The illegal drugs market is being developed and changed. Before it was cannabis and poppy straw in the first place, now it is heroin, and exotic cocaine wich appeared earlier. Criminal organizations of St. Petersburg actively co-operate with regional representatives of organized crime, including foreign organizations, which deal with growing, production, and the trafficking of drugs to the city.
Russian criminal organizations have different dimensions, organizational structures, specialization, but a unified, general essence: illegal enterprises.
The following elements are typical of organized crime in this period:
• its widespread sphere of influence (they control over 40-60 % of the country's enterprises and 60-80 % banks);
• a very high profit („super-profit“) derived from criminal activity;
• organized crime performs some of the functions of law-enforcement bodies: «arbitration», «enforcement of rulings (verdicts)», «executive functions», protection rackets – the so-called «krysha» (roof), etc.
• total corruption of power, administrative and law-enforcement bodies at all levels;
• a wide social basis for organized crime, because, firstly, many idle hands are available among youth, and, secondly, in Russia legal business activity is impossible due to corruption, high taxes, criminal mentality and social anomie;
• the great extent to which violent methods are used;
• the new tendencies: striving for the legalization of criminal activity; laundering money; transition to legal and semi-legal activity; infiltration of legal business and of the power structure;
• the politicization of organized crime and the criminalization of politics and the economy.
4. The contemporary period
The fourth period, it is the contemporary one (from the early to mid 2000s) with unique particularities, which cannot be explained from the point of view of the usual features oforganized crime.
Below I cite my interview (2005) with the police officer of a unit specialized in fighting with organized crime (UBOP).
I.: What do you think about contemporary Russian organized crime?
R.: It isn't! There are we, «ment'y»
[495]! Who are the «krysha» [roof], who «protect» the stalls, the market, «points»
[496]? They are ment'y… Today all small trade enterprises, small and middle-sized business are under menty's roof Bandit won't come close!
The Police officer from the internal safety unit (in Russian USB) confirms (2005):
I: Is it really so shat the police is replacing bandits in providing this «protection» now?
R.: Yes, of course. Not even individual policeofficers or groups of policemen, but whole police subdivisions under the direction of the chief of the subdivision.
This situation isn't unique, but universal. We have now Russian police (militia) as an organized criminal group (community) – OCG. And this is not surprise. Many newspapers, journals and internet blogs publish reports daily on the actions of the police (militia) as organized criminal groups in different regions of Russia.
So, militia: «crishuet» (protected) small and medium-sized business, as well as retail drug business; protects criminal «authorities»; does nothing to counteract criminal organization etc. Besides, recently militia has taken part in a «black raid (usurpation)»; a seizure of a criminal structure or of a legal businesses, successful enterprises and companies. Perhaps the financial crisis has accelerated and enlarged the scale of the usurpation of someone else's businesses. Of course, organized crime and varioust organized criminal groups exist in contemporary Russia. But they are usually connected with the local police body, they are found under its «roof», its protection.
Criminal organizations, like other social organizations, strive to exert influence on the state power and to exercise control over it (through lobbying, bribery, infiltration of their representatives into power structures, etc.).
Criminal authorities become city mayors (criminal boss Gennadiy Kon-yahin was the mayor of the city Leninsk-Kuzneck, Vladimir Nikolaev or «Winnie-the-Pooh» was the mayor of the city Vladivostok), or deputies in local organs of power (leader of the criminal organization «Uralmash» Dr. Alexandr Chabarov, leader of the criminal organization in Krasnodarsky region Dr. Sergey Capok).
Many criminal organizations function in different regions of Russia under the reliable «krysha» (roof) of police body. This provides the possibility for a criminal to operate for many years without detection (the criminal group of Sergey Capok in Krasnodarsky region, criminal group of Kozaev in Sverdlovsky region, criminal group of Alexandr Trunov in Novosibirsk region, and so on).
More and more information is also becoming available on the lobbying of some representatives of state bodies by the mafia. Consequently, we confront a criminalization of business in combination with an economization and a politicization of crime.
For example, there is contemporary case of «Kuschevskaya phenomenon».
Kuschevskaya is a large cossack's village («stanicha») in Krasnodar Region in the south Russia. The population of this stanicha is more that 35 000 people.
On 5th November 2010 in Kuschevskaya 12 persons were killed in one house, including four children, one of them 9 month old. This situation is not unique, but this event struck the whole Russia. The patience of many millions of the people, living in small towns and villages may have come to an end.
The counsellor of the chairman of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation, a retired general-major of militia, Professor Vladimir Ovchinsky told the newspaper «Moskovsky Komsomolets» on 25.11.2010 and the journal «Ogonjok» on 22.11.2010:
«Kuschevskaya is not anomaly, hut a mirror of the whole situation in Russia with organized crime. The leading law-enforcement organ constantly report about a reduction in criminality, manipulates the statistical data, massively conceals the crimes, but in this time gangs run rampant in all region of the Russia… The main question is: why so many years did the enormous gang S. Capok operate in Kuschevskaya with impunity? There were suspicionsofmany crimes, including a murder of a farmer, a murder of a girl and hundreds of rapes. The people were practically starved, as in a concentration camp. And they had to keep quiet, because they were afraid. The gang's leader was a local deputy. He fell under the influence of the young deputy's cirkle. There is no one now to fight with the largest groups. Before the tragedy in Kuschevskaya its gang had a lucky streak in the city Miass. The Gang of Kozaev terrorized the city of Berezovsk in the Sverdlovskaya area for several years. It was not until the disturbances, organized by the people after the death of the gang leader, which compelled the authorities to react, that the situation changed.
