Semion Mogilevich

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Semion Yudkovich Mogilevich (June 30, 1946 in Kiev, Ukraine, in Russian Семен Могилевич, also written as Semyon) is a notorious organized crime boss who is believed^{[citation needed]} to control the largest Russian Mafia syndicate in the world. His business activities are alleged to include arms dealing, drug trafficking, prostitution and money laundering. He is nicknamed "The Brainy Don", because of his business abilities and because he holds a degree in economics from the Lviv University.

Contents 1 Youth 2 Jewish property purchase 3 Emigration to Israel 4 Immigration to Hungary 5 Alliance with Solntsevo crime syndicate 6 Expulsion from Hungary 7 Purchase of Inkombank 8 Shares in Sukhoy and the collapse Inkombank 9 Failed uranium deal 10 YBM Magnex International Inc. 11 The ten billion dollar scheme 12 Heating fuel scheme 13 On the FBI most wanted list and arrest 14 See also 15 References 16 External links

[edit] Youth

Mogilevich was born into a middle-class Jewish family. At the age of 22 he earned an advance degree in economics from the university in Lviv. In the early 1970s he became part of the Lyubertskaya crime group in Moscow and was involved in petty theft and fraud. He served two terms (3 and 4 years) for currency dealing offenses.

[edit] Jewish property purchase

During the 1980s scores of Russian Jews emigrated to Israel, on short notice and without ability to quickly transfer their possessions. Mogilevich would offer to sell property on behalf of the prospective emigrés, promising to forward the money on to Israel. Nothing was ever sent and the money was, instead, used to invest in black market and criminal activities.

[edit] Emigration to Israel

In 1990, already a millionaire, Mogilevich moved to Israel, together with several top lieutenants. Here he invested in a wide range of legal businesses, whilst continuing to operate a world-wide network of prostitution and weapon and drug smuggling through a complex web of offshore companies.^[1]

[edit] Immigration to Hungary

In 1991 Mogilevich married his Hungarian girlfriend Katalin Papp and moved to Hungary, obtaining a Hungarian passport; at this point Mogilevich held Russian, Ukrainian, Israeli and Hungarian citizenship. Living in a fortified villa outside Budapest he continued to investment in a wide array of enterprises, including buying local an armament factory, "Army Co-Op", which produced anti-aircraft guns.^[2]

[edit] Alliance with Solntsevo crime syndicate

His criminal organization became one of the largest and most feared in the world, employing private army of brutal killers. In 1993 Mogilevich joined forces with the Solntsevo crime syndicate (Solntsevskaya bratva), one of Moscow’s dominant crime families to trade with art and antiques stolen from churches and museums in Central and Eastern Europe.

[edit] Expulsion from Hungary

A 1995 meeting between Mogilevich and Solntsevo group in Prague, Czech Republic, in restaurant "U Holubů" owned by Mogilevich, was raided by police. Two hundred people (including dozens of prostitutes) were detained and thirty expelled from the country.^[3] It was rumored that the Solntsevo group intended to execute Mogilevich at the meeting.^[4]

[edit] Purchase of Inkombank

In 1994 Mogilevich group obtained control over Inkombank, one of the largest private banks in Russia,^[5] in a secret deal with bank chairman Vladimir Vinogradov, getting direct access to the world financial system.

[edit] Shares in Sukhoy and the collapse Inkombank

Through the bank he obtained, in 1996, significant shared in Sukhoy, a large military aircraft manufacturer. The bank collapsed in 1998 under suspicions money funneling.^[6]

[edit] Failed uranium deal

In 1997 he allegedly financed selling three tons of stolen enriched uranium. The deal failed when Czech police detained some of its participants in Karlovy Vary, a city known as a holiday resort for Russian mobsters.

[edit] YBM Magnex International Inc.

In 1997 and 1998, the presence of Mogilevich, Sergei Mikhailov and others associated with the Russian Mafia behind a public company, YBM Magnex International Inc., trading on the Toronto Stock Exchange, was exposed by Canadian journalists. On May 13, 1998 dozens of agents for the FBI and several other U.S. government agencies raided YBM's headquarters in Newtown, Pennsylvania. Shares in the public company, which had been valued at $1 billion on the TSE, became worthless overnight.^[7]

[edit] The ten billion dollar scheme

Until 1998, Inkombank and Bank Menatep participated in US$ 10 billion money laundering scheme through Bank of New York.^{[8][9][10][11]}

[edit] Heating fuel scheme

Mogilevich was also suspected in participation in large scale fraud where un-taxed heating oil was sold as highly taxed car fuel.^[when?] Estimates are that up to one third of sold fuels went through this scheme, resulting in massive tax losses for countries of Central Europe (Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia and Poland).^[12]

[edit] On the FBI most wanted list and arrest

FBI put Mogilewich in 2003 on the "Wanted by the FBI List" for participation in scheme to defraud investors in Canadian company YBM Magnex International Inc. He was arrested in Moscow on January 24, 2008, for suspected tax evasion.^[13]

[edit] See also

• Russian Mafia
• Sergei Mikhailov

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Biography of Mogilevich on MoscowTelegraph (scroll down). Also information about Mogilevich's indictment in the USA.
• FBI Wanted page on Mogilevich
• US Senate testimony of FBI Assistant Director, includes Mogilevich
• "The Billion Dollar Don" (Transcript of BBC Panorama documentary on activities in gas, YBM Magnex etc., incl. interview w. Mogilevich)
• Papers from Annual Conference of the European Society of Criminology, Helsinki, 2003 (PDF, describes the YBM Magnex scheme)
• Semyon Mogilevich, the 'East European mafia boss', captured in Moscow