organised crime

bratva

publicRussia
2
Bounties
43.96 MATIC
In bounties

About

Russian organized crime or Russian mafia, otherwise known as Bratva, is a collective of various organized crime elements originating in the former Soviet Union. The acronym OPG is Organized Criminal Group, used to refer to any of the Russian mafia groups, sometimes modified with a specific name, e. g. Orekhovskaya OPG. Sometimes the initialism is translated and OCG is used.

Threat

In 2012, there were as many as 6,000 groups, with more than 200 of them having a global reach. Criminals of these various groups are either former prison members, corrupt officials and business leaders, people with ethnic ties, or people from the same region with shared criminal experiences and leaders. The level of political corruption and arms sales in a post-Soviet Russia allowed for massive expansion and incorporation of many government officials into the crime syndicates. The Russians also dabbled in uranium trading, stolen from the Soviet nuclear program, and human trafficking.

Operates in

  • Russia