This dynamic operates not only with the stick, but also the carrot, according to Galeotti. it's one in which the gangsters have come to realise that the state is the biggest game in town, therefore they need to stay within the lines that Putin sets." But if you do anything that looks like a challenge to the state, then we will treat you as enemies of the state', which is obviously a much more serious thing under an authoritarian like Putin. " 'you carry on your crimes and the police will carry on trying to catch you, fair enough. "The state doesn't control organised crime, but it clearly makes its views known," he said. Since his return to power, Vladimir Putin has signalled political opposition will not be tolerated. "But the Russians are the most international. "If one had to come up with some kind of league table of global mafias, the Italians are still the most powerful and the richest," he said. Part of what makes the vory distinct from other organised crime groups - like the mafia in Italy or the Yakuza in Japan - is their growing influence around the world.Īccording to Galeotti, their rise to prominence is a story of innovation in the way contemporary organised crime operates. "They can be very difficult to distinguish from ordinary Russian society." "The really serious vory wear suits and have a portfolio of interests from legitimate to totally criminal," Galeotti said. While there are still plenty who fit the stereotype, the reality for many of the vory - the Russian "super mafia" - is a very different, and far more modern, presentation.Īccording to Mark Galeotti, who has charted the rise of the vory in a new book, the members of one of the most powerful organised crime groups in the world are more likely to look just like an ordinary citizen. When asked to picture a Russian gangster, most people today probably conjure a cartoonish image of a tattooed hard man with the capacity for brutal violence.
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