How does the Russian Mafia work?

Travel Info
If the Russian Mafia were to intimidate someone, how would they do it? I can imagine typical Mafia tactics but how about things that are particularly Russian? If they were to kill a person, how would they go about it? Is there any distinction between the Russian Mafia and Italian Mafia in terms of operations?

Travel Tips

The major difference between the Russian Mafia and the Italian Mafia, from what I can tell by reading Russian-language newspapers, is that the Italian Mafia is organized in a very hierarchical way whereas the Russian Mafia is very fluid and amorphous. This difference makes the Russian Mafia more effective because the criminal organization exists only for a short period of time that is necessary for implementing a particular task. It disappears and re-appears depending on the situation. There are no capos or "made men" or any of that stuff. This makes it very difficult for the law to track them and destroy them.

In contrast, the Italian Mafia has a very rigid structure: the organization will continue to exist no matter what happens to particular individuals who are involved in it. This makes it easier for the law enforcement authorities to discover, penetrate and destroy Italian criminal "families."

Another difference has something to do with the history of both mafias. The Italian Mafia was originally recruited from illiterate and poor Sicilian peasants, while the Russian Mafia is recruited from the former USSR's top intellectual and managerial elite (mostly Jewish and Russian Orthodox in origin). In other words, the intellectual capacity of Russian criminals far exceeds that of Italian criminals. That's why the Italian Mafia is mostly involved in blue-collar crimes (such as drug trafficing, protection rackets, etc.) while the Russians are involved in very sophisticated white-collar crimes (tax evasion schemes, insurance fraud, credit card fraud, stocks ans securities fraud, etc.)

Finally, there is a huge difference between them in terms of morality. Italian criminals are cruel but they mostly believe in God and have some sense of fairness whereas Russians are completely immoral - they are morally degenerate and for them to kill someone is the easiest thing you can imagine. They grew up in a country where an individual's worth was close to zero.

.

Others
These two sites will give you a sketch of the Russian Mafia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/russian_maf...
http://gangstersinc.tripod.com/rus.html...