ACCESSION NUMBER:00000
FILE ID:96051503.GWE
DATE:05/15/96
TITLE:15-05-96  RUSSIAN ORGANIZED CRIME GROUPS RAPIDLY PENETRATING U.S.

TEXT:
(U.S., Russian officials testify at 5/15 Senate hearing) (700)
By Louise Fenner
USIA Staff Writer

Washington -- The emergence of Russian, Eastern European, and Eurasian
criminal groups in the United States is this country's "fastest
growing" criminal justice problem, and U.S authorities are struggling
to keep such groups from becoming entrenched, according to a top
official of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

According to government officials testifying at a May 15 hearing of
the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, criminal
activities engaged in by these groups range from auto theft and
medical fraud through drug trafficking to the theft and sale of
nuclear materials from the former Soviet Union.

Jim Moody, deputy assistant FBI director of criminal investigations,
said the FBI has 215 active investigations underway involving Russian
organized crime activities, compared with 68 at the beginning of the
decade.

TheRussian groups have caused "a significant expansion of our crime
problem," he said, and "they are expanding in the United States and
internationally much faster than we expected." Furthermore, he said
these groups are working with the Italian mafia and with organized
drug cartels from Asia and Colombia on heroin and cocaine trafficking
and money laundering, Moody said.

In addition to traditional criminal activities such as drug
trafficking, extortion, and export of stolen automobiles, Moody said
the Russian gangs are involved in fraud and financial crimes, such as
multi-million dollar gasoline tax and medical insurance fraud. One way
they launder money is through the purchase of expensive property in
Hawaii.

According to George Weise, commissioner of the U.S. Customs Service,
focused on the involvement of Russian criminal groups in the smuggling
of nuclear materials from the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.
"The theft and sale of nuclear materials from the FSU (Former Soviet
Union) continues to be a problem of great concern to the entire
world," Weise said. "It has already been documented on several
occasions that criminal groups from the FSU have taken advantage of
this situation and attempted to smuggle and sell these materials to
the highest bidder."

Evidence suggests that strategic materials are "being illegally
obtained, smuggled, and illicitly offered for sale in Western Europe,"

Weise said, and one investigation disclosed "the illegal sale of
nuclear-grade zirconium to Iraq." Several other customs investigations
involved "the sale, export and/or diversion of weapons, military
hardware, critical high technology, precursor chemicals for biological
warfare, military aircraft parts, and assorted missile systems."

Another witness, Russia's Deputy Minister of Interior Igor
Nikolayevich Kozhevnikov said that the number of officially registered
crimes in Russia last year -- 2,756,000 -- represented a 4.7 percent
increase over 1994.

Drug-related crimes have increased, as well as the smuggling of drugs
into Russia. "Almost all of such dangerous and expensive drugs as
cocaine, opium, heroin, and synthetic drugs quickly filling the
Russian market are shipped from abroad by smuggling channels,"
Kozhevnikov said. About 25 percent of large-scale drug shipments
involve citizens of the former republics of the Soviet Union, he said.

However, Kozhevnikov said, 90 percent of the thefts of radioactive
materials were committed by employees of nuclear facilities, and that
"there are no grounds for insisting on the existence of mafia-type
organized criminal groups specializing in the theft of radioactive
materials." Russia is working with the United States and Germany to
prevent such crimes, he noted.

His ministry estimates that "about 20 organized criminal groups of
Russian origin are involved in illicit activities on the territory of
the United States," Kozhevnikov said, adding that the ministry is
investigating 56 cases jointly with the FBI.

In the last three years, he said, the ministry "elicited about 22,000
organized criminal groups with different extent of cohesion, with more
than 94,000 members." Due to Russian law enforcement efforts,
"criminal activities of 14,000 organized groups were stopped during
the last three years. Charges were brought against 41,500 leaders and
participants."

He noted that Russia and the United States have indicated their
intention to sign a broad-scale treaty on mutual legal assistance, and
urged that such a treaty be completed "promptly."

At the outset of the hearing, Subcommittee Chairman William Roth
stressed that the term "Russian organized crime" referred to organized
crime from all the republics of the former Soviet Union, not just
Russia.
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