Odessa or Odesa is the third most populous city and municipality in Ukraine and a major tourism center, seaport and transport hub located in the south-west of the country, on the northwestern shore of the Black Sea. The city is also the administrative center of the Odessa Raion and Odessa Oblast, as well a multiethnic cultural center. Odessa is sometimes called the "pearl of the Black Sea", the "South Capital", "The Humor Capital" and "Southern Palmyra".
Meyer Lansky, known as the "Mob's Accountant", was an American organized crime figure of Polish birth who, along with his associate Charles "Lucky" Luciano, was instrumental in the development of the National Crime Syndicate in the United States.
Russian organized crime or Russian mafia, otherwise known as Bratva, is a collective of various organized crime elements originating in the former Soviet Union. The acronym OPG is Organized Criminal Group, used to refer to any of the Russian mafia groups, sometimes modified with a specific name, e.g. Orekhovskaya OPG. Sometimes the initialism is translated and OCG is used.
A protection racket is a type of racket and a scheme of organised crime perpetrated by a potentially hazardous group, which guarantees protection outside the sanction of the law to another entity or individual from violence, ransacking, arson, vandalism, and other such threats, in exchange for the extorted payments in cash or kind. The perpetrators of the racket may protect vulnerable targets from other dangerous individuals and groups or may simply offer to refrain from themselves carrying out attacks on the targets, and usually both of these forms of protection are implied in the racket. In some instances, the potential threat to the target may be caused by the same group that offers to solve it in return for payment, but the protection money may ensure continued funding of the crime syndicate by the coerced party.
A thief in law, in the Soviet Union, the post-Soviet states, and respective diasporas abroad is a specifically granted formal and special status of "criminal authority", a professional criminal who enjoys an elite position among other notified mobsters within the organized crime and correctional facility environments and employs informal authority over its lower-status members.
David Berman was a Jewish-American organized crime figure active in Iowa City, New York City, Minneapolis, and the Las Vegas strip. Berman was one of the pioneers of casino gambling in Las Vegas, where he was a partner with fellow Jewish mobster Bugsy Siegel at the Flamingo Hotel. Unlike most other mobsters of his generation, Berman died in 1957 following surgery.
The Chechen mafia is one of the largest ethnic organized crime groups operating in the former Soviet Union next to established Russian mafia groups.
Michael V. E. "Misha" Glenny is a British journalist and broadcaster, specialising in southeast Europe, global organised crime, and cybersecurity. He is multilingual. He is also the writer and producer of the BBC Radio 4 series, How to Invent a Country.
The New Orleans crime family was an Italian-American Mafia crime family based in the city of New Orleans. The family had a history of criminal activity dating back to the late nineteenth century. The family reached its height of influence under Carlos Marcello. In the 1960s, due to Marcello’s stubborn refusal of inducting new members into the family, they dwindled down to a paltry 4 or 5 made men with hundreds of associates throughout the United States. However, the Federal Bureau of Investigation believe there were a bit over 20 made men at the time, or 20+ associates so close to Marcello and to each other, that they were considered a formal part of the New Orleans’ family hierarchy. A series of setbacks during the 1980s reduced its clout, and law enforcement dismantled most of what remained shortly after Marcello's death in 1993. In spite of this, it is believed that some elements of the organization remain active in New Orleans today.
Weather Is Good on Deribasovskaya, It Rains Again on Brighton Beach is a 1992 joint Russian-American production comedy film directed by Leonid Gaidai and his last film. Its title used in the plot as a password for secret agents, and refers to Derybasivska Street and Brighton Beach.
The Solntsevskaya Organized Crime Group, also known as the Solntsevskaya Bratva, is a Russian crime syndicate group.
Marat Yakovlevich Balagula was a Jewish-American organized crime figure, crime boss, and close associate of the Lucchese crime family and Colombo crime family.
Vitali Dyomochka, also known as Bondar, is a Russian mobster and crime boss in the Vladivostok area. He is notable for writing, directing, producing and starring in a short TV series called Spets, which aimed to show viewers the reality of the Russian underworld.
Liquidation (2007) is a highly popular Russian television series, which parallels the famous The Meeting Place Cannot Be Changed with notable ethical shift. In the "Meeting Place", chief of criminal investigations Gleb Zheglov had a modus operandi "Thief must go to prison, no matter how I put him there".
The Georgian mafia is regarded as one of the biggest, powerful and influential criminal networks in Europe, which has produced the biggest number of "thieves in law" in all former USSR countries and controls and regulates most of the Russian-speaking mafia groups. They are very active in Russia and Europe. The Georgian mafia has two major criminal clans from Tbilisi and Kutaisi. Georgia always had a disproportionately high number of crime bosses and still has a majority of the 700 or so still operating in the post-Soviet space and western Georgia is particularly well represented.
Ukrainian mafia is a type of criminal organization with origins in Ukraine. Such organizations are regarded as one of the most influential types of organized crime coming out of the former USSR, including also the Russian mafia, the Georgian mafia, the Chechen mafia, the Armenian mafia and the Azerbaijani mafia. Ukrainian criminal organizations are involved in a significant number of illegal activities. Although Ukrainian criminal organizations are for the most part independently operating enterprises, they are sometimes connected with Russian mafia organizations, such as the case with Semyon Mogilevich.
Blatnaya pesnya or Blatnyak is a genre of Russian song characterized by depictions of criminal subculture and the urban underworld which are often romanticized and have criminally-perverted humor in nature.
The Russian mafia has frequently been a subject of works in popular culture.
Yiddish Glory: The Lost Songs of World War II is a 61st Annual Grammy Awards nominated album by Six Degrees Records which consists of Yiddish songs written during World War II and the Holocaust.
Mikhail Epelbaum was a well known Russian and Yiddish baritone singer from Russia and the Soviet Union during the first half of the twentieth century.
