The Jewish mafioso Yevsey Agron received his nickname at the place of birth - in the city on the Neva he was born, survived the blockade with his family. Before coming to America, Yevsey Leningradsky in the USSR was repeatedly convicted of serious crimes.
extortionist from his
Yevsey Leningradsky moved to the West in the early 70s. Engaged in pimping and fraud in Hamburg, in 1975 Agron moved to New York. Russian-speaking emigrants in Brighton knew what kind of business this Jew was doing and were afraid of the thieves' authority. Compared to other criminal tycoons, Agron was more feared than respected. Those who did not believe in the power of Yevsey Leningradsky, he convinced of the opposite by force.
In one of the New York country clubs, Agron set up an office for himself, where meetings of his racketeer organized crime group took place. Yevsey Leningradsky imposed a tribute on immigrants from Russia who were engaged in small business or any private practice. Emigrants preferred to pay, as rumors about the harsh nature of the crime boss spread quickly. Agron walked around with a stun gun intended for cattle, Yevsey tortured his victims with this device.
Strengthening influence
Agron forged ties with the Italian Genovese crime family and Rabbi Ronald Greenwald, who sought to participate in the active political activity. Numerous Italian mafia, whose structure was more organized than Yevsey Leningradsky's organized criminal group, got the opportunity to "bomb" the Russian quarters of New York.
In 1980, the first attempt was made on Agron. He had enough enemies. The authority received a gunshot wound to the stomach. The bandit was guarded by representatives of the friendly Italian criminal group. Yevsey Leningradsky did not betray the customers and executors of the police, saying that he would deal with them himself. After recovering from the assassination attempt, Agron continued to strengthen his influence in the criminal environment of New York. His wards most often attacked cargo vans and robbed them. Gradually, in addition to New York, the Russian mafia penetrated several more American large cities.
Four years after the first assassination attempt, Agron was shot again. This time, the bullets hit his face and neck, leaving scars for his whole, as it turned out later, very short life. Yevsey Leningradsky again did not hand over his enemies to the police. Agron's main suspect was Boris Goldberg, a former Soviet immigrant who lived in Israel for some time and served in the army there. Goldberg headed a rival organized crime group, armed to the teeth, among other criminal cases, his gang was also involved in drug trafficking.
The Goldberg and Agron gangs divided the territory of influence, each had its own claims on this score. The negotiations came to nothing. After the assassination attempt, Agron and Goldberg met again to dot the i's. About 50 armed militants of Yevsey Leningradsky were waiting at Goldberg's club. The enraged Agron, who made no secret of the fact that he suspected Goldberg of ordering the assassination, wanted to shoot the competitor on the spot. But Goldberg was also well prepared for the meeting: on the street in front of the club, a whole armed crowd of members of his organized crime group was waiting for the boss. Not wanting to aggravate the situation, Agron and Goldberg parted ways peacefully.
Third and final attempt
A year later, the assassin's bullets still got Yevsey Leningradsky - 53-year-old Agron was shot dead in the elevator of his house in Manhattan when he left his apartment. Death came instantly. Thus ended the life of the first known Russian-speaking mafioso operating in America.
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Your nickname Jewish mafioso Yevsey Agron received at the place of birth - in the city on the Neva he was born, survived the blockade with his family. Before coming to America, Yevsey Leningradsky in the USSR was repeatedly convicted of serious crimes.
Yevsey Leningradsky - an extortionist from his own
Yevsey Leningradsky moved to the West in the early 1970s. Engaged in pimping and fraud in Hamburg, in 1975 Agron moved to New York. Russian-speaking emigrants in Brighton knew what kind of business this Jew was doing and were afraid of the thieves' authority. Compared to other criminal tycoons, Agron was more feared than respected. Those who did not believe in the power of Yevsey Leningradsky, he convinced of the opposite - by force.
In one of the New York country clubs, Agron set up an office for himself, where meetings of his racketeer organized crime group took place. Yevsey Leningradsky imposed a tribute on immigrants from Russia who were engaged in small business or some kind of private practice. Emigrants preferred to pay, as rumors about the harsh nature of the crime boss spread quickly. Agron walked around with a stun gun intended for cattle, Yevsey tortured his victims with this device.
Strengthening the influence of Yevsey Agron
Agron forged ties with the Genovese Italian crime family and Rabbi Ronald Greenwald, who were eager to get involved in political activism. Numerous Italian mafia, whose structure was more organized than Yevsey Leningradsky's organized criminal group, got the opportunity to "bomb" the Russian quarters of New York.
In 1980, the first attempt was made on Agron. He had enough enemies. The authority received a gunshot wound to the stomach. The bandit was guarded by representatives of a friendly Italian criminal group. Yevsey Leningradsky did not betray the customers and executors of the police, saying that he would deal with them himself. After recovering from the assassination attempt, Agron continued to strengthen his influence in the criminal environment of New York. His wards most often attacked cargo vans and robbed them. Gradually, in addition to New York, the Russian mafia penetrated several more American large cities.
Four years after the first assassination attempt, Agron was shot again. This time, the bullets hit his face and neck, leaving scars for his whole, as it turned out later, very short life. Yevsey Leningradsky again did not hand over his enemies to the police. Agron's main suspect was Boris Goldberg, a former Soviet immigrant who lived in Israel for some time and served in the army there. Goldberg headed a rival organized crime group, armed to the teeth, among other criminal cases, his gang was also involved in drug trafficking.
The Goldberg and Agron gangs divided the territory of influence, each had its own claims on this score. The negotiations came to nothing. After the assassination attempt, Agron and Goldberg met again to dot the i's. About 50 armed militants of Yevsey Leningradsky were waiting at Goldberg's club. The enraged Agron, who made no secret of the fact that he suspected Goldberg of ordering the assassination, wanted to shoot the competitor on the spot. But Goldberg was also well prepared for the meeting: on the street in front of the club, a whole armed crowd of members of his organized crime group was waiting for the boss. Not wanting to aggravate the situation, Agron and Goldberg parted ways peacefully.
The third and last attempt on Agron
A year later, the assassin's bullets still got Yevsey Leningradsky - 53-year-old Agron was shot dead in the elevator of his house in Manhattan when he left his apartment. Death came instantly. Thus ended the life of the first known Russian-speaking mafioso operating in America.
Russian shadow over New York
This spring, the US Senate held closed hearings on the Russian mafia. b managed to get full text speeches at these hearings, in which the most different people: from FBI chief Louis Freeh to one of the bosses of the Luchese crime family Anthony Caso. The materials obtained turned out to be so unique that they made it possible to prepare a series of publications about the Russian mafia in the United States. Today, in the first article, special correspondent Kommersant VLADIMIR IVANIDZE talks about the appearance in New York of a Russian criminal group, which for several years deceived american government$1.5 billion annually.
Evil owner of Little Odessa
The history of the Russian mafia in the United States began in 1974. Then the US Congress unexpectedly passed a law favoring political refugees from Soviet Union. Soviet Jews were the first to leave, later Germans and Armenians.
Jewish families settled in New York: until recently, it was the only state where it was not necessary to pay $ 100 for an entry visa for each of the relatives.
Soviet immigrants chose the southern part of Brooklyn, on the shores of the Atlantic Ocean. By the beginning of the 80s, there were already about 50 thousand of them here, and this area began to be called Little Odessa.
Little Odessa is still very strange and closed world where they don't speak English and don't like African-Americans, who for some reason are not considered "real" Americans. Here people have been sitting on social security for years and, out of old habit, slip three dollars to the plumber. Here they pick up a one-cent coin on the sidewalk and throw hundreds of thousands of dollars into the wind. So it was 20 years ago. This is how they live here today.
The US authorities knew nothing about the people who had fled the USSR. At best, they got information about immigrants from the secret services, and at worst, from meager police files. Only later did the Americans realize that the KGB was secretly exporting criminals to America (20 years later, Fidel Castro did the same). It was from these people that a gang arose that terrified Little Odessa.
They acted as if the FBI and the police did not exist in nature. They did not disdain anything: extortion, forgery of money and documents, prostitution, robberies, smuggling of drugs and weapons, fraud, contract killings. But the attempts of the police to make any inquiries about the gang among the immigrants were not successful, and it was difficult to do this: they did not speak Russian in the police stations then, and the inhabitants of Little Odessa were never eager to witness. If something happened on Brighton Beach Avenue, the detectives most often stumbled upon a blank wall of silence, and the first Russian phrase they learned was “I don’t know anything!”. When the FBI tried to put pressure on them, the inhabitants of Brighton Beach asked them a simple question: "What can you do for us after the KGB and the Gulag"?
The FBI, accustomed to dealing with a well-organized and disciplined Cosa Nostra, was shocked. Agents for a long time could not learn that such a thing as " common interests"family", characteristic of Italians, does not exist among Russians. The decision to kill a competitor is not made by the main boss, like the Italians, but spontaneously, by anyone. And to become the main one among the Russians, you just need to be the richest and most vicious.
The most vicious on Brighton Beach in the mid-70s was the Soviet kingpin Yevsey Agron. His cruelty was legendary. In 1980, an immigrant agreed to identify a criminal from Agron's gang. Before the case went to trial, the woman and her son were killed. Their eyes were cut out while still alive.
Agron was born in Leningrad in 1932, and came to the USA almost in the first wave of Soviet immigration. His gang was poorly organized, but he will forever go down in the history of the underworld as the first boss of the Russian mafia in the United States.
Agron was a very colorful personality. Hard, like a carved face, short haircut and a lush mustache made him look like a worker from a pre-revolutionary photograph. He never got used to it. American life and retained all his Soviet habits. Even his apartment was reminiscent of the secret abode of an underground Soviet millionaire.
All Little Odessa knew about the thief's affections. He was very fond of the Russian bath. Steamed every week. It was a whole ritual. From early morning, a huge Lincoln was waiting for him at the entrance. Agron crossed the East River, turned south into lower Manhattan, and stopped in front of the building of the famous Russian-Turkish baths built in the 19th century. During the Prohibition years, the founding fathers of Cosa Nostra, Meyer Lansky, Bugsy Siegel and Lucky Luciano, loved to relax here. This fueled the ambition of the Russian godfather.
Yevsey with important view got out of the car. Those close to him were already waiting for him in the bathhouse. Then they all sat together in a steam room with a temperature of 95 degrees, which roughly corresponds to the American idea of \u200b\u200bhell. A special person whipped the thief with an oak broom.
Agron's other attachment was a stick, which he never parted with. Americans call such things cattle-prod. They are equipped with electric shocks, and American shepherds usually drive naughty cows with them. Cattle-prod was Agron's favorite toy. He loved to push people with it. Rumor has it that Yevsey was killed because of this stick.
The FBI agents take a different view. “Perhaps,” recalls one of them, “Agron’s attachment to cattle-prod played some role in his death. But not decisive. The reasons for his murder should be sought in the peculiarities of the criminal situation that developed in New York by the mid-80s. x. The income from criminal offenses committed by Agron's gang reached $ 100 million a year. But this was a drop in the bucket compared to the largest gasoline scam pulled by Russian gangsters in the 80s. And it was carried out by Yevsey's people behind his back " .
It was this scam that was recalled at the last hearings in the Senate on the Russian mafia by one of the active participants in the events described, a former member of the Colombo crime family Michael Francese.
Confessions of a mafia prince
Michael Francese was born in Brooklyn. His father John Franzese, nicknamed Sonny, was the second boss of the Colombo family, one of New York's five Cosa Nostra families. In 1975, he became a member of the family at an official ceremony, since 1980 he had his own brigade subordinate to him. The Italian mafiosi called him a dashing guy, and the nickname mafia prince stuck to him. In 1985, he was accused of racketeering, then 28 more charges of various tax crimes were added to the case. In 1986, under an agreement with the Organized Crime Unit, only two of the 28 charges remained. The mafia prince received 10 years in prison and a $15 million fine. In 1987, while already in a federal prison in California, he decided to break off his relationship with the Colombo family and began to cooperate with the authorities. That's why he agreed to speak at the Senate hearings on the Russian mafia.
In 1980, a major gasoline dealer named Lawrence Iorizo came to me for help. He and some Russian organized crime types, acting independently, discovered a profitable way to rip off the government: they learned how to steal gasoline taxes. It was a complex scam that long years linked hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars of Russian and Italian organized crime. The Russians discovered and perfected these machinations, which continue to this day despite changes in the law.
Released in 1982 new law New York State to levy a sales tax on gasoline. Before him, the tax was calculated based on the data of the gas station pump meter. Now they decided to collect them from wholesale companies that supply fuel to the owners of gas stations. Russian mafiosi immediately took advantage of this. The scheme they devised was simple and ingenious. The volumes of wholesale sales of illegal gasoline and diesel fuel were huge and allowed the creation of a chain of front wholesale companies that, for very short term several dozen times they sold fuel to each other. While the tax inspector was making himself an ulcer by digging through fictitious invoices, the last wholesale company in the chain sold fuel to gas stations and disappeared.
“At first, I got involved in this whole story by accident - I just decided to help Iorizo get rid of the bandits. I sent my people, who quickly explained to the racketeers that Iorizo was now with me, and his problems were solved. For this, Iorizo made me his partner in wholesale trade gasoline.
Then I started working with the Russians in the gas tax fraud. Vinnie, one of my soldiers, was approached by the Russians and asked to help them collect $70,000 in debt. Vinnie should have just come and said: "Pay, or I will break your legs!" (The characteristic handwriting of Cosa Nostra, when debt punishment is accompanied by breaking legs. - Kommersant). Winnie came to me with a proposal from the Russians for cooperation. They had trouble collecting the money they were owed and getting the necessary licenses.
I met with their leaders - Mikhail Markovits, Lev Persits and David Bogatin. These guys owned a wholesale gasoline company in Brooklyn. They told me about the gas scam and shared their problems. I said that I was able to solve them.
We made a deal. The Russians have become part of my organization. I had to protect them from other gangsters and collect debts. With the help of Lawrence Iorizo, they gained access to wholesale licenses. We agreed to share the proceeds: 75% - to me, the rest - to them. The deal was fixed by all five crime families New York. I had to take care of the share of the Colombo family.
Over the next 4.5 years, the combined Russian-Ioritsev group, which I led, stole hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars from US government tax revenues. It was not unusual for me to receive once a week a paper bag with $9 million in cash from the Russians and Iorizo. Our revenues ranged from 2 to 30 cents a gallon, and every month we sold 400 to 500 million gallons of gasoline.
I then became very close friends with the Russians. They did not have a coherent criminal organization, but they were smart people with highly developed business instincts, which they did not hesitate to use to obtain illegal income. The experience of living in communist Russia allowed them to ignore the laws of the United States. They were not afraid of American prisons. When they needed it, they did not hesitate to use force, as they say, played with muscles. They agreed with me because it gave them power and recognition. It forced everyone else to reckon with them."
Agron crossed the road
For Cosa Nostra, the business with the Russians became the second most profitable after the drug trade. Without raising their little finger, New York families received $ 400 million a year from the Russian mafia (this is just what they managed to prove). At the same time, they were sure that this was their 75%. But in fact, Russian gangsters simply swindled them, stealing at least $1.5 billion a year from the federal budget.
Cosa Nostra pushed the leaders of the Russian mafia to expand and monopolize the criminal business. Soon, Russian immigrants took over dozens of oil terminals on the West and East coasts of the United States, making them bases for countless chains of fictitious wholesale companies, which in criminal cases became known as daisy chain - "chain of daisies". However, the expansion of the gasoline business ran into one problem: Yevsey Agron found out about the scam. His indignation knew no bounds when he was informed that behind his back Markowitz, Persits and his adviser David Bogatin, along with the Italians, were pocketing hundreds of millions of dollars.
FBI agents suggest that the leading role in organizing the gasoline fraud belongs to David Bogatin. There is evidence that Bogatin was an agent of the Soviet military intelligence. During the Vietnam War, he served as an officer in the missile units. Soviet army, was sent to Vietnam as a military adviser, where he shot down American Phantoms. Ironically, Bogatin's lawyer David Clayton fought in Vietnam during the same years. On the opposite side, of course.
In 1977, Bogatin illegally crossed the border of one of the Eastern European countries and after a while "surfaced" in New York. He started with what many Russian immigrants did, with taxis. But very quickly he made a criminal career and became one of Yevsey Agron's advisers. And then he created a huge gasoline empire behind his back.
Yevsey continued to consider himself the boss and wanted to get his share of this scam, but the money was too much. He became unnecessary, he interfered with everyone. In the end, the Colombo family agreed that he should be removed.
In 1984, the first attempt was made on Yevsey. Bullets mutilated his neck and face. But he survived. It is interesting that the doctor, operating on Agron, pulled out several pieces of lead from his body, which had settled in him since Soviet times. When the police tried to deal with the attack on Agron, he angrily replied to the Russian-speaking agent that he himself would "take care" of the killers. But he didn't.
Early on Saturday morning, May 4, 1985, Yevsey Agron was going to the bathhouse. He shaved, splashed expensive cologne on himself, and told his wife that they were having dinner that evening at a Russian restaurant on Brighton Beach. Yevsey slammed the door of his apartment, for which he had just laid out $150,000 for repairs, and went to the elevator. At that moment, a gun was put to his temple. The killer shot Yevsey twice in the head...
Gasoline kings left out of work
It would be logical to assume that after the death of Agron, one of the "gasoline kings" will take his place. But all of them, by a strange coincidence, remained out of work. First, they were left without an Italian "roof": in 1985, Michael Francese was arrested. “After that,” recalls the mafia prince, “Markowitz, Persits and Bogatin did not continue the gasoline business for long. Markowitz was killed in front of his house in Brooklyn. I do not know who was responsible for his death, but I am quite sure that this murder was received consent of the Colombo family, and the perpetrators, in all likelihood, were Russians. There was also an attempt on the life of Lev Persits. He survived, but remained an invalid, forever chained to his wheelchair."
Bogatin was arrested shortly after Francese. But in 1987, he fled American justice shortly before his sentence, begging for his passport from the authorities. Bogatin lied that he needed to fly to Russia, where his son lived, in order to save him from being drafted into the army. Incredibly, the Americans believed him.
Instead of Russia, he went to Austria, where the Russian mafia and Cosa Nostra bought their bank. “I invested $10 million in it,” Michael Franchese said, “but together with Russian money, his assets amounted to 80-100 million. . - b)".
Bogatin continued to work for Cosa Nostra, but soon, feeling that the FBI was getting too close, the swindler disappeared. After some time, he showed up in Poland, where he created a new commercial bank. In 1992, the FBI got on his tail again, and a scandal erupted in Poland. Bogatin was arrested and extradited to the Americans. He became the first criminal that Poland extradited to another state in the last 70 years.
But after the murder of Agron, attention was already focused on the new leaders of the Russian criminal community, which gradually turned into a single harmonious organization.
In tomorrow's issue, Kommersant will tell about the fate of Evsei Agron's successor, Marat Balagula.
Operated in the cities of the East Coast of the United States in the 1990s. 70-year-old Boris Nayfeld, known under the nickname "Biba", was sentenced again - for extortion. During his life, he served several terms, but each time he managed to get off with a minimum punishment, writes The CrimeRussia. And this time he will be released before the end of the year.
Behind the boss
A native of Belarusian Gomel (according to some sources, he worked as a painter) emigrated to the United States back in the 1970s. Upon arrival at Brighton Beach, Boris Nayfeld found himself in the inner circle of the criminal "authority", who was in the "thieves" environment, Yevsey Agron (Yevsey Leningradsky). Last lived on Brighton Beach in New York and was the founder of the "Russian mafia" in the United States. Biba becomes his driver and later his bodyguard.
The group was engaged in racketeering, extortion, robberies, murders and terrified not only the local population, but also law enforcement agencies. Having finally settled in, Nayfeld began to understand that in the USA one could earn much more, but Agron did not support the idea of expanding spheres of influence. Then Biba began to develop his scheme of heroin trafficking behind the back of his boss. On May 4, 1985, a man dressed in sport suit, fired point-blank at Agron, hitting twice in the right temple. Everything happened in Yevsey's house at the elevator, when he was about to go to the bathhouse. Boris Nayfeld, who was waiting for the boss downstairs in a car, was the first on the list of suspected customers of the murder, but the police could not prove this. Until now, the case is officially considered unsolved.
Agron's place was taken by Marat Balagula, known for major fraud in the gasoline sector and ties with Italian mafia. Boris Nayfeld became his bodyguard. Enlisting the support and connections of Balagula, Nayfeld began wholesale heroin to Italians. A year later, during one of business meetings on issues of cooperation in the gasoline sector, Vadik Reznikov, a well-known killer on Brighton Beach, now deceased, entered the office of Marat Balagula.
What happened next is still a mystery. Someone from the audience took out an Uzi machine gun and began to shoot everyone around. Accidentally or not, one of the bodyguards of Marat Balagula Alex Zeltzer received 8 bullets in the chest, 2 in the head and died on the spot. Marat's competitor Mikhail Voks, the manager of the MVB Energy Company gas station, was wounded in the arm and chest, but survived. Boris Nayfeld was wounded only in thumb right hand. The rest were not hurt. Interestingly, Reznikov and Vox were friends and even business partners. The bodyguards, as one, answered that they did not have time to return fire, because they did not understand who was shooting. The police were never able to figure this out. According to one version, it was Reznikov who opened the automatic burst, but a month after those events, Balagula "ordered" him to the Italians from the Colombo clan, who shot him at the Odessa restaurant.
At the head of the "Russian mafia"
After some time, the police arrested Balagula because of a petty scam with credit cards, and Boris Nayfeld finally stands at the helm of the "Russian mafia". True, the Italian mafia, which had previously supported Biba, refused to cooperate with him.
Then he set up a scheme for the supply of heroin from Thailand. The drug was first transported to Singapore, where it was soldered into TV tubes and sent to Poland. This was done so skillfully that the customs officers in Europe could not suspect anything.
From Poland, Russian couriers with US passports smuggled heroin into the United States via New York under the guise of flour for Brooklyn bakeries. Poland was not a suspicious point for the transfer of drugs, so no inspection of the cargo was carried out. Over time, heroin began to be transported to Boston, Chicago and other cities. But the problem was, as Biba later recalled, he couldn't sell heroin in bulk. It was possible to sell batches of no more than a kilogram to Sicilian gangsters from a cheap hangout on Coney Island, or very small doses directly to customers, mostly Spaniards living in Manhattan. These were the years when Boris Nayfeld managed to unwind to the fullest.
He managed to take part in a showdown with the well-known criminal "authority" Yefim Laskin on September 27, 1991 in Munich. The latter was then killed, but the crime was not solved. The negotiations escalated into a quarrel, during which, according to some reports, the Belarusian thief in law (now deceased) Alexander Bor (Tymoshenko), known as Timokha, stabbed Laskin. Nayfeld was suspected of the murder, but in 2003 Alexander Bor in Germany was sentenced to life in prison, just on charges of murdering Fima Laskin. True, later the sentence was appealed and the term was reduced to 13 years, and in 2004 the crime boss was deported to Russia.
Blood enemy
In the early 1990s, Nayfeld managed to make himself and an enemy in the person of the “authority” Monya Elson. He crossed Bibe's path by making connections with the Italian mafia to supply heroin in bulk to the Italians. Boris Nayfeld offered 100 thousand dollars for Elson's life, thus initiating brutal war between them. They mined cars and set up ambushes, killing several dozen guards on both sides. The war ended when Elson had to urgently leave the United States in 1993 due to close attention special services.
And in 1994, Biba himself was arrested at the New York airport for drug smuggling. His drug supply scheme was uncovered by the well-known criminal-informer Iosif Royzis (Grisha the Cannibal).
Nayfeld, on the basis of the totality of the charges brought, could be imprisoned for several life terms. However, the dodgy Biba decided to use the same methods as Royzis. He pleaded partially guilty, made a deal with the investigation and became a witness for the prosecution. In May 1998, the court sentenced him to 4 years and 4 months in prison - exactly as much as he had already served, and he was immediately released. It turned out that, while assisting the authorities, Nayfeld handed over his natural enemy Monya Elson, who was subsequently convicted in the United States for 7 years.
After his release, Biba continued his criminal business, however, he did things more carefully. Only in 2008, Boris Nayfeld was again detained on charges of smuggling cigarettes. He received a term, and on February 8, 2014, Boris Nayfeld was released.
In 2009, a series was filmed for the National Geographic Channel documentaries about banditry in America, one of which was called "Brooklyn's Russian Gangsters" (Brooklyn's Russian Gangsters), where Biba told about his adventures. Monya Elson then from prison spoke about it this way: “Biba boasts in the program that he was not more important. You can't even put it on your ears. Everyone with whom he hawal is exactly the same as him.”
The latest scam of the "Russian mafia" boss
During the time that Biba spent behind bars, he completely squandered his acquired property and, finding himself in a difficult situation, 67-year-old Biba decided on a dubious extortion scam. He, together with 68-year-old Boris Kotlyarsky, who emigrated to the United States from Kyiv and is almost unknown in criminal circles, learned about the family conflict of a businessman from Chisinau Anatoly Potik. At one time, he gave his daughter Ronit to an emigrant from former USSR, owner of the TRT trucking company International Oleg Mitnick. Since 2014, they have been divorcing, dividing property, which is estimated at several tens of millions of dollars, and seeking the right to custody of children.
In the fall of 2015, Mitnick turned to the FBI with a statement that his father-in-law wanted to kill him and thereby decide the case in favor of his daughter. This is what Nayfeld and Kotlyarsky took advantage of. The latter called Mitnick and said that Bibe was ordered to execute his murder for 100 thousand dollars. But if he pays 25 thousand more, then the killer will abandon his plans. All further negotiations were supervised law enforcement.
Whether a real order for Oleg Mitnik was received from Anatoly Potik is unknown. His lawyer stated that "as a result of the hard work and evidence presented, and the investigation conducted by the federal authorities, they realized that the charge should be dropped." That is, either Oleg Mitnik came up with everything, or someone tried to trick him into getting a check for 125 thousand dollars.
In January, Mitnick and the aged "thunderstorm of the Russian mafia" Beeba met several times in a Brooklyn restaurant, where the businessman agreed to write advance check$50,000 to cancel an order to kill him. As a guarantee, Nayfeld even defiantly called the "customer" and demanded that he leave his plans, otherwise it would be worse for him. At the exit from the restaurant on January 14, 2016, Nayfeld and Kotlyarsky were arrested. During the arrest, according to law enforcement agencies, Biba swore obscenely and tore the check. A week after that, Anatoly Potik, who was about to leave the United States, was also detained at the airport. He was later released on bail of $20 million in real estate, and was soon cleared of charges of ordering the murder.
After his arrest, Boris Nayfeld admitted that he could not even pay for the services of a lawyer, so he was provided with a public defender. After that, he again made a deal with the investigators. The criminal case was divided into two, and Biba became a witness in the Kotlyarsky case.
According to some reports, Nayfeld said that Kotlyarsky suggested that he collect debts from a certain businessman. And for this, such a complex scheme was invented. Kotlyarsky was sentenced to 41 months in prison.
Boris Nayfeld was sentenced on July 27, 2017 in the Manhattan federal courtroom. On the table, the judge already had a letter from the prosecutor, in which he asked for a sharp reduction in the term of the accused for fruitful cooperation with the investigation.
The lawyer and the prosecutor emphasized that Nayfeld is almost 70 years old - he is already old, and also noted that, having learned about his cooperation with the investigation, other criminals are unlikely to want to deal with him, and therefore continue criminal activity he can no longer.
"Obviously, he's very Difficult person", - said the prosecutor and told the judge that his wife Angela was divorcing him. Biba, according to him, went to the crime, "because he did not know any other way out of lack of money." He noted that the accused lacked not only money, but also "spirit and hope."
In his last word Biba, in Russian, asked for forgiveness for what he had done and said that he "would like to die at home."
The judge, announcing the verdict, stated that, despite his age, he was very a dangerous person, and sentenced him to 23 months in prison, of which he had already served 18. This means that he will be released before the end of the year. Time will tell what the 70-year-old last boss of the "Russian mafia" will do.
If you ask an ordinary American what associations Russian-speaking emigrants evoke in him, he will most likely say: vodka and the mafia. This stereotype is so firmly rooted in the minds ordinary people that Russian-speakers are really wary there. And I must say that the "Russian mafia" in the United States is not some horror story from the news, it has actually existed for several decades. In this article, we talk about how it all began.
It is generally accepted that the first representatives of the criminal world of the USSR, who in the future will become the same "Russian mafia", arrived in the United States in the mid-1970s. Congress then passed a law to simplify the entry of political emigrants from the Soviet Union, and under this guise, literally everyone and sundry rushed to America. And first of all, of course, enterprising Jews.
All I had to do was write beautiful story about how the totalitarian red regime oppresses you and that’s it, the “cradle of democracy” has already met you with open arms. And the Jews didn’t even need to invent anything. It's enough just to say that Soviet authorities persecute you only for the inscription in the column "nationality".
The Soviet Chekists, don't be fools, quickly realized that this outflow of people and the new American law could be used to their advantage. It was then that the guys from the KGB began to actively export from the United States all sorts of bandits and criminals of the middle class, thereby freeing prisons from freeloaders. And it was from these export dregs that the very first gangs were formed, which terrified the whole of Brighton.
Moreover, as the Americans noted, when collecting debts, the Russians acted with particular cruelty. Unlike the Italians, who traditionally went for murder only as a last resort, our compatriots, brought up by an atheistic society that went through a bloody war and Stalin's camps, maimed and killed their victims indiscriminately.
The first boss of the Russian mafia in Brighton Beach was the Soviet kingpin Yevsey Agron. By the time he arrived in the United States in 1975, Agron already had 7 years behind him for murder in a Soviet prison. Yevsey Agron was direct, extremely stubborn and very cruel man, the classic bandit. He did not know how to think big and quickly adapt to changing conditions. environment. He was more feared than respected. And this fear, which he instilled in all the inhabitants of the quarter for many years, allowed his group to have an income of about one hundred million dollars a year.
Quite quickly, the more savvy people from Agron's inner circle realized that it was possible to quite successfully turn profitable business behind the boss's back. This is how the famous multi-billion dollar gasoline scam was invented, the main ideological inspirer of which was David Bogatin, who offered profitable cooperation to the Colombo family. When Agron found out about what was happening under his nose, he naturally wanted to pocket this financial flow, taking it under his own control. But it was not there, too many very powerful people were involved in this business, so very soon the obstinate Agron was simply stuffed with lead.
The stubborn and short-sighted Agron was replaced by a new boss of the Russian mafia, Marat Balagula, who had very close ties to the Colombo family. Balagula was distinguished by incredible charisma and artistry. He easily managed to solve the most difficult cases through diplomatic channels and extremely successfully maneuver between compatriots, Italians and the American police.
It was Balagula who brought the Russian mafia in America to new heights. Now these were no longer militant gangs, hunting for robberies and extortion. The time has come for grandiose scams of unprecedented proportions. The sphere of interests of the "red" mafia, as it was called in the States, now covered almost everything - oil products, gold, jewelry, antiques, insurance and financial companies. New boss managed to bring the group even to the international level, establishing cooperation with colleagues in the criminal business on other continents.
The Italians could not understand this strange Russian, who turned out huge deals, had crazy incomes, could easily afford to spend several million dollars in a casino in one evening, but at the same time did not shun small dubious deals for several hundred thousand dollars. As a result, the police still managed to get close to Balagula through one of the partners, who leaked the whole alignment to the cops. Without waiting for the trial, the already former boss fled the country and disappeared somewhere in the wilds of Africa. However, he couldn’t sit quietly even there, Balagula took up smuggling precious stones. In 1989, he was detained at Frankfurt Airport. Balagula was deported to the United States and sentenced to eight years for fraud. And in November 1993, he was given a sentence of up to 24 years for non-payment of taxes on income from gasoline transactions. However, he was released in 2004. And in 2008 he was shot by an unknown killer.
After that, the entire Russian mafia in the United States plunged into turmoil and civil strife for a long time. At first, the former security guard and driver of Agron and Balagula, Boris Nayfeld, decided to take the place of the boss. But the gasoline business leaked from him to the Italians, and it was not possible to establish a good sale of drugs. And then the rest of the small bandits began to put together their gangs, breaking through to the tops of the criminal hierarchy.
The main headache for Nayfeld was Monya Elson, who managed to rally all the other competitors of Boris around him and win back almost all of Balagula's former spheres of influence. The competition between Nayfeld and Elson was fierce - blood flowed like water, bombs exploded one after another. At one time, a group of Chechens who were employed by Nayfeld even arrived in Brighton. And this would have continued for a long time if the FBI had not put an end to all this by arresting these two bitter rivals.
For only a few months, the long-awaited peace reigned in the Russian quarter. And then everyone learned the name Jap. But that's a completely different story.
