The “Russian” Mafia captured the attention of the media, news headlines, and true crime enthusiasts alike to become the second most widely known organised crime group. Despite this, I don’t think many people have stopped to think about what is known and where that information comes from. In an era of “fake news”, “alternative facts”, and muddying narratives, pinpointing the original source, the foundation upon which entire world views and beliefs are built, becomes increasingly hard and ever more important. It is in this light that I want to talk about what is known about “Russian” Organised Crime (“ROC”) in New York, who we know it from, and why we shouldn’t blindly believe everything we read.

The entire historiography, persona-driven narrative, and the foundational myth of ROC in New York (and America more broadly) have all been built upon the work of one man, Robert I. Friedman. The seminal essay, ‘Brighton Beach Goodfellas’, published in the January 1993 edition of Vanity Fair, summarised his approach to this history. The focus was on larger-than-life personalities and dramatic stories. Murders and excess, rumours and innuendo filled the pages. Important events get condensed into sentences that almost dismissively urge the reader to move on to the next vivid anecdote. The truth does not get in the way of a good story. Friedman would follow up this essay with a sequel titled, ‘The Organizatsiya’, published in the November 1994 edition of New York Magazine. More of the same followed. Rounding out the story and giving, to date, the most complete “history” of ROC in America, Friedman published his crowning long-form literary achievement, Red Mafiya: How the Russian Mob Has Invaded America, in 2000. Unfortunately, interest in the subject quickly waned following the final major wave of arrests of ROC members in the wake of the stock scam busts of the late 20th century into the early 2000s. Writers are a fickle folk, always in search and drawn to the next hot topic like moths to a flame, and the fires fueling ROC’s rise in America were quickly fading. The few academic books written on the subject primarily concerned themselves with theoretical frameworks, the structure of networks, and case study analyses. In the rare event that authors wished to chronicle some of the main characters and plot points, they largely deferred to Friedman’s account of the story, impressed with his personal connections to some of the major figures. Academia, being underpinned by his account, only further lent credence to his version of the story and garnered him further legitimacy and trust from mainstream sources and hobbyists alike. Thus, the story spread far and wide into a variety of genres, from books concerning themselves with New York’s ever-changing immigrant landscape to Trump-Russia conspiracies. The most recent popular work about the “Russian Mafia” in America was Douglas Century’s biography of Boris Nayfeld, and it, too, largely upheld the Friedman Orthodoxy. I find this quite problematic.

Now I admit, I have been suspicious of Friedman’s for quite a while now, at times feeling like a lunatic who may have gone off the deep end. After all, everyone trusts him. He’s widely cited. Who am I to question that? The very title of this rant is hypocritical. Robert was at least a professional journalist and writer who interacted with law enforcement and criminals alike. I’m just some “dude” on the internet with too much time to spare. And yet, I’ve gotten a nagging feeling ever since I took a close look at his body of work when writing my Mafia Gas Tax essay. Although I, regrettably, cited his works numerous times in that article, I was immediately upfront about some inconsistencies I noticed. I tried hard to reconcile all the competing narratives and points of view into a timeline that made sense. In my defence, I had far fewer primary sources to rely upon at the time, and so out of necessity, I had to defer to Friedman to plug my knowledge gaps. I was quite surprised about the level of trust Friedman’s work enjoyed, given the outcome of one of Anthony Morelli’s legal proceedings. The Gambino captain, in charge of overseeing John Gotti’s share of the gas tax scheme, filed an appeal over an event that happened to one of his trial’s most important witnesses, David Shuster. Friedman described Shuster’s curious return to the United States from Moscow as being a product of a kidnapping by Russia’s security apparatus, with threats being made against him should he not return to the U.S. and cooperate with the FBI. Long story short, the Court was not convinced of the truth of the Red Mafiya account, finding it to be discredited by witnesses’ testimony in both the original trial and subsequent hearing. It was also curious that Friedman’s widow was unable to produce the original tape or transcript upon which their account of the story was written. This was a huge red flag. Ever since reading that appeal, alarm bells went off in my head. If Friedman could, and that’s me being generous towards him, “exaggerate” small, of no-consequence anecdotes such as these, what else is not all that it seems? Recently, a curious FBI report hit my inbox from NARA.

The murder of Evsei Agron, the first “Godfather” of the Russian mob in New York, on May 4th, 1985, is considered a pivotal moment in the history of this group. A thuggish, brutish tyrant was overthrown, replaced by a technocrat criminal in the name of Marat Balagula, who unleashed the full might of the ‘Organyzatsia’ by bringing sophistication and white-collar crime expertise. Or so would Friedman have you believe. This, despite admitting that even during Agron’s tenure, this crime group dabbled in more than just street-level extortions and petty crimes. Alliances with other criminal groups, the Dunes hotel scams, hell, even the gas tax scheme, all predate Balagula’s reign. I have already proven in the past that Marat Balagula did not originate the scheme and wasn’t even the first “Russian” to do it. More recently, I found out the name of Fima Nezinsky (Фима Нежинский). According to Leonard Lev, a Brighton Beach businessman with a sketchy background, it was from Fima that Marat first learned of the scam. As such, I find the characterisation of the Organyzitsa pre- and post-Balagula to be heavily exaggerated, a narrative peddled by Friedman to aggrandise Marat into mythical proportions, given he was a central character in his magazine essay and one of the Russian criminals he seemed to interact with the most. We cannot forget that Robert was clearly biased towards Marat, and that clouded his judgement and seeped into his portrayal of the man.

Anyways, Agron’s murder remains unsolved to this day, and several theories have been put out as to the underlying cause. Brighton Beach’s Russian-printed newspaper, Novoe Russkoe Slovo, theorised that it had to do with Evsei’s demand for a bigger piece of the gas tax loot. Friedman implied that it was Balagula who caused his “mentor’s” untimely demise, as the former was trying to get a bigger cut of Balagula’s criminal proceeds. With the Leningrad-born thug out of the way, Friedman portrayed Balagula as neatly stepping into the former’s shoes and assuming control of Brighton Beach’s organised crime scene. But what if this were not the case? Enter the FBI’s investigation titled ‘Operation Santiago’.

According to an FBI memo written in July 1986, Evsei Agron’s homicide was a result of a power struggle over a cocaine distribution network that smuggled drugs from Brazil, through Canada, into the United States. The front company used to facilitate it was The Gold Star Smoked Fish Company, run by Eugene Dozortcev and his son Nicky. Nicky was dating the daughter of Lev Persits and was the liaison between the “Russian” émigré criminal network and the Colombo Crime Family. Nicky was indicted in Florida alongside Michael Franzese and Lev Persits in December 1985 on state racketeering charges stemming from their gas tax operation there. Subsequently, Nicky was then indicted in late July 1986 on grand larceny charges in the state of New York alongside Sheldon Levine, Joseph Galizia (Genovese soldier), Igor Roizman, and Igor Porotsky. Despite being so well connected, the Dozortcevs are conspicuously absent from Friedman’s account… The Dozortcevs were “with” Lev Persits, who seemingly oversaw the operation and Agron’s interference was punished. As such, Agron was not killed by Balagula for meddling in the latter’s affairs, nor over gasoline taxes. Lev Persits was the one who ordered his murder. In fact, contrary to Friedman’s portrayal of a smooth leadership transition with Balagula’s takeover of the mantle, the FBI noted a violent power struggle between Lev Persits and Marat for the top position. This was not in Red Mafiya, and one has to wonder why… Perhaps Friedman thought this put chinks in the armour of a man he so carefully and craftily built up. Anyhow, Persits did go on to lose the battle after being shot and paralysed in 1987. This was not, however, before being linked to three, possibly up to six, homicides and seemingly ordering around heavyweight gangsters in of themselves like Boris and Benjamin Nayfeld, Vladimir Reznikov, and Michael Vax. Who knew someone barely mentioned in obscure Eastern European crime blogs written in semi-coherent Russian and Ukrainian, in books, and the media was a key figure in the Brighton Beach underworld? And this is when it dawned on me. A gangster’s significance cannot and should not be determined by Friedman’s page count allocation towards them. Entire chapters are dedicated to random and/or overhyped criminals like Ludwig “Tarzan” Fainberg or Monya Elson, seemingly only because they gave Friedman the time and day to do extensive interviews. Boris Nayfeld completely debunked Robert’s narrative on the infamous Vyacheslav Ivankov, “Yaponchik”, who was not a crime Tsar sent by the “Russian Mafia” to organize Brighton Beach’s disparate gangs and lord over them as was put by Friedman, but as a criminal who left his home as a way to get away from his enemies. He set up shop in America and was treated “as equals” by other gangsters. Friedman “rewarded” criminals with whom he had personal connections by granting them notoriety (which they relished) by writing a lot about them and inflating their stature. Michael Vax was the head of a racketeering enterprise, partly operating out of Tarzan’s Porky “Nightclub”, and yet he is only mentioned once in the entire book. Elson, who was an important gangster in his own right, similarly gets tons and tons of “screentime”, maybe deservingly so. But it cannot be discounted that he also got this attention from Friedman due to the former’s frequent newspaper appearances as a result of his shooting wars with rival gangsters and their extensive interviews. And yet, for all the talk about Elson’s stature and creating “one of the most powerful Russian mob families in the world”, no mention is given to the guy who didn’t care what it meant to be under Monya’s “krysha” by going after him and his cash cow, Victor Zilber. Alik Magadan (Oleh Asmakov) was that man, a prominent criminal with his own crew and connected to other prominent gangsters such as Igor “Jerry” Grafman. Grafman’s own absence is an indictment against the book as an authoritative source. Arkady “Kadik” Shteinberg, Jacob Dobrer, Alex Skolnik, to name a few more. These were all important gangsters who never made it into the “official history” of the Russian mob in America.

My conclusion is this: just because someone appeared in Red Mafiya extensively, it doesn’t mean they were important. Conversely, just because someone was mentioned once, or better yet, never appeared in the narrative, doesn’t mean they weren’t central to its shaping. I believe Friedman omitted many facts and twisted many more to suit his narrative. I don’t think everything that transpired happened by the people outlined for the reasons outlined. Let us not forget that up until fairly recently, the Italian Mafia’s history was full of myths and tropes that only really started to be debunked and rewritten in the 2010s. Thus, in fifteen years or so, the historiography of Italian American organised crime was almost completely refreshed and now bears little resemblance to the orthodoxy that filled up history and biography books for some 50 years. I hope, over time, the FBI and NARA are responsive so that the history of the Russian Mafia in America can be set straight and corrected.

P.S. I received the following document after filing for a FOIA request on Marat Balagula with the FBI. When I was punted to NARA with a certain request number, the archivist there identified Boris Nayfeld as the subject of the records. It is curious that a biography on the man came out, and yet the author never mentioned a single claim mentioned in this document.  A curious case indeed…