Varese F., 2012, The Structure and the Content of Criminal

Connections: The Russian Mafia in Italy, European Sociological Review

By Mark Moore

What is the article investigating?

1. Why do organized crime groups establish foreign outposts?

2. Do these groups have a non-traditional, flat internal structure, lacking ‘centres of gravity’?

3. How do orders and information pass through the network?

What data is the article based on?

• The Solntsevskaya crime group – founded in Moscow in mid 1980s.

• Merged with other criminal organisations. By end of 1990s was one of the most powerful Eurasian organized crime groups in the world.

• Ivan Yakovlev, key player in group, attempted to open an outpost in Rome in mid 1990s.

• Russian-Mafioso turned state witness informed FBI of Yakovlev’s presence in Rome, who informed Italian police.

• Launched investigation and data collected has been used for the analysis in this article (phone taps).

1. Findings: motives for establishing foreign outposts

• Widespread belief among scholars that contemporary crime groups intentionally take advantage of globalisation by opening foreign outposts.

• E.g. ‘Take advantage of attractive labour or raw material markets, so do illicit business’ (Shelley, 2006: p.43)

• Article finds that in case of Solntsevskayacrime group, Yakovlev fled to Rome as a result of fear of being killed in Moscow.

• He concludes from this that Mafia groups ‘find themselves abroad as a consequence of pressure at home’ (Varese 2012: p.8), rather than rationally deciding to expand abroad.

1. Findings: motives for establishing foreign outposts

2. Findings: do groups have a flat internal structure?

• Recent contributions to the sociology of organized crime suggest that the internal structure of organized crime groups are now flat, lacking ‘centres of gravity’.

2. Findings: do groups have a flat internal structure?

• Circles: Nodes representing nationals from former USSR.

• Squares: Nodes representing Italians.

• Size of node depends of number of people person is in touch with.

• Arrows indicate actors who are in phone contact.

• Shows group does have hierarchical structure. Three actors have a high degree of connection.

• Network is highly centralized around a few individuals (centres of gravity).

• Outpost was ‘polycentric’ rather than flat.

3. Findings: Interactions within the network

• Using ‘content analysis’ – Varese looked at the purpose of each phone call e.g. economics investments (51.7%), group management (22.8%), resource acquisition (18.9%).

• Found that orders come from Yakovlev – the Boss, and then a few trusted individuals, including his wife and right hand man, relay the information through the network.

Conclusion:

1. The Solntsevskaya crime group established itself abroad due to pressures at home, not to take advantage of globalization.

2. Group was centered on a few key actors, thus outpost was polycentric, not flat.

3. Orders come from the Boss, and are then passed by a few key, trusted individuals to the rest of the network.