Law enforcement agencies in six EU countries have detained 69 members of a Georgian criminal conspiracy who were involved in money-laundering, smuggled weapons, traded in drugs and masterminded robberies and murders.
The fact that among members of the "Georgian mafia" headed by Kakhaber Shushanashvili are nationals from post-Soviet republics was used by some media to report about the arrest of the "Russian mafia", a term habitually used by foreigners in relation to similar groups. Alexander Gurov, who sits on the parliamentary Security Committee, is outraged by the reports:
"According to research, there is no such notion as the "Russian mafia" in the ethnical sense of the word. There are individuals who are members of gang groups. In 1995 when I wrote a book about organized crime in the Soviet Union I found it problematic to pick the right term for it because Russians made up a mere 30 percent in criminal groups, the rest were Georgians. I eventually settled on "Red Mafia", which I borrowed from the Germans, to refer to criminals hailing from former Soviet republics. Those were mainly Georgian criminal bosses who had cobwebbed a whole network. They are referred to as the "Russian mafia" because it's convenient and much shorter than "a Russian-speaking native of Georgia".
The all-round crackdown was initiated by Spain, from where the gang leader, Shushanashvili, ran his subordinates rewarding them for crimes they committed on the territory of Europe. Spain was soon joined by Switzerland, Germany, Austria, Italy and France. The investigation into the criminal conspiracy lasted several months in which the law enforcement officials had to figure out the methods used and cut the gangsters off from financing channels. In the opinion of Alexander Gurov, other countries, Russia included, should practice the same operations and learn from the professionalism of law enforcement in Europe. If the countries concerned join forces, they will surely kick the international mafia out for good.
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