Prosecuting Russian Organized Crime Cases

In November 1996, a Moscow-based Russian organized crime group headed by a former KGB official carried out an enterprising crime. The group kidnapped, in Moscow, the father of a US businessman, and held him for ransom in a KGB/FSBowned office suite. The group then extorted funds from the US businessman, in Los Angeles, in exchange for his father's release. As an Assistant US Attorney in LA, I was put in charge of the investigation and prosecution. The case would take me to the former Soviet Union several times, both to lead an investigatory team and ultimately to take the first-ever criminal depositions by a US law enforcement official on Russian soil, and, a few months later, the first-ever criminal depositions on Armenian soil. In many ways, however, it was a standard case, typical of the dozens of cases I would handle as a Russian organized crime prosecutor for the Justice Department. In this perspective I first give a very brief background of Russian organized crime and its reach into the US. I then describe this particular kidnapping case in more detail. Finally, I outline some of the legal challenges we faced in prosecuting this case. I.BACKGROUND I never set out or planned to be in charge of Russian organized crime ("ROC") cases; instead, I began my career as a Deputy DA, far removed from the prosecution of international criminal enterprises. However, in the mid- 1990s-after ten years of handling street crimes, or "knife and gun club" cases-I was looking for a new challenge. Along with everyone else at the time, I followed news accounts of the revolutionary changes that were taking place in the former Soviet Union. It seemed it would be an interesting challenge to play at least a minor role in those events. IMAGE FORMULA4 Since I spoke some Russian (and, more importantly, was willing to work for free) I was able to land an assignment with the American Bar Association's Central European and Eurasian Law Initiative ("CEELI").' Since 1995, CEELI's criminal law program has worked in Russia to make available the legal expertise of the US bar. Working with CEELI, I spent a year in Russia providing technical assistance and training to Russia's legal community. Upon returning to the US, I looked around for a job that might combine my prosecutorial experience with what I had learned in Russia. I ended up in the US Attorney's Office in Los Angeles, where the immigrant community from the Newly Independent States ("NIS") of the former Soviet Union numbers approximately 600,000.2 The vast majority of these NIS emigres to the US are law abiding (and highly educated). In fact, one of the least reported facets of Russian organized crime (which can denote crime in, or originating from, any of the former Soviet republics) is that very often its victims are NIS immigrants, as ROC groups often prey upon their own communities. II. A VERY BRIEF HISTORY OF RusSIAN ORGANIZED CRIME The Russian mafiya has only recently begun to receive attention, even though its origins trace to pre-twentieth century times. Seventeenth and eighteenth century bandit groups, or razboiniki, have been immortalized in Russian folk songs and literature.' The vorovskoi mor ("vory") was the first modern organized crime group in Russia. Its code of conduct began to form in the 1930s and included a complete rejection of all aspects of state rule, including marrying, joining public groups, engaging in business, and testifying in court. World War II caused a division in the ranks of the vory. Despite the vory code's prohibition against dealing with the government, many members of the vory served in the Red Army! They became known as suki (bitches) to the old-line vory. These turncoats, who inevitably ended up in prison after the war, were dealt with more harshly by the loyal vory than by the government. In what became known as the Scabs War, hundreds, possibly thousands, of suki convicts were murdered in the GULAG. …