Russia Unveils Plan to Crack Down on Organized Crime : Law enforcement: Escalating violence prompts measures. They include return of ex-KGB’s special investigators squad.
MOSCOW — A day after President Boris N. Yeltsin demanded that Russia be cleansed of its “criminal filth,†the nation’s top law enforcement officials announced a $2.6-billion program Saturday to crack down on organized crime.
The move follows a bloody spring of bombings, hijackings, drive-by shootings, paid assassinations of business leaders and unrelenting corruption that have undermined Russians’ fragile confidence in their 3-year-old government.
Declaring that crime has reached “catastrophic dimensions,†the officials promised a series of countermeasures, including posting police escorts on trains to protect them from bandits; allowing witnesses to give anonymous testimony against accused mobsters, and adopting sweeping revisions to Russia’s Soviet-era criminal code.
Some of the steps are likely to alarm civil rights advocates, including the resurrection of the former KGB’s squad of 700 to 800 special investigators and the creation of a new unit of elite crime fighters under the control of the Federal Counterintelligence Service, one of two successor agencies to the KGB.
The Russian intelligence services had deliberately been denied such functions after the dreaded KGB was dismantled.
Nevertheless, with crime and corruption rivaling economic hardship as Yeltsin’s most serious political liability, the president has made it clear that he wants action.
“Crime has become the scourge of Russia,†Yeltsin said at a news conference Friday. “Criminal forces are trying to take control of key positions in the economy and even make inroads into politics.â€
Yeltsin said he will hold Interior Minister Viktor F. Yerin and Federal Counterintelligence Service chief Sergei V. Stepashin personally responsible for winning the war on crime.
On Saturday, in a rare show of cooperation, Yerin and Stepashin jointly announced the new anti-crime program along with Justice Minister Yuri K. Kalmykov, acting Prosecutor General Alexei Ilyushenko and deputy head of the National Security Council Vladimir Rubanov.
But the officials offered only tentative comments on how the new crackdown will differ from previous, unsuccessful efforts to curb crime and corruption.
Asked about the role of the new “directorate of active operations,†Stepashin responded, “When it begins to function, you will learn about it.â€
The officials did promise a sweeping revision of the criminal code to close some of the loopholes in the Soviet-era legal system. A draft law has been approved by the government and will be submitted later this month to the Duma, or lower house of Parliament, for approval.
The new law would for the first time allow prosecution of those who plan or order crimes, making it easier to target mob bosses who leave the dirty work to their subordinates. And police will be allowed to try to infiltrate criminal groups, a tactic that is now forbidden.
“Our legislation is hopelessly outdated,†Yerin said.
After decades of isolation, Russian law enforcement is now eager to learn from other countries that have more experience in combatting organized crime.
Russia’s anarchic new economy and its archaic banking, bookkeeping, taxation and legal systems have created fertile conditions for money-laundering, drug trafficking, racketeering and theft of state property through abuse of a massive privatization program.
But what most disturbs Russians is the violent crime that has burst into the streets of once-serene Moscow and St. Petersburg. Last week, for example, a car bomb exploded in downtown Moscow, injuring the head of the LogoVAZ auto manufacturer and killing his driver. Six passersby were hospitalized.
“I just can’t believe this is happening in Moscow in broad daylight,†said Lyudmilla V. Sardzheveladze, 80, whose living room was carpeted in shattered glass from the explosion, which blew out six stories of windows in her apartment building.
A Moscow resident since 1939, she said the only other bomb she has ever seen was dropped near her home by the Germans during World War II. “When I heard this explosion, my first thought was, ‘They’re bombing us again!’ †she said.
U.S. officials are also concerned about the criminalization of the Russian economy and the links that Russian organized crime groups have formed with fellow gangsters in the West.
At Russia’s invitation, the FBI plans to open a branch office in Moscow next month. Yerin said the FBI and Russian law enforcement officials already have about 30 joint investigations under way.
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