Red Mafiya: How the Russian Mob Has Invaded America Hardcover – 1 Jan. 2000

For the basics

If you want to understand what’s happening in both US and world politics today you must read this book. The seeds of corruption of the ruling class have been planted by the Russian mob for last 50 years. They’ve been bearing fruit for the last two decades.

Red Mafiya was suggested thru Twitter to explain some interesting relationships which exist today in world politics. Of particular interest is the Mob influence on US politics...

The book follows about a dozen key Mafiya men in the USA (and back and forth to Russia and Ukraine) from the late 1970s through the late 1990s. It is colorfully told, and its main characters are colorful to begin with. The FBI was just awakening to the threat of the Russian gangsters. The later book opens out into the world of offshoring and monmey laundering. It has neat, compact descriptions of banks, players and moves. I would like to see an update, as September 2001 and the pivot of the FBI toward terrorism may have reopened some opportunities for these folks. And I will be interested to see how our Justice Department and FBI are directed in this regard, in the Trump era.And who shows up here? If you guessed Donald Trump, you win. Might fake news travel back in time? What was Trump doing in this story? He was having a very nasty guy (a guy who sent a very threatening and vulgar note to the author, reproduced in this book) living at Trump Tower, and Mr. Trump was also making money from (the author claims) some very nasty casino patrons. Now, unlike a bank, a residential complex and a casino lack certain "know your customer" laws to frustrate money laundering. (Some big well-connected banks have shown themselves selective in complying with those laws, anyway.) Of course, money laundering, we all know, never happens in foreigners' New York area real estate purchases, or casinos. All this means Trump's behavior (to the extent it is recited here, around page 132) may very well, on its face, be legal. But ethical? That, I suppose, is in the eye of the beholder. Let's say I would never take any of this money I see as blood-drenched (aside from passively receiving the benefits of capital flight into this system from sources we would rather not look at). But I'm just a common fool and a nobody, not a big player like the Trumpster. Surely Mr. Trump has displayed some interesting selectivity about which immigrants he seems to think are problematic or not.Again, the trump name pops up at page 250, footnote, wherein "a top Russian crime figure in America, who once fought in North Vietnam for the Soviets," jumped bail on criminal charges and fled to Poland. "Before he fled ..., he turned over his mortgages for five pricey Trump Tower apartments to a Genovese [American mafia family] associate. The mortgages were liquidated and the funds were moved through a mafia-controlled bank in Manhattan's Chelsea." Well, certain people congregate around certain people. People are known by the company they keep, in business and not merely as personally. While certainly plenty of law-abiding people have or trade Trump Tower apartments, these do seem a status thing and almost a form of currency, a store of value, among a certain very sleazy global set. And this is our second White House?

Eine umfassende, spannend geschriebene Darstellung des Phänomens, wie sie auch für Europa interessant wäre. Leider weitgehend auf die USA beschränkt und auch ganz aus amerikanischer Sicht (daher möglicherweise etwas einseitig), zudem nicht ganz neuesten Datums. Dennoch ein Standartwerk für alle, die sich mit der Materie auseinandersetzen möchten.