Abstract
Countries undergoing social and legal transformations typically experience a slight, but relatively insignificant, increase in crime. This crime takes two forms: acts of (1) isolated individuals or small groups of individuals of a nonsystematic nature and (2) organized crime groups (OCG) and criminal networks. Criminologists, political scientists, and sociologists are unanimous in their view that corruption and organized crime present a major and perhaps the most important factors hindering the economic, political, and social development of the successor states of the former Soviet Union. This development has implications not merely for such states but the world as a whole.
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Notes
- 1.
Yukos was Russia’s largest private company, worth more than $40 billion before tax; authorities seized its largest production asset in 2004 in a case analysts linked to the opposition political activities of its founder, Mikhail Khodorkovsky. The drawn-out dismantlement of Yukos and criminal prosecution of its executives came to symbolize the bare-knuckled rules of Russian capitalism. The New York Times. September 6, 2009. Accessed September 6, query2009.
- 2.
Kriminalnyi avtoritet is a ranking crime boss or criminal authority.
- 3.
Stanley, A. Russian Banking Scandal Poses Threat to Future of Privatization. The New York Times , January 28, 1996. Accessed September 6, 2009.
- 4.
A criminal organization can have two or three group commanders operating in different regions.
- 5.
Director of the Lab 2 Dr. V. Larichev supervised the conducted study and interviews.
- 6.
Thief-in-law (Russian: вop в зaкoнe, “vor v zakone”; plural thieves-in-law “vory v zakone”) is a skilled individual, particularly a thief, within the Russian criminal world who satisfies certain requirements of the Russian criminal traditions and are similar to the “Cosa Nostra” in Italy.
- 7.
The term GULAG is an acronym from the government body responsible for administering prison camps across the former Soviet Union. The word is an acronym for Glavnoye upravleniye ispravitelno-trudovykh lagerey i kolonii, i.e., “The Chief Directorate [or Administration] of Corrective Labor Camps and Colonies.”
- 8.
The economic system known as the underground economy, shadow economy, black economy, or black market consists of all commerce on which applicable taxes are evaded. The market includes not only prohibited commerce (e.g., drugs, prostitution, and gambling activities that are illegal in some locales), but also trade in legal goods and services for which some income is not reported and consequently taxation is evaded, through money laundering or payment in cash.
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Cheloukhine, S., Haberfeld, M.R. (2011). Introduction. In: Russian Organized Corruption Networks and their International Trajectories. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-0990-9_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-0990-9_1
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