CALIFORNIA, HERE THEY COME.

The California Attorney General’s office warned March 15 that organized crime groups from Russia and other countries of the former Soviet Union are becoming increasingly active in the state and that law enforcement bodies need to coordinate their efforts to counter the threat. A prepared report said that Russian crime figures were migrating to California from the U.S. East Coast and warned that they had begun to form alliances with La Cosa Nostra, Colombian cocaine cartels, and the Sicilian Mafia.(Reuter, March 15) Last month a deputy FBI director said that criminal gangs from the former Soviet Union could eventually supplant the Mafia as the "principal organized crime group in the United States." (See Monitor, January 30)

Russian Reactors to Come on Line.