FBIS3-21961 "jptdd012__l94086"
JPRS-TDD-94-012-L Document Type:JPRS Document Title:Narcotics 21 March 1994
WEST EUROPE REGIONAL AFFAIRS

Dresden Conference Views Growth of Organized Crime in Europe

AU1803173194 Berlin DIE WELT in German 18 Nar 94 p 2 AU1803173194 Berlin DIE WELT Language: German Article Type:BFN [Markus Lesch report: "In The Throes of Crime"] [Text] International crime is gaining increasing control over Germany's eastern neighbors. Organized crime is establishing itself in Poland and the Czech Republic along its path to Western markets, with Germany as the objective. The eastern laender can feel this already. "In those countries, organized crime wants to earn its fare to come to Germany, so to speak, and is establishing permanent infrastructures there," said Saxony's Interior Minister Heinz Eggert at an international conference on internal security in Dresden. "Western European crime is quickly spreading to the East," warned the president of the Czech Criminal Police Colonel Jan Vaculik. The most significant organized crime rings in the Czech Republic are groups of people from the Russophone area. "These groups are virtually impossible to overcome. They enforce silence with brutal methods, similar to those used by the Mafia in relation to the Omerta," Vaculik explained. Contacts between this "Russo-Mafia" and Italian groups have been documented. Crime bosses from Naples and Moscow have already met in Prague in order to organize the smuggling of cocaine. The strongest Italian group is the notorious Camorra from Naples. Vaculik: "We have information that the Camorra wants to expand even further, to Russia and Estonia." The third organized crime group consists of the Chinese "Flying Dragons and `K-14' from New York, who extort protection money and deal in transfers of human cargo from the Far East to Germany and Western Europe. Warnings signals are also coming from Poland, especially regarding drugs. "Poland has become a laboratory for synthetic drugs," says Janusz Wolny of the Polish Interior Ministry. "In addition, there are increasing quantities of cocaine from South America, heroin from the Near, Middle, and Far East, and marijuana from Africa." The quantity of drugs seized in 1993 was double the 1992 figure. The brutality of the criminal elements is growing at an alarming rate. In 1993, in fights alone, there were 185 heavy offenses, including 56 homicides, 31 kidnappings, and 38 attacks with firearms or grenades. Even in Dresden, a hand grenade blew up in front of a police precinct. "The violence is going to get even bigger because of the involvement of criminal groups from CIS and the Czech Republic on the prostitution scene," warns Peter Raisch, president of the Saxon Criminal Office. The Mafia lawyer Teresa Principato from Palermo confirmed the growing interest of Italian crime groups in East Europe and the German market. "Eastern Germany is a favorite place for money laundering," she said. "The police forces of the different laender appreciate the importance of international cooperation to fight crime. Now is the time for politics to follow suit," said Italy's best-known Mafia expert.