oe Serio, former CIA agent and Russian mafia investigator, rates Russian mob scenes in movies and TV, such as "John Wick," for realism.
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00:00The biggest myth that TV and movies show about the Russian mafia is shoot first and ask questions
00:10later.
00:11And none of that is true.
00:12I'm Joe Cerrio.
00:13I was the only American to work in the organized crime control department of the Soviet National
00:18Police.
00:19Later, I investigated the Russian mafia and I worked for the CIA for five years.
00:22Today we'll be looking at Russian mafia scenes in TV and movies and judge how real they are.
00:29You see the gangsters, the mafia, walking into a restaurant in London.
00:40So when you talk about Russian mafia and you talk about the expansion, these guys, number
00:45one, are all over the world.
00:48One of their main hubs is London.
00:52They bought up tons and tons of real estate in order to launder their funds from Russia.
00:58They frequently, both in the Soviet era and in the Russian era, they use restaurants as
01:04meeting places.
01:05And so you see them walking into a restaurant in London.
01:07Pretty normal, pretty typical.
01:15They did a really good job with this scene.
01:18The thing about the Russian underworld is they have such extensive tattooing.
01:23The first comment that the boss makes, I can see from your look that you did time in
01:31Siberia.
01:32The tattoos will tell you where you stand in the hierarchy.
01:36They'll tell you what crimes you committed, how many sentences that you served in the
01:40prisons.
01:41The other thing about this clip is Nikolai is in a coronation ceremony.
01:47That's what's happening here.
01:48He's being made a thief, a thief with a capital T.
01:51They call it the Vory Vzakhony.
01:53That's the thief in law.
01:55Those are the big bosses, the chiefs of the mafia world.
02:03So this whole section about, I did a couple of years in solitary confinement.
02:09I was in prison.
02:10The thing about the Vory, the thieves, is that traditionally, before the collapse of
02:14the Soviet Union, their respect and their elite status came from how long they did in
02:19prison.
02:20One of the things I was involved in was getting inside Russian prisons and shot documentaries.
02:26One prison I went into, we went to see one of these thieves.
02:29The warden said to me, look, I'm not going to lie to you.
02:33This guy that we're about to meet, he controls this prison.
02:38He's the one that keeps the peace.
02:40I have to work with him.
02:51In this scene, they're talking about stars.
02:53And Nikolai is about to get his tattoos as an underworld thief.
02:59One, you already see the cross on Nikolai's chest.
03:04That's one that's used a lot by bosses.
03:06But the stars is the thing.
03:08The stars is the most well-known.
03:10And he says in the scene, you have an empty space in your shoulders.
03:14That's where the stars are going to go.
03:16And the stars on your knees say, I will not genuflect, I will not kneel before any authority.
03:23I'm a boss.
03:31I'm not a huge fan of this scene.
03:33Bath houses generally were places of safety where guys could gather.
03:40And generally speaking, they were off limits to things like this.
03:44That knife itself, in Russia, you use whatever weapon you use.
03:49So at some point in the Soviet Union, it was said that the most commonly used weapon in
03:55a murder, and not mafia, just among citizens, was an axe.
04:01Because if you think about Russia prior to the Soviet Union, it was a very agricultural country.
04:06So this weapon isn't necessarily like a signature of the Russian mafia.
04:10It was what this guy had handy.
04:12First of all, Viggo Mortensen is professional's professional as an actor.
04:17And he did a great job here learning the language, the scene in London, the coronation, you know,
04:25the tattoos and the descriptions of the tattoos and all that.
04:29Nine out of ten on this scene.
04:31So I stole a f*****g car.
04:34It's John Wick.
04:35We called him Baba Yaga.
04:38The boogeyman?
04:39They steal his car.
04:41Everyone's getting more and more pissed off.
04:43And the climax is when the father gangster says, look, you don't know who you're dealing with.
04:50This is the boogeyman.
04:51So Baba Yaga comes from folklore where Baba is grandmother.
04:57The main story is Baba Yaga was a witch who would kidnap, murder, and eat children.
05:04Okay, there are a lot of different versions of what Baba Yaga was.
05:08Some she was terrible, some she was good.
05:10So in terms of Russian mafia, like this isn't really that realistic.
05:15But from the folklore perspective, and he's going to be worse than the worst witch of
05:21Russian Ukrainian folklore.
05:25He was the one you sent to kill the f*****g boogeyman.
05:31This idea of a Russian hitman, a Russian assassin, totally realistic, maybe not quite as many
05:36bodies dropping in a five minute period as John Wick, but there were so many assassinations
05:43in hundreds done by hitmen in the 1990s and the 2000s.
05:48If you look at someone like Alexander Salonik, Alexander Salonik was the biggest name in
05:54Russian underworld as an assassin.
05:56This idea of there being Russian hitmen, they had their role to play and they played it
06:00really well.
06:01Casinos and nightclubs were some of the central hubs for Russian mafia.
06:10In the 1990s, when the Russian mafia on the street was really big, you would have shootouts
06:17all the time.
06:18You'd have shootouts in nightclubs, shootouts on the street.
06:21I could hear gunshots on a regular basis.
06:23There was one situation we had where we found a trunk full of weapons in one car in the
06:30parking lot of a nightclub.
06:38The biggest myth that TV and movies show about the Russian mafia is they shoot first and
06:43ask questions later, and none of that is true.
06:46They would start with negotiation, but if it got to the point where they couldn't reach
06:50agreement, they would have shootouts.
06:53If you look at hitmen, revenge motive, shootouts in nightclubs or bathhouses or anything like
07:02that, that's accurate.
07:04I give it about a seven out of ten.
07:12Obviously it's a comedy, so most of this stuff would never happen, but interesting use of
07:16the Chechens because you don't see them as a main character of TV shows very often.
07:22They have a reputation for being particularly violent, for being great with weapons and
07:28hitmen and all that.
07:29And in 1991, I worked with the police.
07:32The Chechens were up and coming, and they were flooding Moscow.
07:35And they took just a disproportionate amount of power and influence over Moscow and other
07:41parts of the Soviet Union in the underworld.
07:44We use this phrase, Russian mafia, Russian mafia.
07:46They're multicultural.
07:48There are Russian groups, Chechen groups, there are Armenian groups, Azerbaijani groups.
07:55So there's all kinds of ethnicities, and that's understandable because the former Soviet Union
07:59has more than 100 ethnic groups in it.
08:03This is Ryan Madison.
08:05He's a physical trainer.
08:06You guys want him gone?
08:07Yes.
08:08Good.
08:09So one of the things you see is these guys are talking to Barry to be a hitman.
08:13Why wouldn't they use their own guy?
08:16Not just the Chechens.
08:17There's a lot of outsourcing generally in the Soviet Union.
08:21So if Barry gets caught, he's not a Chechen.
08:24So the investigators, the detectives, the police won't look immediately to us.
08:28The L.A. operation is going super great.
08:30Now, I know there's still some small reservation about teaming up with traditional enemies,
08:35the Bolivians.
08:36So people may find this idea of collaboration kind of strange.
08:40But the fact of the matter is, if you're doing drug trafficking, for example, think about
08:46the amount of territory that drugs have to travel to go through Asia, through Russia,
08:53to Europe.
08:54That requires a lot of handoffs.
08:56So you're going to use people that have expertise in those areas.
08:59You met Esther, head of Burmese crime family?
09:03I have established a monastery where I can bring anything I want into this country.
09:07One of the great things that Esther in this scene says, she says, look, I can do whatever
09:12I want.
09:13I can move things in and out of the country because I have a charity and it works for
09:18religious purposes.
09:20No one's going to question.
09:22Otari Krantashvili, he had a charity to benefit the Afghan vets.
09:26He could get duty-free import-export.
09:30He moved all kinds of things.
09:33And that's exactly what Esther's talking about.
09:35In terms of Esther and her charity, that's a really good point.
09:39And the collaboration between ethnic groups, that's real.
09:43So I'd give this about a seven.
09:44Hello, hello.
09:47You must be Nina.
09:50The boss here in this case is Nina, a woman.
09:54And generally speaking, there aren't a lot of women that rise to upper levels of power
10:01and influence.
10:02There were some that famous for running their own gangs or running their own crews.
10:08But by and large, you don't see it that often.
10:11I'm after a particular bit of tech, a weapon you'll not be surprised to hear.
10:15And I thought you and your mates at the Kremlin might be able to help.
10:19The other thing that they mention is the Kremlin.
10:23So if you have contacts that can get you to the Kremlin, you work those angles, you work
10:28those contacts and see if you can get access.
10:31That's what this game is.
10:33You know.
10:38If you see the house that this guy is in, that's totally legit.
10:43They've built castles, they've built palaces, they've got money they don't know what to
10:49do with.
10:50And if you were underworld or military or top politician, you had access to that money.
10:56One of the people that's kind of made fun of for all his palaces is Vladimir Putin,
11:02most of which he never lives in, all over the country.
11:05I would give this clip about an 8, which is actually higher than I thought I would give
11:09them.
11:10But if you think about the Kremlin, all those relationships, that's pretty legit.
11:21As we see in this scene, the Russian mafia, the gangsters, they come in and they mess
11:28around with Tony's sister.
11:30Would they do that in real life?
11:32And the answer is definitely yes.
11:34A lot of times there isn't a line, and they would just do whatever they had to do at the
11:38time they had to do it.
11:39One thing about the Russian mafia, the so-called Russian mafia, and TV shows, and a lot of
11:44people will say, oh, the Italians will kill you, but the Russians will kill you and your
11:48family.
11:49So this idea about who's worst and who's violent and who's, they're all violent.
11:55And if they need to be bloody, they'll be bloody.
11:57And if they can get the money they're looking for without being violent, then they won't
12:00be violent.
12:02That's business.
12:03That's all this is.
12:12Here you see another example of cooperation, collaboration between, in this case, Russians
12:19and Italian-Americans.
12:21When the Russians came to the United States, they worked, for example, with the Italians
12:25in the New York area.
12:27In New York, New Jersey, they were running massive frauds off of gas excise taxes.
12:34It's probably a 6-7 out of 10.
12:46In this scene, Denzel's character is coming into the hangout, the headquarters of this
12:51crew at this strip club to purchase a sex worker, someone he's befriended, to get her
13:00out of the game.
13:01The Russian mafia makes countless, they make billion dollars, more than billion dollars
13:10off of human trafficking.
13:11And to come in and offer $9,800 for one woman, they're going to make more money than that
13:17off of her in the history of her working.
13:20And, number two, he can't let her go because of power and influence and all that, that game.
13:29I love movies like this.
13:31I love the equalizer, shoot him up, kill him up, whatever kind of movies.
13:35So the fight scene is totally ridiculous.
13:37But he's Denzel Washington and he's the equalizer, so that's what he's got to do.
13:41This scene is mostly unrealistic.
13:43It has a couple of moments that's pretty typical of Russian mafia.
13:49I give it about a five.
13:59First of all, Bob Odenkirk and his character would never gain access to that money.
14:04There'd be so much security around it.
14:07The key thing in this scene is that word, abshok.
14:11The only thing that Russian in this clip says is abshok.
14:15And so abshok is short for obshaya kasa.
14:20Obshaya kasa in Russian is common fund.
14:24It's like general fund.
14:26Abshok was central to Russian mafia.
14:28And they would have their money stored in offices, in warehouses, but very quickly they
14:34just put it in banks.
14:37Russian mafia would buy banks, control banks, but to have stacks and stacks and piles of
14:43those stacks were nothing.
14:46You'd have huge blocks, three, four, six feet tall.
14:50I knew this one guy who was in control of abshok.
14:53It was more than $200 million, just from one person in one group.
14:59If you're talking about a minimum of 500, 1,000 major groups across the country that
15:05were networked across Russia and around the world.
15:08You must want to see a beautiful rainbow.
15:13This chase scene is not really typical.
15:17Usually shootouts happen stationary.
15:20They might shoot at a car, but the chase scenes, not so much.
15:26The abshok is important.
15:29It's devastating to have your cash all burnt up.
15:33This scene generally, about a four.
15:38Growing up in Little Odessa, murder was an everyday part of life.
15:42Russian mobsters had also migrated from the Soviet Union.
15:45I love this scene from Lord of War.
15:48Nicolas Cage's character is narrating kind of his life and his introduction to Russian
15:55mafia.
15:56Number one, it's in Brighton Beach.
15:58And starting in the 70s, Brighton Beach was the Russian mafia location.
16:04When Russian criminals moved from the Soviet Union, Brighton Beach was the first place
16:10to come because they knew other Russians here.
16:13And it was places like Brighton Beach where they just grew out from there.
16:17And very quickly, they fanned out across the country.
16:25So that part about killing people, that whole scene is 100% legit.
16:30Extortion was probably the biggest thing that they did with all those stores and those shops
16:37of innocent Russians.
16:38They threatened store owners.
16:41They collected extortion funds.
16:43They killed rivals.
16:45So for personal reasons, this is a great clip too.
16:48My supervisor in Moscow, when I was working with the National Police, was the deputy chief
16:53of organized crime control for the entire Soviet Union.
16:57And he said to me, tell your FBI, tell your CIA that our Russian mafia problem is going
17:06to become your Russian mafia problem.
17:08This is 1990, before the Soviet Union even collapsed.
17:12I realized my destiny lay in fulfilling another basic human need.
17:17The new Uzi machine pistol.
17:19This little baby uses nine millimeter haul points.
17:21When Nicolas Cage then does the weapons deal, he saw with his own two eyes what's possible.
17:28And saw a niche.
17:29And he's going to fill that niche.
17:31And that's all fine, that's all good.
17:32But he did that deal in just some room.
17:35Back in Moscow, one of the places that was used for arms deals a lot was hotels.
17:40Because the gangs controlled the hotels.
17:42I would rate this pretty high.
17:44The Russian influence from the former Soviet Union coming to the United States, setting
17:49up in Brighton Beach.
17:50It's all legit.
17:51100%, 9 out of 10.
18:04Love this clip.
18:06Love the movie.
18:07And obviously it's different than all the others.
18:10It's in Russia.
18:11It's in Russian.
18:12The dialogue at the beginning in the car, you see exactly what the dynamics were in
18:18the late 80s, early 90s in Moscow.
18:21As the groups were struggling for territory.
18:24This is St. Petersburg.
18:25We saw it in Moscow.
18:26We saw it in every major city.
18:29The Chechens against the Russians.
18:33Each side trying to squeeze out the others.
18:35They're trying to take control of the market.
18:38The market obviously is a source of extortion money.
18:43They're going to extort every one of those kiosks.
18:46But also they can move drugs through those.
18:48Also they can run counterfeit, counterfeit products through those kiosks.
19:03This is almost a documentary.
19:04It's what it looked like and smelled like and felt like in most of the 90s.
19:12Nothing really sophisticated.
19:13They don't have automatic weapons.
19:15They're just using pistols.
19:18Sergei, the actor, is in disguise.
19:23He just is blending in with the crowd, right?
19:26He's just a pair of glasses, a little hat, and he's good to go.
19:30You see the boss, the crime boss, is walking through the marketplace.
19:35I saw that on a daily basis.
19:38You'd have the boss of the market sitting in a corner with just tons of money.
19:43It feels so normal.
19:47To me, it feels like Moscow.
19:49It feels like Russia.
19:51It felt like 90s mafia activity.
19:55Great movie.
19:58The language is great.
19:59The atmosphere is great.
20:01The attitudes are all great.
20:02It just felt like legit 100%.
20:07Ten out of ten rating on this.
20:08Who the hell's Bushmaster?
20:10A Bushmaster is a breed of snake.
20:12Our former boss and head of the Parliamentary Subcommittee for Trade and Finance,
20:17Aubrey Longrig.
20:18The major driver behind this movie is the relationship and the machinations
20:23between a large Russian money launderer and UK officials,
20:30politicians, intelligence community.
20:33But the fact of the matter is that this is highly dangerous.
20:36And if you look at the money laundering and just look at the scandal
20:40of the Bank of New York in 1999, Semyon Magalevich,
20:45when you look at Semyon Magalevich, he's been involved,
20:48and he's a friend of Putin's, and he's protected by Putin.
20:52And when I was the director of the Moscow office of the world's leading
20:56corporate investigation and business intelligence firm,
20:58I realized that all of our biggest cases were somehow tied to Semyon Magalevich.
21:05Bribing officials, human trafficking, smuggling weapons, drug trafficking,
21:10the Bank of New York scandal.
21:13There's the whole package right there.
21:14And you start to see a little bit of the game that gets played,
21:18and how complex it is, and how many people are involved.
21:23The purpose of this bank?
21:25To launder billions of dollars of Russian mafia money here in London.
21:28Nice to see you again, Emilio.
21:30My colleague, Mr. Petrov.
21:32So this piece is the most dangerous and the scariest clip you've shown me.
21:38In this clip, the big issue is, to what extent
21:42have Western politicians been corrupted by the massive amount of money
21:48that the Russians have?
21:51And the short answer is, you know, maybe nobody wants to hear this,
21:55but there's so much money.
21:57There's so much corruption across Europe, the United States,
22:02due to Russian mafia money, Russian government money.
22:06There have been top law enforcement officials
22:08in the US who retired and then went to work for Russian oligarchs, which
22:13on the surface of it may not be anything, but it doesn't look good.
22:17It doesn't smell good.
22:18We can talk about blood, and we can talk about guns,
22:20and we can talk about knives.
22:22But the scariest clip is when the politicians
22:24start taking lots of money and being influenced.
22:29It's no surprise that Russia has a huge interest in destabilizing the West.
22:37It's been going on forever.
22:39And especially under the current regime,
22:41they are trying their best to undermine,
22:44take advantage of any weaknesses in the European bloc
22:48and in the United States to undermine democracy.
22:52Obviously, on the face of it, it doesn't look like a scary clip.
22:55But for the fear factor, I've got to give this like a 9 out of 10.
22:58My favorite Russian mafia show was a series on Russian television
23:04called Brigada.
23:06It was just such a good feel across a 10-year period
23:10of what the place felt like, what the Russian mafia really feels like.
23:15It's just human beings trying to figure out a way.
23:18And they happen to do it, in a lot of cases, in a brutal manner.
23:22Yeah, it's nuanced enough to get a feel for the human angle of it.
23:25Thanks for watching.
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