"Solntsevo" members under the "hood" of intelligence agencies and Interpol. Part 2


Since the activity of the members of “Solntsevo” gang   has spread in the countries of Europe and North America, the 
Russian criminal groups and their leaders come under the watchful eye of Western intelligence agencies and Interpol . The 
series of reports and policy briefs prepared by the General Secretariat of Interpol, which describe in detail the structure 
andactivity of the "Solntsevo" criminal gang appeared at the disposal of Rumafia.com.The types of criminal activities and the structure of legal business of “Solntsevo” criminal group, as well as the list of affiliated persons are described in the following analytical report prepared in the context of the “Millenium Project .


Introduction

 

Within the investigation carried out by the Departments for organized crime control and fight against Drug Abuse and 
Illicit Trafficking he prepared and spread numerous analytic materials about the activities of particular persons and 
organizations suspected of setting up business of crime.   Based on reports received from International Police Secretary General's Office in the period starting from 1993, and a Millenium Project as well, this establishment considers the Solntsevo fraternity to be one of the most powerful criminal groupings in Russia and Eastern Europe. The current investigation, based on information obtained from the police and authorities, was provided by the International Police Secretary General's Office and partially updated from the open sources.


The basic open source data is organized as following: the title, the author, the newspaper ,the date, and information 
provided by the police is organized this way: Interpol's National Central Bureau, report number, the date. The main purpose of this survey is to gather information about the Solntsevo crime group .It is just the basis for the 
further investigation and can not be considered as the comprehensive one. It covers the period from the 1995 till nowadays 
but currently there is not much information about the criminal grouping activity. It ought to be noted that the quality and 
the contents of the given information depend on the information sources of the participant countries which provided it. 
Because of it sometimes there are contradictions between facts .In this case the text is followed by the a¬¬nalyst's remarks.The gathered information made it possible to demonstrate that the Solntsevo criminal grouping has a defined structure and organization. But we do not know the level of stability, flexibility and hierarchical power of the dependent organizations and crime groups.It should be emphasized that the structure of the Solntsevo crime grouping can be compared to the frozen picture related to the certain moment of time and based on the information taken from the card-files of the International Police Secretary General's Office , that is why it may completely differ from the current matter of facts. The number of members or their location may be different.  

The participating countries are offered to share their opinions with The Secretary General upon this question.Moreover the majority of the countries participating in the «Millennium Project», find it difficult or even impossible to provide the latest information because of their secret nature and / or because the investigations are not finished yet. As for Semyon Mogilevich , who is probably well known in many participating countries, a large amount of information about him comes mostly from countries such as the U.S.A and Israel, which can be contacted for further information. Most of the information was provided by the FBI, which classified the members and supporters by the countries.

The Swiss authorities have also participated in providing information. The presented data allowed Switzerland to supplement and clarify the available information, a clear picture of the structure of the organization and determine who was / is a member of Solntsevo crime group,and who was / is the collaborators and / or partners. We thank the FBI and the government of Switzerland for all the information they provided, which has a lot of value for this review. A thorough investigation of the Solntsevo crime group was conducted in 1995 by the Czech authorities. We are grateful to this country for giving information which formed the basis of this report. We also thank the Czech Republic and Switzerland for photo materials. We also want to thank the National Central Bureau in Kiev, Jerusalem, Riga, Rome, Sofia, and Wiesbaden for sending detailed information.

Though the message sent by Interpol in Moscow was very brief, it also contained interesting information about the various members of the organization and the cases in which they participated. Unfortunately, the other Member States of the "Millennium Project" took a minor part in the exchange of information or even did not share it, though it is known that all of them have problems with Russian organized crime, which has been studied by these countries.  Because of the complexity and the large amount of information the report was divided into two parts:* Part I deals with the criminal group organization, its leaders, and team members.   * Part II examines business operations of the brotherhood and its contacts with various individuals and criminal groups.The Introduction, summary and conclusions will be the same for both parts.   We hope that the following review will allow all interested countries to understand the questions related to the criminal business of this group, its structure and fields of activity better.

Analyst's remark: the notions used at the charts and schemes of the review are as follows:

Companyplantbankproperty

The dash lines in the schemes show the information which was not verified, blue color of the lines shows the companies, green-organizations and grey -the companies which do not exist anymore.Solntsevo crime group is a  set of major and independent organizations, groups and gangs and four main divisions: the commanding team consisting of nine people who lead the criminal gangs and deal with cash common fund(the whole amount of money the criminal community has),this group includes two leaders:

1) the authorities Sergey Mikhailov and Viktor Averin;

2) the security group, providing the leaders of the group with safety consulting  

3) shock brigade responsible for crime and 

4)financial group, which uses different structures for gathering cash common fund.

According to different sources of information there are from 1700 to 2000 people in Solntsevo crime group.Five top ranking vors (criminal bosses) were closely connected to this criminal group. One of the most powerful of them is Vyacheslav Ivankov. In fact top ranking vors do not perform the management of the criminal grouping but they influence the decisions and resolve disputes between organized crime groups.  The Solntsevo crime group owes its name from its location-Moscow district Solntsevo.

I was founded by Sergey Mikhailov and Sergey Timofeev in 1984 in Moscow.By the end of 1989 this crime group nearly took control over Moscow and started to spread its influence  within the Eastern Europe. In the 1990th it developed its activity in the Czech Republic, and this lasted till 1995 until the  leaders and  some other members of the group were rejected the entry into the country. In 1993 Mikhailov and Mogilevich organized several groups in Hungary.   The leaders of the criminal group traveled and/or settled in the Western Europe, Austria, Switzerland, France, Italy as well as in Israel, Costa Rica, United States, investing in real estate and industry of these countries. They worked closely with the business people, lawyers and other necessary professionals who also were the members of the Solntsevo criminal group and supported this business. The Solntcevo also collaborates with the other criminal groups of Russia, for instance: the Izmaiovo crime group and Kobzon's XXI Century Fox association. It has representatives in other countries like Italy and Latvia. It also has drug dealing business with the Italians and Colombians.The Solntsevo criminal group gained the real economic power not only on the territory of Russia but also abroad by getting rid of the leaders of competing gangs, absorbing their members and taking control over their territories. It gets into the banking and financial business as well as main companies in Moscow.

It uses corruption, sometimes at a very high level, blackmailing and bribing. The members of the Solntsevo crime group are involved into drug dealing and arms traffic, hostage taking , fraud, trafficking of stolen pieces of art, commit murder and launder money. Their activities are based on a wide network of front companies, financial institutions, funds and legitimate businesses to launder the proceeds obtained by illegal means.The Solntsevo criminal group purchased a number of Russian companies, for example: "The System" (Sistema), "The CPI Corporation (IVK-Corporation)", "CB Holding (SV-Holding)", "Agro Plus (Agro Plus)", and deals with oil selling , telecommunications, tourism, manufacturing and computer trading, insurance and banking business. It also has invested capital in the companies in Austria, Belgium, Israel, Latvia, the UK, Hungary, USA and Cyprus.Tofik Azimov and Evgeny Akimov are two major persons who used money laundering for the Solntsevo crime group. Semyon Mogilevich also played significant role in organizing money laundering schemes for Mikhailov, Averin and Ivankov.

He belongs to the council of leadership and financial groups and is  responsible for relations with the Ukrainian criminal groups. He created or participated in the creation of casinos and companies producing or trading in weapons, magnets, oil / "Arbat International (Arbat International)", "Arigon" (Arigon), "Magneks" (Magnex), "IBM Magneks" (YBM Magnex) / Hungary, Russia, USA, Ukraine, Cyprus, Channel Islands, etc. However, currently his status in the criminal community slightly fell down. In the conclusion it may be said that the Solntsevo criminal group threatens to democracy. It turned out that it is very difficult to collect evidence of its leaders and members of money laundering process, as well as their belonging to a criminal group. It is also quite difficult to prove the illegality of the source of money having no interaction with the countries where the crimes were committed. The matter becomes even more complicated when it comes to countries with high levels of corruption. That's why the close cooperation of the participating countries is so important. Prohibiting the entry of leaders and members of criminal groups in the territory of the participating countries, we can prevent the spread of criminal influence and, accordingly, ensure protection of the Member States.