Interview · moment 18 of 23
Semion Mogilevich, Ivankov, and the Brighton Beach Connection
from Russia's Super Mafia · #98
Audio-only archive episode — no video to seek.
3 minGuest
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.
- 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.