The “Brainy Don,” Semion Mogilevich, known up to now as merely a shadowy controller of Eastern European gas pipelines, a launderer of money and a defrauder of investors for $150 million, has graduated to a spot on the FBI’s Top Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list.
The US is offering up to $100,000 for information leading to the arrest of the Ukrainian-born Mogilevich. He is charged with more than 40 counts of racketeering, wire fraud, mail fraud, money laundering and other crimes committed in dozens of countries. (Pssssst. He could still be in Moscow, since he’s been under a travel ban since his release from jail over an alleged tax evasion case there.)
How does a crook get on the list? It’s almost like getting a fellowship or grant in their field of study. When a vacancy pops up, FBI field offices nominate candidates, who must have committed a violent crime and continue to pose a danger. The Violent Crimes unit then vets the candidates and sends its list up the chain to the director, who has final approval. The FBI created the list in 1950. It was a gimmick to get the public to pay attention and help out with information. It worked. The FBI says that 463 of the 493 fugitives named to the list have either been apprehended or located.
Mogilevich’s name could probably be added to the “located” list; the FBI acknowledges that Russia is his primary residence. And he’s hard to miss. The agency describes him as a 300-pounder, scarred by pockmarks and with a heavy smoking habit. As for the likelihood that Mogilevich may join the 152 Top-Ten suspects that have actually been arrested:
“If he’s caught in any country with a U.S. extradition treaty, they could send him here,” (Special Agent Peter) Kowenhoven said. “If Mogilevich travels outside of Russia, we’re hoping someone will turn him in.”
Eight Indicted in Pukanic Murder
US Offers $100,000 for Mogilevich Info
Published: 27 October 2009
By Beth
Indictments came down Monday in both Croatia and Serbia for suspects (eight or nine of them, depending on which wire service you look at) in last year’s car-bombing murder of a prominent journalist in Zagreb. Croatian prosecutors charged five or six men; prosecutors in Belgrade charged suspected crime boss Sreten Jocic and two associates with masterminding the crime, which left editor-in-chief of Croatian weekly Nacional Ivo Pukanic dead. According to the charges, Jocic ordered the crime and paid his Croatian colleagues €1.5 million to carry it out. The motive, according to AFP:
"The murder was organised to prevent Pukanic from revealing in press and electronic media in Croatia and neighbouring countries journalistic findings about actions of several criminal groups in the region and their mutual links," the Croatian state attorney's office said in a statement.
Most of the men charged are already in custody in either Croatia or Serbia. The wires noted that the arrests over the past year, and Monday’s simultaneous indictments, show that the two 1990s enemy countries have begun cooperating to fight organized crime in the region.
Following Up Major Crime
Serbia: In other follow-up on major crimes, B92 reported last week that Serbian authorities arrested five more people thought to be involved in the cocaine ring that was recently busted up in Uruguay.
They are suspected of being members of an international organized crime group which acquired and transported cocaine from South America to Western Europe. They were remanded in custody for 48 hours after being questioned by police.
The group in question recently received the robust attentions of the US DEA and Serbia’s state security, or BIA, when both agencies helped raid a yacht in a port west of Montevideo and found more than two tons of cocaine aboard. The cocaine was apparently destined for the European market, where it would have fetched around €250 million. Serbian police have since seized a Montenegro-registered BMW jeep and €540,000 from one of the suspects.
Kosovo: Police last week arrested 12 of their own for allegedly taking bribes and abusing their positions at the border crossings with Serbia proper. No further details were available. Also in Kosovo, the EU mission there is investigating the deaths of 16 Kosovar Albanians who reportedly drowned while trying to illegally cross into Hungary from Serbia.
Region: And in news that should concern all of the former Yugoslavia – as well as its considerable diaspora worldwide – six former and current heads of the company that makes Vegeta, the mystery seasoning widely beloved throughout Comrade Tito’s former lands, were arrested for allegedly embezzling company money to buy shares and control the company. In honor of Vegeta, the Croatian press dubbed the affair involving the partially state-owned Podravka company the “spice” case. While Vegeta – a concoction of salt, monosodium glutamate and dried celery that adorns meals from Lake Bled to Lake Ohrid and beyond – can hardly be considered spicy, the case certainly is. Prosecutors say that six executives withdrew €34 million as false loans to other companies and funneled the money offshore, to await their plans to buy out the state’s 25 percent of the company.
Russia: Another Cliché Appearance, Journo Blather
The Russian gangster known as Yaponchik died Oct. 9 from injuries sustained after a sniper attack in Moscow last summer. Last week, the Sunday Times took us to Yaponchik’s funeral. The article didn’t offer much analysis of Russian gangland rifts that may have led to Yaponchik’s murder. Nor did it offer an in-depth look into what might happen next. What it did offer was this opening sentence:
The scene could have come straight out of The Godfather.
Please, no more. Eighteen months into this blog, I am beyond tired of reading openers like this. If it’s not “The Godfather” world of leaving the gun and taking the cannoli, it’s the corporate and international crime cases deemed “worthy of a spy thriller” or “like a tale out of a John le Carre novel.” Give it a rest. Neither the cliché nor the story’s gangster iconography (the mourners’ gold chains, the luxurious coffin, the wreaths from fellow criminals) is likely to help other journalists who want to work with the cops who fight organized crime or the academics who study it. It’s stuff like this that makes the experts think that journalists think organized crime has to involve shady Russians with gold chains or shady Italians with guns and cannoli.
Fresh Eastern Europe Roundup
* A Slovak national was sentenced last week to 52 months in a US federal prison for laundering more than $1.6 million related to a US-European cocaine ring. Rastislav Halcin, 28, had pleaded guilty to conspiracy of money laundering, according to the DEA.
The government’s evidence showed that Halcin received the funds from bank accounts throughout Europe for the purpose of providing it to other members of the organization to purchase cocaine in Arizona. He attempted to avoid detection by using several different banks in the Phoenix area to move the funds. The cocaine was then shipped from Arizona to the Chicago area. The drugs were either sold in Chicago or smuggled to Europe for distribution. Money would then be sent to Arizona to continue the illegal cycle. Four kilograms of cocaine, vehicles and approximately $20,000 cash were seized as part of the investigation.
* Also last week, Romanian authorities arrested a former presidential candidate for fraud after finding evidence that he’d paid campaign staff with counterfeit euros. Nati Meir, who was born in Israel of parents of Romanian descent, has been in trouble with the law before. Israel-based YNetNews.com reports that Meir’s trial on similar charges in 2006 has yet to be concluded, and that Meir had earlier pled guilty to fraud in a plea bargain in Israel.
* These parts east – the Balkans, Russia and Europe east of Vienna – present a target-rich environment for Roberto Saviano, the journalist who wrote the Camorra tell-all Gomorrah. Saviano told Italian website Osservatorio Balcani last week:
“I am considering a book on Eastern Europe, which is a crucial link in the analysis of the big international crime networks,” he says. “In this sense, my teacher was Federico Varese, a criminology professor at Oxford. Among other things, he taught that for many mafias in the East, their contact with the Italian mafias taught them how to improve. This is confirmed by some extraordinary criminal careers such as that of Arkan, the commander of the Serb paramilitary groups and of the Tigers during the war in the former Yugoslavia. It was his contact with the powerful mafia family of Morabito di Platì in Milan which transformed him from a car thief into a dangerous criminal. In addition, I will also focus on how his drug and arms dealings in the Balkans are connected to the Casalesi clan [a confederation of crime clans operating in the Caserta region of Italy], even though the Casalesi boss, Francesco Schiavone, a.k.a Sandokan, has always denied knowing him.”
Berlusconi Trial to Resume in November
A Milan court will resume trying Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi for alleged tax and accounting fraud on Nov. 16, according to the Wall Street Journal. The trial, which covers allegations that Berlusconi’s television company Mediaset over-declared the costs it paid for film rights in the 1990s, was suspended last year after Italy’s parliament passed a law shielding Berlusconi and other high-ranking officials from prosecution while in office. Berlusconi denies the charges. His lawyer told the WSJ that Berlusconi wasn’t involved in company management at the time of the alleged crime.
Italy: 1990s Collusion with Mob?
Also last week, Italy’s justice minister promised he’d look into allegations that the government held secret talks with the Sicilian Mafia in the early 1990s to try to stop the violent attacks on the state. The Italian press have for weeks run stories about a 1992 list of demands dictated by top boss Toto Riina, demands the mob made in exchange for stopping the attacks – which that year had included bombing murders of two senior anti-mafia magistrates. Italy’s head anti-mafia prosecutor Paolo Grasso added fuel to the fire earlier this month by telling an Italian newspaper that he knew of contacts between the state and the mob in the early 1990s. Reuters reported:
It was the first time anyone of Grasso's level had stated so clearly that contacts took place between the crime group and the state in the early 1990s and his comments prompted demands for investigations and clarifications.
"I am mortified," said Antonio Di Pietro, a former magistrate who now heads the Italy of Values party. "The state was dealing with the Mafia to guarantee public peace while faithful servants of the state were being killed."
