  US  A   20:24, 15 August 2011 (UTC)
 * It has never been good enough to stand( Ukrained2012 (talk) 15:03, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

Long and detailed infobox — let's consider shrinking it
I noticed that the infobox in the article is extremely long and detailed, and most of the info in it is unsourced. Let's remember that one of the purposes of the infobox is to help the reader find key information at first glance, and should contained just a few info. (WP:IBX). I'll consider erasing the info soon. ComputerJA (talk) 18:18, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
 * I strongly support that. Niteshift36 (talk) 19:54, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks. What do you think should be kept? I guess deciding on what to erase would make everything harder. :) ComputerJA (talk) 03:09, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Third Empire
Could the Mafia be considered an empire since its a global influence. The Russian Empire was in green, the Soviet Empire was in red and the Russian Mafia could be called the "Criminal Empire" in which its states are in black. So can its oppression be considered the third regime of Russia? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.206.76.42 (talk) 13:05, 8 May 2012 (UTC)
 * No. General Electric, Boeing and BP Oil have global influence too, but they aren't empires. Niteshift36 (talk) 14:04, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

Okay not an empire, but can they be put under certain colors in the case of the mafia its black because they are working in the black market?
 * Put what in color where? Please be specific. Niteshift36 (talk) 12:21, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

I superficially said put the color black for the mafia just as red was for the communist before it and green for imperialist before that as depicted in the portraitist in the articles of the Soviet Empire and the Russian Empire.
 * Again, be specific. Portraitist? What? Do you mean a map? You're not making sense. Niteshift36 (talk) 12:39, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

Yes I mean a map. The nations in pitch black have complete influence of the mafia and the ones in shaded black have partial influence of the mafia. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.206.76.42 (talk) 04:36, 11 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Since there are no countries "completely under the influence" of the Russian Mafia, this is a moot discussion. Even russia isn't completely under their influence. Niteshift36 (talk) 13:48, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

But they are reports that they are causing a virtual tidal wave of crime. That means they are all over Europe but some places more then others. Particularly in Eastern Europe they are around pretty much every corner. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.206.76.42 (talk) 04:37, 12 May 2012 (UTC) Being present and causing crime doesn't equate to "completely under the influence". No, I'm not buying into this. Maybe someone else will. Niteshift36 (talk) 05:19, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

Structure and composition
I've cleaned up most of the article, but my work have been all about the Russian Mafia's history and notable groups. I haven't done other important topics about it, like the groups' organizational structure and how they operate. Most of that can be found here and here. My interest has kind of dwindled in the past few days, so I'm probably not gonna get to them. If anyone else is interested, he or she may edit the article to include this kind of stuff. And don't forget to cite sources correctly! =) — Enter Movie (talk) 07:01, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

Ethnicity
The Russian mafia has a huge Jewish contingent so I added that to the ethnicity box. 25:15, 12 April 2013 (UST) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 138.210.0.82 (talk)


 * In US probably... In Russia it has not. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.87.135.143 (talk) 09:59, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

One part of this article that really can be improved would be to disambiguate what "ethnic" means in the phrase " people with ethnic ties". This is a pretty weird bit of text suggesting that "ethnic" is somehow exotic and different from non-ethnic people. The converse "non-ethnic" is meaningless on the face of the meaning of the word "ethnic" in the context of this article, which makes the categorization "ethnic" equally meaningless. That Jewish people (disclosure: I am Jewish) people are included in this organized crime gang seems to be neutral and encyclopedic to me since I have checked some of the citations given by other editors and I see no more "ethnic" reference to "Jewish people" than to any other kind of member of organized crime in this geographic region. It still makes no sense to talk in this article's context about "people with ethnic ties" given that every human alive is a member of some "ethnic group" and it is not even slightly clear in this article about what "ethnicity" is meant in the text. nor is it clear that "ethnic ties" is neutral rather than racist. I do assume good faith, since "ethnic ties" can mean things suitable for an encyclopedia, but since "ethnic" has so many emotional connotations it should be well clarified before it can be more informative than disruptive with respect to the goal of having the article help people understand the subject matter. 67.84.162.108 (talk) 02:32, 30 April 2015 (UTC)

Hopeless BS
Ladies and gentlemen, I'm known as a very polite user, but this... text got me) It's simply helpless. Constantly straying away from title and respective term, it is a sorry compilation of various cattle feces uploaded and called "Russian mafia" on the web. As for sources, the U.S. government sources, they are as good as following:

Translated from: Dictionary: Prison, Camp, Blotnoi, Jargon (Speech and Graphic Portraits of Soviet Prisons) Authors-compilers: Dantsik Sergeyevich Baldaev, Vladimir Kuz'mich Belko, and Igor Mikhailovich Isupov. (Occupation of authors unknown.)

Oh, and there's the most hilarious "the Jewish branch of the Russian mafia" in both the article and the sources)))

Fast delete as WP:Synthesis? Ukrained2012 (talk) 03:19, 14 August 2013 (UTC)
 * NeilN, where are your questions? Ukrained2012 (talk) 10:43, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

Anticipating further requests, I wanted to make it clear that disattributions and unwarranted, ambiguously worded generalizations are the main, and grave, flaws of the article. These are tagged by me, usually by and. Everyone is encouraged to find and fill in more specific and/or appropriate templates. Not mention to fix the article) ... which I believe is doomed under current title and scope anyway. Happy edits, Ukrained2012 (talk) 10:59, 15 August 2013 (UTC)
 * To start with, please explain what clarifications you require for these:


 * However, the existence of such groups has been debatable
 * The previous sentence lists undoubtfully existing groups of the post-Soviet society) Ukrained2012 (talk) 15:01, 18 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Vladimir Lenin attempted to wipe them out after being robbed by a gang of highwaymen
 * Please reference or link to one of a whole WP cat of articles on Lenin. And, IMH knowledge, Bolsheviks were initially linient to criminals as "socially related element", which is stated in many Russian writings and documentaries on org. crime. Ukrained2012 (talk) 15:01, 18 August 2013 (UTC)
 * In 2009, FBI agents in Moscow targeted
 * "targeted" like how? "Arrested", "investigated", "surveilled", urinated on their doorsteps? I could easily walk past such a weasel word in many articles, but not in this one, with such a controversial, cliche title. Ukrained2012 (talk) 15:01, 18 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Within the post-Soviet criminal world there exist a multitude of strong ethnic criminal gangs who often cooperate with each other regardless of ethnic origin
 * It is unclear 1) what makes them ethnically strong this way; 2) how is it relevant, unique or notable in a worldwide context? Ukrained2012 (talk) 15:01, 18 August 2013 (UTC)


 * It seems like you're asking for more details. The wording is not confusing to general readers.

It is not confusing, it is extremely confusing( As with those "debatable" groups above. Ukrained2012 (talk) 15:01, 18 August 2013 (UTC)


 * Also, copied from my talk page, "You'll note that there's no who? in Sicilian Mafia, just alternate names. Like in Shakers. Or French Foreign Legion. Or Ku Klux Klan. Or..." It's a term used by English speakers to describe an organization. -- Neil N   talk to me  14:26, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

The article neither claims nor nearly proves that some "Russian mafia" is an organization of any noticeable unity or uniformity. As many users noted before, this article is very loose compilation of facts or claims on the very different criminal groups originating from the former Soviet Union. In other words, it is subjectless and mistitled for now. Happy edits, Ukrained2012 (talk) 15:01, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

Infobox
Sorry about the mass-revert, but the recent changes to the infobox replaced some referenced information with conflicting unreferenced information, and added a lot of unreferenced claims that sounded a bit much. -- Beland (talk) 23:57, 19 December 2014 (UTC)

Watch out for self-insert vandalism
For whatever reason, a specific individual by the name of Egor/Evgueny Zakharov (username Egorrzakharov) has been repeatedly inserting himself into the article, under the "2001-present" heading. Just be on the lookout for his edits - as far as I can tell, he has not sockpuppeted or removed any other content, just put himself in multiple times. Please remove it when it shows up, since he does not appear to be a Russian mafioso of any particular renown.

In popular culture
Any reason why this unsourced trivia section should not be deleted? --Neil N  talk to me 17:57, 28 March 2015 (UTC)

3mio members in Russia?
That's 2% of the population, or 3% excluding young and elderly - one in 30 people involved in organized crime? As with most criminals around the world, almost all of them would likely be male, making it up to 1 in 15ish for Russian normal age men? Can someone get a second source for this number? It seems ridiculously high, even though I realize we are talking about 6000 different criminal groups, not one bloc. Morgengave (talk) 18:44, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

3 million members yes
I know it's a number hard to swallow, statistically, but his source isn't the only one that came up with that number and there are other sources to prove it. Also, when you think of a Russian mafia, we're talking about a loose and massive network involved in all types of organized crime. Piracy, for example, something that all of us have done at least once in our lives, can be a considered a form of organized crime, especially depending on how you utilize it. Pirating video games and movies, or downloading them off the internet, is the lowest form, kind of like how possession of cocaine is not a crime even though you are not responsible for harvesting, producing or distributing the coke and is still punishable by a 250,000 dollar fine by the FBI in case you get caught, not to mention whenever you pirate it's breaking an international law that is enforced by various policing organizations, from Europol to Interpol and beyond. Then you have higher forms where there are entire factories propping up millions of discs a year. Policing organizations go after the millions of discs a year factory instead of the average joe who buys the discs like you or me, since they are most likely financed by organized crime or the mafia, since that's the only place you can get that kind of money if you wanted to start an operation that big(well not really, but 80 percent of the time nowadays you'd still go to the mafia like in the olden days and it doesn't matter where you are, at least the mafia will help you cover your tracks in case you're just rich and don't know what to do with your money and decide to open up a counterfeiting factory yourself, or they'll kidnap you and make you sign everything you have over to them, depending on your standing with them). So technically the buyer is breaking a law, the dealer(middleman) is breaking a law, the distributer is breaking the law and the manufacturer is breaking a law, but only the manufacturer is priority number 1, since the distributer won't have anywhere to get his coke or discs or counterfeit money if the manufacturer isn't around to produce, and the dealer and buyer have the same fates. But they always start off with the lowest echelons since they are the easiest to uncover, since the manufacturers are shrouded in secrecy since the hierarchy is the steps they take to cover their tracks, but the policing organization never wants to punish the buyer or the dealer, honestly lol.. Sometimes, maybe, but most of the time they let them go either scott free or with a minor charge. When a dealer is arrested and jailed for a few months, he loses most of his clientele and his business. Getting it back is a pain, so the government thinks this will help get him to do something else, or by the time he is getting his old connections back, they can watch who he is talking to and then continue to make a move on them, and the cycle keeps going until they reach the manufacturer. So a Russian mafia is basically your entire hierarchy from manufacturer to dealer, and I'm not talking about illegal substances and objects too. The Russian mafia is also big on fraud, so anybody that has a business can be an associate or even 'member' of the mafia, since the deeper you get with them, the deeper you get with them. First you're just paying protection rackets, next their using your butcher shop to launder money by investing and reinvesting and then hiding drugs inside your meat, and finally cutting bodies up inside your butcher shop, and believe me, when all of this is happening, you're going to want to make some extra money, especially when you see the opportunity you have as an associate of a mafia and how the police doesn't seem to come around. So 1 in 30 seems reasonable, especially in a culture like Russia's. Believe me, Russia is a culture like Macedonia, I'm Macedonian and I know for a fact that every village, let alone town or city, is plagued with a couple people involved in organized crime, at LEAST. You end up with tens of thousands of people in a country of 2 million. Same with Albania, in Vlore, a town of 125,000 people, it is expected that 12,500 people are involved in drug trafficking or the details surrounding that, for some people it's the way they make their living and they don't see anything wrong with it, ok maybe a little but a necessity. Same with people working coke fields in Bolivia and Colombia and Afghans working opium fields(it's estimated that around 4 million Afghans work the poppy fields, so to them opium production is like potato farming to you and me). If that isn't enough to convince you, look at the fact that the Russian mafia controls 40 percent of Russia's economy along with 50,000 companies, and launders 250 billion dollars a year. 40 percent of Russia's economy is not 1 in 30, but 1 in 2.5. 1 in 30 people is a very, very reasonable estimate, honestly. If that still isn't enough to convince you, look at the fact that after Stalin died, over 8 million people were released from Gulags, and what better place to make future business contacts for a criminal than a prison lol? 8 million people released so they can train millions more over a period of the next 60 years how to become better criminals. Makes sense. I'm going to add the 3 million people thing again, with more references this time. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.101.29.11 (talk) 06:23, 18 October 2015 (UTC)


 * What a load of bollocks. Russia is nothing like Albania or Macedonia, that's for sure 46.216.172.2 (talk) 18:39, 14 September 2017 (UTC)

Buried edits
Pls check this. I can't get Google books where I am and had to revert an edit after those. Thanks. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 09:13, 17 November 2015 (UTC)

1:dead link, 2:related video
1: Reference 24 ("TWO RUSSIAN ORGANIZED CRIME FIGURES CHARGED IN PLOT TO MURDER BUSINESSMEN". United States Attorney's Office. March 24, 2006. Retrieved July 20, 2012.) seems to be a dead link.

2: Related video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QojUhMIzQ-w

(80.98.114.70 (talk) 02:11, 3 January 2016 (UTC)).

Wiki Education assignment: Composition I - Writing Wikipedia, section 2
— Assignment last updated by DarthVetter (talk) 17:05, 13 October 2022 (UTC)

Ethnicity section - delete inappropriate mis-use
Jews? in the ethnicity section? Judaism is the RELIGION, not the ethnicity - the result of WWII well and truly finished that sort of 'argument'  once and for all. 120.18.235.91 (talk) 17:25, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

Sergei Kobozev
Allegedly murdered by Russian mafia. Xx236 (talk) 06:31, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

anonymous
I'm reading a lot of nonsense about ethnicities in the Russian mafia! 95% of the Russian mafia are Russians, Armenians and Georgians, the other 5% is so small that it is insignificant, all names, surnames and origin are from the Caucasian peoples, I also read that someone said that the Armenians are a different gang They are very wrong! The Armenians have several criminal organizations but their presence in the Russian mafia is gigantic! The "Armenian Power" as someone here mentioned is a different criminal organization in the United States, that is not the "Armenian mafia", The real Armenian mafia is the same as the Russian one, they are from the "Bratva" just like the Russians, you just have to see the number of "Vor" Armenians there are to know it, do not confuse and mix criminal organizations, the presence of Armenians and Georgians in the "Bratva" is much higher than that of Russians and other ethnicities, so please do not manipulate information! 83.50.250.183 (talk) 10:58, 17 March 2024 (UTC)