Editing Russian Mafia (section)

===1917–1991: Soviet era===
When Stalin seized power after the death of Lenin, he sought to crush the Thieves' World, ordering the execution of thousands of not only criminals, but also political opponents.<sup class="Template-Fact" style="white-space:nowrap;">[''[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Citation_needed citation needed]'']</sup> Millions of others were sent to ''[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulag gulags]'' (Soviet labor camps), where powerful criminals worked their way up to become ''vory v zakone'' ("thieves-in-law"). These criminal elite often conveyed their status through complicated tattoos, an act that is still used today by Russian mobsters.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-history_channel_6-1">[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_mafia#cite_note-history_channel-6 [6]]</sup>

After [[Adolf Hitler|Hitler]]'s [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Barbarossa invasion of the Soviet Union] during [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II World War II], Stalin was desperate for more men to fight for the nation, offering prisoners freedom if they joined the army. Many flocked to help out in the war, but this act betrayed codes of the Thieves' World that one must not ally with the government. When the war was over, however, Stalin sent them back to prison.<sup class="Template-Fact" style="white-space:nowrap;">[''[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Citation_needed citation needed]'']</sup> Those who refused to fight in the war referred to the traitors as ''suki'' ("bitch"), and the latter landed at the bottom of the "hierarchy". Outcast, the ''suki'' separated from the others and formed their own groups and power bases by collaborating with prison officials, eventually gaining the luxury of comfortable positions. Bitterness between the groups erupted into a series of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitch_Wars Bitch Wars] from 1945 to 1953 with many killed every day. The prison officials encouraged the violence, seeing it as a way to rid the prisons of criminals.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-Mallory_3-1">[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_mafia#cite_note-Mallory-3 [3]]</sup><sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-history_channel_6-2">[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_mafia#cite_note-history_channel-6 [6]]</sup>

After the death of Stalin, around eight million inmates were released from ''gulags''. Those that survived the imprisonment and Bitch Wars became a new breed of criminal, no longer bound to the laws of the old Thieves' World. They adopted an "every-man-for-himself" attitude that meant cooperating with the government if necessary. As corruption spread throughout the Soviet government, the criminal underworld began to flourish.<sup class="Template-Fact" style="white-space:nowrap;">[''[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Citation_needed citation needed]'']</sup> This corruption was common during the [[Leonid Brezhnev|Brezhnev era]], and the ''nomenklatura'' (the power elite of the country, usually corrupt officials) ran the country along with criminal bosses.<sup class="Template-Fact" style="white-space:nowrap;">[''[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Citation_needed citation needed]'']</sup> In the 1970s, small illegal businesses sprang up throughout the country, with the government ignoring them, and the black market thrived.<sup class="Template-Fact" style="white-space:nowrap;">[''[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Citation_needed citation needed]'']</sup> Then, in the 1980s, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikhail_Gorbachev Mikhail Gorbachev] loosened up restrictions on private businesses, allowing them to grow legally, but by then, the Soviet Union was already beginning to collapse.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-Mallory_3-2">[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_mafia#cite_note-Mallory-3 [3]]</sup><sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-history_channel_6-3">[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_mafia#cite_note-history_channel-6 [6]]</sup>

Also during the 1970s and 1980s, America expanded its immigration policies, allowing Soviet Jews and criminals to enter the country, with most settling in a southern [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooklyn Brooklyn] area known as [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brighton_Beach Brighton Beach] (sometimes nicknamed as "Little [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odessa Odessa]"). Here is where Russian organized crime began in America.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-Mallory_3-3">[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_mafia#cite_note-Mallory-3 [3]]</sup><sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-CBS_worldwide_7-0">[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_mafia#cite_note-CBS_worldwide-7 [7]]</sup> The earliest known case of Russian crime in the area was in the mid-1970s by the "[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potato_Bag_Gang Potato Bag Gang]," a group of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Con_artists con artists] disguised as merchants that told customers that they were selling antique gold [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubles rubles] for cheap, but in fact, gave them bags of potatoes when bought in thousands. By 1983, the head of Russian organized crime in Brighton Beach was [[Evsei Agron]].

He was a prime target among other mobsters, including rival Boris Goldberg and his organization,<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-RICO_Act_9-0">[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_mafia#cite_note-RICO_Act-9 [9]]</sup> and in May 1985, Agron was assassinated. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Nayfeld Boris "Biba" Nayfeld], his bodyguard, moved on to employ under [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marat_Balagula Marat Balagula], who was believed to have succeeded Agron's authority. In the following year, Balagula fled the country after he was convicted in a fraud scheme of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merrill_Lynch Merrill Lynch] customers, and was found in [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankfurt Frankfurt], [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Germany West Germany] in 1989, where he was extradited back to the US and sentenced to eight years in prison.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-early_US_crime_8-1">[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_mafia#cite_note-early_US_crime-8 [8]]</sup>

Balagula would later be convicted on a separate $360,000 credit card fraud in 1992.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-influx_of_gangsters_10-0">[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_mafia#cite_note-influx_of_gangsters-10 [10]]</sup> Nayfield took Balagula's place, partnering with the "Polish Al Capone", Ricardo Fanchiniin, in an import-export business and setting up a [[heroin]] business.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-Ricardo_Fanchini_11-0">[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_mafia#cite_note-Ricardo_Fanchini-11 [11]]</sup> In 1990, his former friend, Monya Elson, back from a six-year prison sentence in Israel, returned to America and set up a rival heroin business, culminating in a Mafia turf war.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-Elson_and_Nayfield_12-0">[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_mafia#cite_note-Elson_and_Nayfield-12 [12]]</sup>