From Gulags to Global Power: The Story of the Russian Mafia

Namaskar,

This Podcast based on article “From Gulags to Global Power: The Story of the Russian Mafia”, traces the rise of the Russian Mafia known as the Bratva from its origins in Stalin’s gulags to its evolution as a powerful global criminal syndicate. It explores how the Soviet prison caste of Vory v Zakone laid the ideological foundation for a mafia culture that rejected the state and thrived on an internal code of honor. With the collapse of the USSR, this subculture rapidly expanded as ex-KGB officers, war veterans, and opportunistic criminals seized privatized assets, corrupted the political system, and fused organized crime with capitalism. The Bratva soon emerged not just as street thugs or oligarch-linked cartels, but as sophisticated transnational players embedded in banking, politics, and international markets.

The piece dives into the mafia's deep penetration into the United States via immigration hubs like Brighton Beach and its links to the NRA, financial fraud, and cybercrime. It also unpacks how the Bratva used Israel's diamond industry in Ramat Gan to launder blood diamonds from African warzones. A detailed account follows of their drug empires from Afghan heroin routed through Central Asia to Latin American cocaine and synthetic drug production. Finally, it documents their dominance in the illicit global arms trade, with figures like Viktor Bout and Semion Mogilevich at the center, and explores how mafia logistics have been used to support conflict zones in Ukraine, Syria, and Africa. The article concludes by warning that the Bratva is no longer just a criminal network it’s a shadow geopolitical force, operating at the blurred intersection of state, crime, and capital.

Do read the article in detail over here

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