Welcome to DU! The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards. Join the community: Create a free account Support DU (and get rid of ads!): Become a Star Member Latest Breaking News General Discussion The DU Lounge All Forums Issue Forums Culture Forums Alliance Forums Region Forums Support Forums Help & Search

lostnfound

(16,179 posts)
Sat Apr 20, 2019, 10:24 PM Apr 2019

Ran across a 1997 article on the invasion of Florida by the Russian mob

I’m amazed that it dates back this far.

The Russian Mafia Invades Florida

By official estimates, some 300 Soviet gangs had moved abroad,and at least 24 of them had turned up in various American cities. Kenneth Rijock, a Miami-based financial crimes consultant, has been monitoring Russian organized crime for some time.

"They've got more money than God," Rijock said, "and they are more ruthless than the 1920's Prohibition gangsters." Apart from drug-running, prostitution and extortion, Russian gangs in America are suspected of involvement in illegal arms sales, money-laundering and highly sophisticated bank and financial frauds.

Many of them started work in New York, where they blended easily with all the other immigrants. But in recent years they have moved south to Florida for its warmth and its business potential, including ties with Latin American drug-traffickers.

It is no secret that wealthy new Russian capitalists are flocking to Miami, where they buy beachfront condominiums by the dozen and invest in local businesses.
https://www.tulsaworld.com/archive/the-russian-mafia-invades-florida/article_0ce5fcc3-5ba2-51a3-a2d9-8b1e05e5b826.html
15 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
Highlight: NoneDon't highlight anything 5 newestHighlight 5 most recent replies

blm

(113,063 posts)
1. They were gaining muscle in LA in the 80s thru nightclubs there.
Sat Apr 20, 2019, 10:31 PM
Apr 2019

Really big in prostitution and drugs.

happybird

(4,608 posts)
2. Guess who had condos for sale in Miami back then?
Sat Apr 20, 2019, 10:33 PM
Apr 2019

Trump's Russian Laundromat:
https://newrepublic.com/article/143586/trumps-russian-laundromat-trump-tower-luxury-high-rises-dirty-money-international-crime-syndicate

This is the best article I've read about the Dotard, his shady dealings, and where he got the money to build Trump Tower only a few years after bankrupting his casino.

alp227

(32,025 posts)
5. Wonder why this was run in a Tulsa Okla newspaper
Sun Apr 21, 2019, 12:15 AM
Apr 2019

I googled the first sentence. Turns out some papers at the time reprinted this story from The Economist: Organised crime: Redfellas

marylandblue

(12,344 posts)
6. This actually started in the 1970s in New York City
Sun Apr 21, 2019, 12:40 AM
Apr 2019

when many Russian emigres moved to Brooklyn, some of whom were tied to organized crime in Russia.

lostnfound

(16,179 posts)
11. It's so ironic that the menace rails about bad people immigrating from Mexico
Sun Apr 21, 2019, 08:26 AM
Apr 2019

When he surrounds himself with Russian mobsters

mitch96

(13,907 posts)
14. "1970s in New York City"
Sun Apr 21, 2019, 11:27 AM
Apr 2019

Probably the big move but it started way before that. My grandmother ran a seaside boarding house on Rockaway Beach in the late '40's.. To escape the hot summers in Manhattan the crew from the Russian embassy would rent the whole place out. My father joked that her garbage man were the most educated of the lot.
They were ALL FBI looking thru the trash for info!!
m

Jarqui

(10,126 posts)
7. Donald Trump and the mansion that no one wanted. Then came a Russian fertilizer king
Sun Apr 21, 2019, 12:40 AM
Apr 2019

Miami Herald (doing the great Epstein articles)
https://www.miamiherald.com/news/business/article135187364.html

“What do I have to do with Russia?” he replied to reporters’ questions at a press conference in Doral last summer. “You know the closest I came to Russia, I bought a house a number of years ago in Palm Beach … for $40 million, and I sold it to a Russian for $100 million.”
...
It’s a tale that’s now coming to a sad end: That $100 million mansion, once the most expensive home in America, has become its most expensive tear-down. Not a single trace of the compound remains, and soon even its address will disappear: The 6.3-acre estate on which it stood has been broken into three parcels, and one of them has already sold.
....
“I’d been in the house before, at one of Gosman’s charity parties, and Trump had hardly changed anything, just put on a couple of coats of paint,” Lambiet said. “Even that — well, he told us the fixtures in one of the bathrooms were gold, but as he walked away, I scratched a faucet with my fingernails and it was just gold-covered paint.” .... “It was just terrible-looking, really gaudy,” he said. “Nothing fit together — it was sort of haphazard inside. ... “There was a room with a floor made of cobblestones, and in the corner was a real wood oven for pizzas. It looked like an old Italian pizza place. Who does that in their house? ... I thought, he’s never gonna sell this. And he didn’t, the house stayed on the market for a couple of years. “And then the Russian came along.”
.....
Trump, sensing his fish had taken the hook, hung tough on his price. On July 15, 2008, Rybolovlev bought the house for $95 million (Trump says credits on the closing costs brought the total package to $100 million), believed to be the biggest home sale in American history.


Another Trump-Russian deal that has curious details that have never been fully explained.

If they can figure out why Deutsche bsnk loaned Trump hundreds of millions, let him sue them frivolously, let him default and them loaned him many millions of dollar more, they'll be on to something. Banks don't operate that way normally. There's something up there.

dixiegrrrrl

(60,010 posts)
8. Bill Browder wrote a book in which he discussed the Russian oligarchs fleeing Russia in the 90's.
Sun Apr 21, 2019, 12:55 AM
Apr 2019

In February 2015, Browder published a book about his career, Red Notice: A True Story of High Finance, Murder, and One Man's Fight for Justice, focusing on his years spent in Russia as the head of his hedge fund, the largest foreign portfolio investor in Russia.
After the death in prison in 2009 of Sergei Magnitsky, a Russian accountant and auditor who had represented his company as Power of Attourney and conducted an investigation into massive tax fraud related to it, Browder lobbied for Congress to pass the Magnitsky Act, a law to punish Russian human rights violators, which was signed into law in 2012 by President Obama.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Browder

I recommend the book, explains a lot of things very clearly.

ancianita

(36,060 posts)
9. Read it and recommend it, too. Amazon's got other good books on the Russian mob, too.
Sun Apr 21, 2019, 01:15 AM
Apr 2019

Also, Garry Kasparov's book, Winter Is Coming, and

The Red Web by Andrei Soldatov and Irina Borogan.

It's interesting how they fled in the 90's because USA immigration patterns show Russians peaking decades earlier.







dixiegrrrrl

(60,010 posts)
10. I'm not sure the more recent influx of oligarchs bothered to fill out immigration papers
Sun Apr 21, 2019, 07:16 AM
Apr 2019


They had/have enough money to move easily between countries, calling themselves businessmen, and could always recruit henchmen as needed from men whose families came here legally at the turn of the century,

lostnfound

(16,179 posts)
12. Likely paid bribes to get passports...the death of Beranton Whisenant on a Florida beach.
Sun Apr 21, 2019, 08:37 AM
Apr 2019

Dressed in a suit and found dead of a gunshot wound on a Florida beach. His relatively new job was investigating visa and passport cases in southern Florida.

“Beranton Whisenant worked in the U.S. Attorney's Office in Miami in its major crimes unit. The office prosecutes criminal and civil cases from Fort Pierce to Key West. He was reportedly working on visa and passport fraud cases prior to his death.”

This man’s story raised red flags in 2017. He started his job in January. Seemed like he had character and a lot to live for.

ancianita

(36,060 posts)
13. A creepy evil that sun and sand can't compensate for. Our land feels darker lately.
Sun Apr 21, 2019, 10:47 AM
Apr 2019

I'm aware of how much oligarchs of ours or any country will demoralize the social order to get power and wealth for themselves above all law and order.

Fraud is never an obstacle for those who fly in and out of countries with no care for showing passports. There is an entire class of them on Earth who have no attachment to any land base.

mitch96

(13,907 posts)
15. "I recommend the book, explains a lot of things very clearly."
Sun Apr 21, 2019, 11:30 AM
Apr 2019

EXACTLY One of the retaliations of the Russian Government to the Magnitsky Act was to restrict adoptions of Russian children. So it made perfect sense to me when the tRump tower meeting was about "Russian adoptions" was really about sanctions and reversal of the Magnitsky act... wink,wink...
m

Latest Discussions»General Discussion»Ran across a 1997 article...