RUSSIAN CRIMINAL GANGS COULD SURPASS MAFIA IN UNITED STATES.

Criminal gangs from Russia and other former Soviet states could eventually supplant the Mafia as the "principal organized crime group in the United States," deputy FBI director Jim Moody warned last week. Moody told a congressional subcommittee January 25 that Russian gangs have rapidly grown stronger in both Russia and the United States and that they were cooperating with other foreign criminal groups, including those based in Italy and Columbia. He said the breakdown of the previous political order weakened existing legal constraints and law enforcement capabilities in the former USSR, while the transition to capitalism provided new opportunities quickly exploited by criminal organizations. Moody said the FBI, which now has an office in Moscow, was working cautiously with Russia’s Internal Affairs Ministry on the problem. (7)

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