Episode 98 · The GaS Digital / Ray Kump Era
Russia's Super Mafia
May 30, 2018 · 1:12:01 · 26 segments, 145 moments indexed
- 1 min
Show open music sting before Tim introduces the guest.
1moment
- 0:00Show opening: Tim Dillon Is Going To Hell
- 2 min
Tim introduces author Mark Galeotti to discuss his book on Russian organized crime, framing the interview around separating myth from reality about the Russian mafia's power and its relationship to the state.
3moments
- 0:43Tim introduces Mark Galeotti as author of a book about Russia's Super Mafia.
- 1:13Mark distinguished between fantastical claims about the Russian mafia and actual facts in his preface.
- 1:38Tim asks what differentiates exaggerated claims—like the mafia running Russia or trafficking nuclear weapons—from reality.
Mark GalliatiRussiaRussian organized crime
- 1 min
Galeotti explains how post-Soviet Russia settled into a criminal state with three overlapping categories: old-school gangsters, corrupt officials, and the Putin state itself, all blurred together.
4moments
- 2:22Russian Mafia hysteria of the 1990s coincided with the country in free fall, when Mercedes sold more bulletproof limos to Russia than everywhere else combined.
- 2:45Since around 2000, the state reasserted control, transforming Russia into a criminal state with three distinct categories of criminals.
- 2:59Tim's breakdown: gangsters who are organized crime figures, corrupt officials ripping off the country, and the state itself under Putin pursuing great power status.
- 3:32All three criminal groups—gangsters, corrupt officials, and the state—have relationships with each other but remain fundamentally separate forces.
- 3 min
Discussion of how the Bolsheviks and later Stalin co-opted criminals, using gangster-prisoners as slave labor foremen in the Gulag system, which cemented a durable alliance between criminals and the state.
7moments
- 3:58Lenin hiring criminals for the revolution would have been better if he'd arrested them instead.
- 4:21Tim explains how Bolsheviks promised wonderful dreams in 1917 but resorted to compromises like hiring gangsters and secret policemen.
- 4:52Stalin's terror campaign starting in the late 1920s sent millions to Gulags, often for trivial reasons like laughing at the wrong joke.
- 5:24Specific arrest designations like 55ers or 49ers meant that once a law passed, a million people would be arrested for that infraction.
- 5:44Stalin realized using gangsters already in prisons as foremen and guards was cheaper than paying hardship bonuses to recruit guards for Arctic camps.
- 6:10From the 1930s onward, the Bolshevik state formed an alliance with gangsters, using them as tools to control other prisoners.
- 6:26The Vori criminal culture realized they could continue their crimes while gaining state protection and better living conditions in exchange for cooperation.
StalinGulagsSoviet UnionVoriBolsheviksVladimir Lenin
- 2 min
Galeotti describes the libertarian, anti-government ethos of the original Vorovskoy Mir, the visible tattoo culture meant to signal defiance to society, and the underworld war that erupted when some Vory started cooperating with the state.
5moments
- 6:50The original Vory were anti-government and anti-statist, with an almost libertarian streak against the Soviet model.
- 7:21Tattoos were central to Russian gangsters as a way to reject mainstream society.
- 7:38Russian criminal tattoos were designed to be visible, unlike the hidden Yakuza tattoos, to broadcast defiance and fear.
- 7:53The anti-government, anti-mainstream trend meant Vory who worked for the state caused a total break within their ranks.
- 8:10Collaboration with the state led to an underworld war between two factions of the Vory.
Japanese YakuzaRussian criminal tattoosViroskov-Ymir group
- 2 min
Tim asks whether Russians have some cultural preference for strongman rule; Galeotti pushes back on the idea of a fixed 'Russian soul' and attributes it more to geography, invasion history, and economic hardship.
4moments
- 8:36Tim asks whether Russians have a cultural preference for autocratic leaders, or whether their systems emerge from economic and geographic pressures.
- 9:18Guest dismisses the notion of autocracy being inherent to the Russian soul, calling it instead making the best of a bad job under successive dictators.
- 9:48Russia's size, ethnic diversity, and history of invasion make centralized autocratic control structurally difficult to escape, not a cultural inevitability.
- 10:19The preference for strong leaders isn't uniquely Russian—modern democracies worldwide are showing the same turn toward autocratic thinking.
- 3 min
They cover how Gorbachev's failed anti-alcohol campaign fed organized crime, the chaos and violence of 1990s Russia, and how the new generation of Vory moved from street rackets into finance, pyramid schemes, and banking.
8moments
- 10:50Post-Soviet oligarchs looted the country while selling more bulletproof Mercedes in Russia than the rest of the world combined.
- 11:35Gorbachev's anti-alcohol campaign in the 1980s was as poorly thought through as American prohibition, handing a massive market to organized crime.
- 12:17Russian gangsters suddenly had money through the 80s and had to figure out how to launder it and make more from it.
- 12:34When the Soviet system collapsed in 1991, the people with connections, muscle, or money—the gangsters—could define what happened next.
- 12:51The 1990s in Russia made prohibition-era Chicago look tame, with drive-by machine gunnings, rocket-propelled grenades, and car bombings.
- 13:19The smart new generation of criminals wanted to make millions and spend time on the French Riviera rather than labor camps.
- 13:37Real money wasn't made shaking down corner stores but through pyramid schemes and massive stock frauds.
- 13:50In the 1990s, Russian criminals accumulated money and brought it into the legitimate sector, setting up banks and corporations to take over whole industries.
Russian MafiaMikhail GorbachevSoviet UnionRussiaprohibition
- 2 min
Discussion of how, with courts and police useless amid hyperinflation, businesses turned to gangs (the 'roof') for contract enforcement, making organized crime an alternative state during the 90s.
6moments
- 14:09Russians taught the Italian mob in New York about fuel excise tax scams and Medicare fraud schemes.
- 14:23In Soviet times during Brezhnev, the mafia provided a valuable service importing goods and facilitating business when legitimate channels didn't exist.
- 14:49In the 1990s, Russian courts had such massive backlogs and hyperinflation was so severe that the mafia filled the vacuum by enforcing contracts the courts couldn't.
- 15:15A smart 1990s entrepreneur told Tim the most important business decision was choosing which gang to work with, using the Russian term 'roof creature' for protection.
- 15:44If you couldn't trust police or courts to enforce property rights and collect debts, the mafia would step in as a stabilizing business partner rather than just a shakedown operation.
- 16:06In the 1990s, when state structures collapsed, the mob functioned as an alternative state providing order to the economy.
Russian MafiaSoviet UnionMedicareCOSNOSTRO New York
- 3 min
Galeotti explains Putin's history as St. Petersburg deputy mayor liaising with the Tambovskaya gang, and how as president he offered organized crime a bargain: keep committing crimes, but never challenge the state.
6moments
- 16:59Putin offered the gangsters a deal when he came to power.
- 17:17The Tambovsk gang ran St. Petersburg's dirty rackets and controlled local gasoline providers.
- 17:53A vore kept a packed suitcase under his bed in case police informants warned him of imminent arrest.
- 18:12Putin's deal: gangsters could keep committing crimes, but any challenge to the state would result in severe consequences.
- 18:33Gangsters in the 1990s were tired of turf wars and chaos, so they accepted Putin's boundaries.
- 18:45Putin sets clear limits—crime is acceptable as long as it stays inside the box of allowed behaviors.
Vladimir PutinTambovskSt. Petersburg
- 2 min
They discuss the particularly brutal treatment of women within Vory culture, tracing it to the lack of family-like structure and the harsh, godless prison-camp origins compared to Italian Mafia or Yakuza traditions.
5moments
- 18:54Tim notes the Vory are brutal murderers but operated according to a certain code.
- 19:17Tim asks whether Russian organized crime is uniquely misogynistic compared to the Mafia or Yakuza.
- 19:29Other criminal enterprises like the Italian Mafia or Yakuza maintain family-like structures that the Vory lacked.
- 19:51The Vory emerged as a political culture born in Russian prison camps under the worst conditions imaginable.
- 20:24Russian culture itself wasn't particularly progressive on gender issues in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, compounding the Vory's brutality toward women.
VoryRussian prison campsMafiaYakuza
- 2 min
Tim brings up Brighton Beach lore about the Russian mob's ruthlessness; Galeotti explains that Vory religious tattoos were mockery, not faith, part of a broader worldview where non-criminals aren't even considered people.
4moments
- 21:10Tim asks whether the Vory's lack of religious belief, unlike devoutly Catholic Italian mafia, made them more ruthless and willing to kill entire families.
- 21:59Vory tattoos depict religious imagery like Jesus on the cross specifically as a middle finger to the church, not as genuine faith.
- 22:23The Vory explicitly rejected everything mainstream society holds decent and dear, including spirituality and belief in any world beyond their own.
- 22:44Russian criminals developed their own separate language where the word for people only applies to other criminals—non-Vory aren't even considered people.
VORRussian MafiaBright Beach
- 4 min
They discuss Russian pride in gangster mythology (citing the film Brother), how the old brutal camp-era mythos has faded into a more corporate style, and the Vory's current global business: heroin trafficking, human trafficking, money laundering, and cybercrime as a service.
8moments
- 23:35Russian gangsters derive pride from their reputation for brutality, celebrated in films like Brother (Brat) where a Russian criminal shows Americans how much tougher he is.
- 24:41Modern Russian organized crime no longer ranks at the top of the global underworld hierarchy alongside groups like MS-13.
- 25:05Today's Russian mobsters operate with precision and surgical targeting rather than gratuitous over-the-top violence designed to intimidate.
- 25:39Russians are the most globally spread criminal organization because they learned from 1990s failures and now position themselves as a wholesale supplier to local gangs worldwide.
- 26:03Russian criminals operate as a Costco or Cash and Carry for the global underworld, asking local gangs in America, Europe, Asia, and Africa what they need and providing it.
- 26:22A third of all the world's heroin passes through Russia, and they swap heroin for cocaine with Latin American drug gangs to maintain a one-stop-shop model.
- 26:43Beyond trafficking drugs and humans, Russians provide financial services like money laundering through their banking system, which operates as essentially a black hole.
- 27:02Russian hackers crack into police databases in the Baltic States to wipe records of stolen car details and provide cybercrimes as a service to other gangs.
- 4 min
Galeotti argues the West enabled Russia's collapse into criminality by propping up Yeltsin, ignoring rigged elections and shelled parliaments, and pushing rapid privatization that let oligarchs loot the country.
6moments
- 28:22Tim argues the West badly mishandled Russia in the 1990s by backing Yeltsin despite his anti-democratic actions.
- 28:42The US turned a blind eye when Yeltsin shelled parliament into submission and rigged the 1996 election.
- 29:18Free market academics treated Russia as a playground, pushing rapid privatization without concern for who bought the assets.
- 30:05Western indifference after the Soviet collapse meant no one cared about Russia beyond preventing nuclear proliferation.
- 30:27Organized crime groups and dubious Western corporations used Russia to launder money and run pyramid schemes.
- 30:55Putin's rise with centralized control and anti-Western sentiment was an unsurprising response to Western neglect and exploitation.
Boris YeltsinVladimir PutinRussiaSoviet UnionCIACommunist PartyRichard Rubin
- 2 min
Galeotti explains he can follow Putin's logic without endorsing it: Russia sees the US breaking international rules whenever convenient and feels justified doing the same as a fellow 'great power.'
5moments
- 31:15Tim: Putin's not a great guy, but when you look at America's Iraq War and involvement in Syria, do his actions seem relatively reasonable?
- 31:46He can follow the logic of Russia's worldview, though he won't call it reasonable.
- 32:16Russians claim international laws exist but America breaks them whenever it wants, so why shouldn't great powers like Russia do the same?
- 32:33The Russian argument: great powers write the rules to suit themselves, and that's what we're doing.
- 32:46Tim acknowledges this is a caricature of the United States, but one you can see where it comes from.
- 3 min
Discussion of the killing of journalist Arkady Babchenko, the poisonings of Litvinenko and the Skripals, and the immense danger Russian investigative journalists face, especially those seen as 'traitors' versus foreign critics.
6moments
- 32:59Arkady Babchenko, a Putin critic, was shot dead in Kiev; Anna Politskaya, who wrote Putin's Russia, was also killed.
- 33:45The casualty rate for Russian investigative journalists is equivalent to that of journalists in war zones.
- 34:18Most journalist killings result from investigating corrupt local contracts, not direct state action—large men with baseball bats enforce silence at the city level.
- 34:53Putin, with his KGB and street gang background, distinguishes between foreign critics and Russian traitors—traitors get dealt with differently.
- 35:29Journalists Tim talks to in Russia are feeling real pressure and questioning whether to censor themselves or leave the country.
- 35:45Putin doesn't need to kill many critical journalists—a few deaths silence thousands through fear and self-censorship.
Vladimir PutinArkady BabchenkoRussiaAnna PolitskayaLivchenko
- 5 min
Galeotti lays out his view that Russia ran an active influence campaign mainly to sow chaos rather than elect Trump specifically, and pushes back on Trump-as-Russian-agent theories, framing Trump's Russia ties as greed and bad business rather than coordinated collusion.
8moments
- 37:05Russian hacking campaign was real, linked to Russian intelligence service, but Russians weren't trying to get Trump elected.
- 37:34A Russian foreign ministry official told Tim before the election that the American establishment would never allow Trump to win.
- 37:51Russians feared Clinton presidency because they believed she was anti-Russian and would try to bring down Putin.
- 38:20Tim distinguishes between Russian interference and the claim that Trump is a Kremlin puppet or in debt to Russian organized crime.
- 38:51Anyone wealthy and prominent in Russia gets watched; Trump would be no exception, but that doesn't prove control.
- 39:15American journalists keep calling Tim with Trump Tower real estate transactions, asking him to confirm Russian organized crime links.
- 39:48Trump's actual story is a bad businessman whose organization was a pyramid scheme constantly needing investors from anywhere.
- 40:13Trump Tower accepts money from dodgy Russians, Kazakhs, and Saudis, but buying apartments doesn't mean they own Trump.
- 3 min
Tim and Galeotti joke about whether Russia has kompromat on Trump, with Galeotti arguing Trump is so shameless he's nearly immune to blackmail, and that a real Kremlin handler would tell him to stop praising Putin publicly.
4moments
- 40:52Tim acknowledges there's an element of wishful thinking in American media's desire to find Russian blackmail over Trump.
- 41:49Tim argues Trump is so grotesque he's almost blackmail-proof—there's no way to embarrass him further.
- 42:16If Tim were a Russian intelligence officer handling Trump, he'd tell him to stop praising Putin, since it makes everyone suspicious.
- 43:22Tim hasn't seen a smoking gun of Kremlin control; instead he describes Trump as driven by greed, corruption, and indifference to dirty money sources.
Donald TrumpVladimir PutinRussian MafiaMueller inquiry
- 5 min
Discussion of how since 2014 the Kremlin has increasingly used organized crime for assassinations, intelligence gathering, and off-the-books political funding, plus an explanation of why Russian gangs operate as flat, heist-movie-style networks rather than a Godfather-style pyramid.
8moments
- 44:11Putin initially restricted Russian organized crime to prevent chaos that would undermine state control, especially during the Chechen war.
- 44:49Since 2014 and the Crimea takeover, Putin has increasingly turned to Russian gangsters as tools for state interests because Russia lacks other assets.
- 45:22The FSB now uses organized crime for specific operations—assassinations in Turkey, intelligence gathering in the Baltics, and funding political candidates without Kremlin fingerprints.
- 46:10Russian organized crime operates across ex-Soviet republics with loosely connected groups rather than a single unified structure.
- 46:58Law enforcement wants to draw traditional mob pyramids with godfathers and captains, but that's not how international Russian organized crime actually works.
- 47:23Big international Russian crime networks are flat structures of people who know and trust each other, functioning more like heist crews assembling for specific operations.
- 47:52A typical operation starts when someone identifies an opportunity, pulls together people with the right skills and connections, executes it, and then disperses.
- 48:19Key figures like Mogulayevich function as specialists—a Russian mafia banker for money laundering and financial crimes—rather than bosses with subordinates.
Russian MafiaVladimir PutinFSBCrimeaSimeon Mughlievich
- 3 min
Galeotti profiles the 'brainy don' Mogilevich as the mob's financial fixer and recounts Vyacheslav Ivankov's rise in Brighton Beach, his arrest, and his assassination as symbolizing the death of the old thuggish gangster era.
5moments
- 48:38Ivankov was one of the last old-school tattooed hard men from the Gulags, now basically a dinosaur compared to the new generation of smart, suited gangster businessmen.
- 49:11Moscow's Afro-riteti sent Ivankov to Brighton Beach partly as a way to get him out of the city, unsure what to do with a man too powerful to ignore but unable to navigate modern financial scams.
- 49:48Ivankov managed to control Russian gangs in Brighton Beach for a short while before the FBI caught and imprisoned him.
- 50:13When Ivankov was assassinated back in Russia, it was likely business rivals within the underworld rather than the government.
- 50:30His funeral was a classic Godfather-style mob scene with carnations lining the road and thick-necked guys in black suits, but it doubled as the new generation celebrating the end of old-school thuggish gangsters who didn't understand the modern world.
- 3 min
They compare Russia's mob-state entanglement to American political machine corruption, with Galeotti offering cautious optimism that younger Russian cops and citizens are growing tired of corruption even if change won't happen under Putin.
7moments
- 52:25Tim expresses unfashionable optimism about Russia's future trajectory compared to its 1990s state.
- 52:43In the 1990s, Russian cops were so corrupt that money could make them overlook even murder.
- 52:55Younger Russian cops today still understand corruption exists but have raised their threshold for taking bribes.
- 53:19Ordinary Russians are growing tired of corruption and dashed hopes under the current system.
- 53:44After Putin, Russia will likely see self-interested kleptocrats rather than democrats—not fundamentally different from America's approach.
- 54:05In the 1990s, Russian kleptocrats felt they needed gangsters; now they increasingly see them as an embarrassment.
- 54:30Russia's improvement won't happen passively—the West must help push for change, though Russians ultimately have to do it themselves.
- 3 min
Referencing Adam Curtis's HyperNormalisation, they discuss Surkov's concept of political theater, where the Kremlin funds fake opposition parties to spread cynicism and hopelessness rather than genuine repression.
5moments
- 54:48Adam Curtis's Hypernormalization documentary describes Russia's strategy of funding fake opposition parties to confuse the public about state involvement.
- 55:32Kremlin advisor Surkov created 'dramaturgia'—a theatrical spectacle of democracy with opposition parties and elections, but none of it real.
- 56:00The point of fake opposition is to make everyone seem corrupt so people lose hope and stop trying to challenge power.
- 56:38Tim shifts to asking about persecution of gay people in Russia and the role of the Orthodox Church in society.
- 57:02The guest mentions gay men being killed in Chechnya by Katerov and asks whether Putin is silently tolerating or encouraging such behavior.
Vladimir PutinKaterovSurkovHypernormalizationAdam Curtis
- 4 min
Galeotti details how Putin tolerates Kadyrov's brutal anti-gay purges in Chechnya out of fear of another war, the Orthodox Church's role as a state-aligned 'corporation' declaring Putin a miracle from God, and the harsher, more traditionalist crackdown on gay rights outside cosmopolitan Moscow.
10moments
- 57:39Tim explains why Russia can't remove Kadyrov despite viewing him as a dangerous maniac—they'd risk another Chechen war they can't afford.
- 57:55Kadyrov's anti-gay violence reflects his own lunacy, not necessarily Putin's personal ideology.
- 58:15The Russian Orthodox Church functions as a state corporation that tells people Putin is a miracle sent by God.
- 58:51Americans also describe Donald Trump as a miracle sent by God, which Tim notes as an interesting parallel.
- 59:08Putin's first terms saw high oil prices fund military toys and elite corruption while improving ordinary Russians' lives.
- 59:47As the economy weakened, Putin shifted from offering prosperity to offering great power and traditional values instead.
- 1:00:08Putin's masculine persona—bare-chested on horseback, parachuting—is designed to emphasize Russia as a strong, traditional, conservative state.
- 1:00:29In Moscow, gay people face problems only if they try to march under a rainbow flag, when the National Guard beats them.
- 1:00:58Travel outside Moscow feels like traveling back in time, with attitudes in provincial cities and villages very different from the capital.
- 1:01:20Anti-gay propaganda laws allow provincial busybodies to accuse people of spreading 'gay virus' to children, which the Kremlin doesn't bother defending against.
Russian Orthodox ChurchVladimir PutinDonald TrumpMoscowRamzan Kadyrov
- 3 min
Discussion of how state-controlled TV (compared to an all-Fox-News media landscape) convinces ordinary Russians to blame sanctions and hardship entirely on the West rather than domestic corruption.
6moments
- 1:02:21Most Russians get their news from state-controlled TV, with every channel functioning like Fox News under extreme government control.
- 1:02:37Russians are told the world hates them and that sanctions are an attempt to isolate, humiliate, and grind down Russia for no good reason.
- 1:03:06Putin instituted counter-sanctions against his own people—like banning imported parmesan cheese—yet Russians still blame the West instead of their government.
- 1:03:43Whatever the state does, they get to blame it on the West: lack of healthcare funding isn't attributed to corruption or war spending, but to sanctions.
- 1:04:28London is becoming a city of the future for wealthy people, oligarchs, and UAE residents using real estate like One Hyde Park to launder money.
- 1:05:01Tim asks whether the influx of foreign money laundering through London real estate is sustainable and what direction the city is heading.
- 5 min
Galeotti discusses how London (and increasingly New York) has become a hub for laundering oligarch money through real estate, especially amid Brexit anxieties, then closes by explaining that Russian comedy exists but self-censors, citing the banned Putin-mocking puppet show Kukly.
9moments
- 1:05:34Britain's historical scam: marketing itself as upright and honorable while being ruthlessly pragmatic enough to build a global empire.
- 1:05:55City of London functions as a major global money-laundering hub for corrupt wealth laundered through Cyprus, Israel, Latvia, and the Channel Islands.
- 1:06:37Rich oligarchs from around the world buy luxury penthouses in London, send their kids to private schools, and obtain investor visas for £2 million minimum investments.
- 1:07:04Tim worries Brexit will make London even more willing to accept dirty money as the British economy grows desperate for any business.
- 1:08:02Russia has no tradition of stand-up comedy as an art form—it's an imported concept rather than a natural one.
- 1:08:39Russian humor historically stays private rather than public; from Tsar times through the Soviet era to now, you don't stand up and make a public thing of it.
- 1:08:57Satirical TV show Cockney Puppets made the mistake of airing an unflattering Putin puppet sketch and was taken off the air within a week.
- 1:09:23Young Russians express themselves through internet memes and tech-savvy online culture instead of stand-up clubs or television.
- 1:09:50Comedy has real power to bring people together and illustrate truths that escape them, especially when audiences are relaxed and open.
City of LondonLondonMark EliatiBritainBrexitCookley PuppetsNew YorkVladimir Putin+8 more
- 1 min
Tim thanks Galeotti, recaps that his book The Vory is available on Audible and Kindle, and says the episode will post on iTunes Sunday.
1moment
- 1:10:46Tim recommends the book The Vory, describing it as phenomenal and about Russian mob culture.
- 1 min
Tim runs through his upcoming tour stops including Clusterfest, Cleveland, Foxwoods, Dublin, Montreal, Chicago, Lexington, and Providence, plugs his Vice Sports show and social media, then signs off.
4moments
- 1:11:03Tim announces tour dates: Hilarities in Cleveland, June 20-23.
- 1:11:13Dublin and Montreal Comedy Festival appearances planned for summer.
- 1:11:29Ray Kump plugs social media handles on Twitter and Instagram.
- 1:11:44New projects in the works announced with encouragement to stay excited.