Russian Organized Crime

American public university |

Russian Organized Crime: |

Post Soviet Union Economy |

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Natasha Harrison |

INTL300 |

8/26/2012 |

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How has organized crime in Russia affected the economy after the fall of the Soviet Union?

Criminal organizations have been in existence in Russia for hundreds of years, evolving over time and influenced by the status of the Soviet economy. Throughout time, Russian “mafias” have managed to infiltrate the economy and the government on a significantly higher level in which many other countries have failed. Their influence continues to spread throughout the country and elsewhere, modernizing itself as time progresses. After the fall of the Soviet Union, the economy was on a steady decline due to a number of factors. Corrupt government officials allowing access to government funding, banks tied to organized crime and engaging in illegal activity as well as monopolization of dominant markets such as restaurants and hotels have all contributed to the demise of the economy.

Russian organized crime has been around for over 400 years and has a growing estimate of 600,000 members dispersed among 9,000 criminal groups, controlling nearly 40% of the economy. When organized crime first originated in Russia, stealing and armed robbery were the primary modes of crime. Since then, the definition of crime has evolved and has been greatly influenced by the state of the economy. Due to the shortage of goods and services before the fall of the Soviet, criminals took advantage of this with the creation of the shadow economy and black market. A shadow economy is when legal goods are produced “off the books” and then sold illegally whereas the black market is the sale of illegal goods. Groups of individuals fluent in crime became known as “mafias”, which is how this terminology came about. As the shadow economy and black market flourished, Soviet natives networked in order to gain access, quickly increasing the crime rate. By 1960,...