To read an excerpt from this book, click here. To learn even more about Investigating the Russian Mafia and the author, click here. In a unique, new book, Joseph Serio discusses the attitudes and practices of the criminal world, business, and policing, exposing the realities of the Russian Mafia. He convincingly demonstrates that many of the forces at work in the 1990s did not originate in the Communist era or arise because of the collapse of the USSR. Crime groups whose members came from every walk of life - underworld, police, KGB, Communist Party - have been part and parcel of the Russian experience for centuries. Discover why these elements take on a particularly ominous shape in the post-Soviet world and represent a long-term challenge to law enforcement, businesses, and democracy itself for both the Russian Federation and the rest of the world. Investigating the Russian Mafia is ideal for students, law enforcement, practitioners, and business people operating in the former Soviet Union, as well as the general reader. Serio was the only American to work in the Organized Crime Control Department of the Soviet police. He later served as director of the Moscow office of a global investigation firm. "Serio offers us privileged insights from his extraordinary vantage point. Serio''s analysis of Russian organized crime is multi-faceted and interdisciplinary--providing criminological, historical, economic, political, sociological and psychological perspectives on the subject." -- Dorothy McClellan, Texas A&M University "This book should be required reading for anyone spending any time in Russia--certainly journalists and business people posted there, and students as well. Aside from the well-documented account of the lawless 1990s, it offers a rich history of Russian criminal life, from the times of Ivan the Terrible through to the Vory v zakone." -- Paul E. Richardson, Russian Life "Clear, precise, accessible... I read it with great pleasure." -- Andre Bossard, Secretary General (ret.), Interpol "Serio provides a road map to the Russian criminal mind set. Required reading for ALL law enforcement!" -- Detective Douglas Fell, Vancouver B.C. Police Department, Co-Founder Western Association of Eastern European Organized Crime Investigators "At a time when so many accounts in the West portray a one-sided and narrow view of the country, this book is a must-read to see a broader picture of the complexity inherent in Russia''s transition from authoritarianism to democracy and from a planned to a market economy." -- Joel H. Samuels, Assistant Professor, University of South Carolina School of Law "New analysis of the development and character of organized crime in Russia. A superb book! It will be instructive for law enforcement practitioners and theorists concerned with countering or understanding regional and global organized crime." -- Graham H. Turbiville, Jr., Senior Fellow and Consultant, Department of Defense military and intelligence programs, Editor of Global Dimensions of High Intensity Crime and Low Intensity Conflict "This is an important book, not only because it tells us something about the state of affairs in Russia, but also because it gives insight into things popular history is content to pass over... A comprehensive book that is very readable." -- John Lehman, BookReview.com "In sum, the originality and appeal of this book comes from the fact that it manages to be at once well documented and argued without being laboriously academic, while at the same time being accessibly written without engaging in over-simplification or losing its critical edge. It is thus a very accessible introductory text on its subject and deserves to be read widely and not only by those with a specific interest in .mafias.''" -- Gavin Slade, University of Oxford Centre for Criminology (DPhil candidate) "This well-written, very readable work is extremely well documented, including copious footnotes." -- L.L. Vucic, CHOICE Magazine, formerly, Chatham College

THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER “The story Unger weaves with those earlier accounts and his original reporting is fresh, illuminating and more alarming than the intelligence channel described in the Steele dossier.”—The Washington Post House of Trump, House of Putin offers the first comprehensive investigation into the decades-long relationship among Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, and the Russian Mafia that ultimately helped win Trump the White House. It is a chilling story that begins in the 1970s, when Trump made his first splash in the booming, money-drenched world of New York real estate, and ends with Trump’s inauguration as president of the United States. That moment was the culmination of Vladimir Putin’s long mission to undermine Western democracy, a mission that he and his hand-selected group of oligarchs and Mafia kingpins had ensnared Trump in, starting more than twenty years ago with the massive bailout of a string of sensational Trump hotel and casino failures in Atlantic City. This book confirms the most incredible American paranoias about Russian malevolence. To most, it will be a hair-raising revelation that the Cold War did not end in 1991—that it merely evolved, with Trump’s apartments offering the perfect vehicle for billions of dollars to leave the collapsing Soviet Union. In House of Trump, House of Putin, Craig Unger methodically traces the deep-rooted alliance between the highest echelons of American political operatives and the biggest players in the frightening underworld of the Russian Mafia. He traces Donald Trump’s sordid ascent from foundering real estate tycoon to leader of the free world. He traces Russia’s phoenix like rise from the ashes of the post–Cold War Soviet Union as well as its ceaseless covert efforts to retaliate against the West and reclaim its status as a global superpower. Without Trump, Russia would have lacked a key component in its attempts to return to imperial greatness. Without Russia, Trump would not be president. This essential book is crucial to understanding the real powers at play in the shadows of today’s world. The appearance of key figures in this book—Paul Manafort, Michael Cohen, and Felix Sater to name a few—ring with haunting significance in the wake of Robert Mueller’s report and as others continue to close in on the truth.

An examination of Russian organized crime at home and in the U.S.

In the past decade, from Brighton Beach to Moscow, Toronto to Hong Kong, the Russian mob has become the world's fastest-growing criminal superpower. Trafficking in prostitutes, heroin, and missiles, the mafiya poses an enormous threat to global stability and safety. Today, the mafiya controls over 80 percent of Russia's banks and has siphoned off billions of dollars in Western loans and aid, almost certainly derailing the chance for a stable democracy there. But that is just the beginning, for the mafiya is now in every corner of the United States and has infiltrated some of the banks and brokerage firms that handle your money. And American law enforcement is just waking up to this staggering problem. No journalist in the world knows more about the mafiya than Friedman, who has covered the Russian mob for Details, Vanity Fair, and New York. At great peril to himself, Friedman interviewed many of the top mobsters, who were stunningly candid about their activities. In their depravity, ruthlessness, and brutality, Russian gangsters make the traditional Mafia look like choirboys. Red Mafiya will appeal to anyone interested in the Mob.

The first English-language book to document the men who emerged from the gulags to become Russia's much-feared crime class: the vory v zakone Mark Galeotti is the go-to expert on organized crime in Russia, consulted by governments and police around the world. Now, Western readers can explore the fascinating history of the vory v zakone, a group that has survived and thrived amid the changes brought on by Stalinism, the Cold War, the Afghan War, and the end of the Soviet experiment. The vory--as the Russian mafia is also known--was born early in the twentieth century, largely in the Gulags and criminal camps, where they developed their unique culture. Identified by their signature tattoos, members abided by the thieves' code, a strict system that forbade all paid employment and cooperation with law enforcement and the state. Based on two decades of on-the-ground research, Galeotti's captivating study details the vory's journey to power from their early days to their adaptation to modern-day Russia's free-wheeling oligarchy and global opportunities beyond.

Om den russiske mafia, som ikke kun er bander og organiseret krig, men også et voldeligt udtryk for den revolutionære klassekamp

"Hettena is a first-rate reporter and wonderful story-teller, and the tale he tells here is mind-boggling."—Jane Mayer, author of New York Times bestseller Dark Money "Hettena skillfully weaves many threads—most fresh or previously hidden—into a rich tapestry tying together decades of Donald Trump's deep involvement with Russia."—DAVID CAY JOHNSTON , author of New York Times bestseller The Making of Donald Trump Uncovering the decades-long association between Donald Trump and Russia Is the 45th President of the United States under the control of a foreign power? Award-winning Associated Press reporter Seth Hettena untangles the story of Donald Trump’s long involvement with Russia in damning detail—including new reporting never before published. As Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into the relationship between members of Trump’s campaign and Russian operatives continues, there is growing evidence that Trump has spent decades cultivating ties to corrupt Russians and the post-Soviet state. In Trump/Russia: A Definitive History, Seth Hettena chronicles the many years Trump has spent wooing Russian money and power. From the collapse of his casino empire—which left Trump desperate for cash—and his first contacts with Russian deal-makers and financiers, on up to the White House, Hettena reveals the myriad of shady people, convoluted dealings, and strange events that suggest how indebted to Russia our forty-fifth president might be. Using deeply researched reporting, along with newly uncovered information, court documents, and exclusive interviews with investigators and FBI agents, Hettena provides an expansive and essential primer to the Trump/Russia scandal, leaving no stone unturned.

The untold story of how Russia refined the art and science of targeted assassination abroad: “A compelling rendering of Putin’s frightening extensions of power into Europe and the United States” (Associated Press). They thought they had found a safe haven in the green hills of England. They were wrong. One by one, the Russian oligarchs, dissidents, and gangsters who fled to Britain after Vladimir Putin came to power dropped dead in strange or suspicious circumstances. One by one, their British lawyers and fixers met similarly grisly ends. Yet, one by one, the British authorities shut down every investigation — and carried on courting the Kremlin. The spies in the riverside headquarters of MI6 looked on with horror as the scope of the Kremlin's global killing campaign became all too clear. And, across the Atlantic, American intelligence officials watched with mounting alarm as the bodies piled up, concerned that the tide of death could spread to the United States. Those fears intensified when a one-time Kremlin henchman was found bludgeoned to death in a Washington, D.C. penthouse. But it wasn't until Putin's assassins unleashed a deadly chemical weapon on the streets of Britain, endangering hundreds of members of the public in a failed attempt to slay the double agent Sergei Skripal, that Western governments were finally forced to admit that the killing had spun out of control. Unflinchingly documenting the growing web of death on British and American soil, Heidi Blake bravely exposes the Kremlin's assassination campaign as part of Putin's ruthless pursuit of global dominance — and reveals why Western governments have failed to stop the bloodshed. The unforgettable story that emerges whisks us from London's high-end night clubs to Miami's million-dollar hideouts ultimately renders a bone-chilling portrait of money, betrayal, and murder, written with the pace and propulsive power of a thriller. Based on a vast trove of unpublished documents, bags of discarded police evidence, and interviews with hundreds of insiders, this heart-stopping international investigation uncovers one of the most important — and terrifying — geopolitical stories of our time.

How do mafias work? How do they recruit people, control members, conduct legal and illegal business, and use violence? Why do they establish such a complex mix of rituals, rules, and codes of conduct? And how do they differ? Why do some mafias commit many more murders than others? This book makes sense of mafias as organizations, via a collative analysis of historical accounts, official data, investigative sources, and interviews. Catino presents a comparative study of seven mafias around the world, from three Italian mafias to the American Cosa Nostra, Japanese Yakuza, Chinese Triads, and Russian mafia. He identifies the organizational architecture that characterizes these criminal groups, and relates different organizational models to the use of violence. Furthermore, he advances a theory on the specific functionality of mafia rules and discusses the major organizational dilemmas that mafias face. This book shows that understanding the organizational logic of mafias is an indispensable step in confronting them.

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “I’ve read kind of all the books on this subject . . . and this is the one you want to read.”—Rachel Maddow Before Ukraine, before impeachment: This is the never-before-told inside story of the high-stakes, four-year-long investigation into Donald Trump’s Russia ties—culminating in the Steele dossier, and sparking the Mueller report—from the founders of political opposition research company Fusion GPS. Fusion GPS was founded in 2010 by Glenn Simpson and Peter Fritsch, two former reporters at The Wall Street Journal who decided to abandon the struggling news business and use their reporting skills to conduct open-source investigations for businesses and law firms—and opposition research for political candidates. In the fall of 2015, they were hired to look into the finances of Donald Trump. What began as a march through a mind-boggling trove of lawsuits, bankruptcies, and sketchy overseas projects soon took a darker turn: The deeper Fusion dug, the more it began to notice names that Simpson and Fritsch had come across during their days covering Russian corruption—and the clearer it became that the focus of Fusion’s research going forward would be Trump’s entanglements with Russia. To help them make sense of what they were seeing, Simpson and Fritsch engaged the services of a former British intelligence agent and Russia expert named Christopher Steele. He would produce a series of memos—which collectively became known as the Steele dossier—that raised deeply alarming questions about the nature of Trump’s ties to a hostile foreign power. Those memos made their way to U.S. intelligence agencies, and then to President Barack Obama and President-elect Trump. On January 10, 2017, the Steele dossier broke into public view, and the Trump-Russia story reached escape velocity. At the time, Fusion GPS was just a ten-person consulting firm tucked away above a Starbucks near Dupont Circle, but it would soon be thrust into the center of the biggest news story on the planet—a story that would lead to accusations of witch hunts, a relentless campaign of persecution by congressional Republicans, bizarre conspiracy theories, lawsuits by Russian oligarchs, and the Mueller report. In Crime in Progress, Simpson and Fritsch tell their story for the first time—a tale of the high-stakes pursuit of one of the biggest, most important stories of our time—no matter the costs.