FBIS4-31295
"dreeu110_d_94003"
FBIS-EEU-94-110
Daily Report
3 Jun 1994
SLOVAKIA
Report on Russian Mafia Control Rejected
Report on Russian Mafia Control Rejected
AU0706153994 Bratislava PRAVDA in Slovak 3 Jun 94 p 1
AU0706153994
Bratislava PRAVDA
Slovak
BFN
[Article by "jo, jc": "Are We Under the Control of the
Russian Mafia?"]
[Text] Bratislava--The day before yesterday, we published
a report on the deliberations of a U.S. Senate subcommission
that dealt with the expansion of Russian organized crime on the
territory of the United States and the whole of Europe. As
reported by the U.S. press, at the meeting, Federal Bureau of
Investigations (FBI) Director Louis Freeh expressed, among other
things, the view that the Russian mafia has already seized
control over the Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic. In
view of the steadily growing number of signals about the import
of international organized crime to our territory, we asked
Interior Minister Ladislav Pittner and Nikolay Trutsuk,
councillor at the Russian Federation Embassy in Slovakia, to
comment.
L. Pittner: The Slovak Ministry of Interior
recently signed an agreement on cooperation with the Russian
Ministry of Internal Affairs. It did so for the very reasons
that have prompted the FBI to seek the signing of an analogous
agreement. Indeed, there exist serious indications that the
Russian mafia (or mafia from the republics of the former USSR)
operates also in Slovakia. This finds its expression in
activities such as drug-trafficking and the theft of automobiles
and their transfer to the eastern parts of Europe and other
areas, about which we have only signals from intelligence
sources thus far, which makes it difficult to be more specific.
The findings of the interior ministries of a number of
countries show that the operation of these mafias is becoming a
problem, with which not only the United States but also the
whole world, in fact, will have to deal with all due
seriousness. As for the formulation that the Russian mafia has
seized control over Slovakia, it is, I think, too strong a term,
which is perhaps also due to a certain "journalistic
inventiveness." The situation cannot be characterized in that
way. However, the existence of certain indiciations about the
mafia's operation is a fact.
N. Trutsuk: First of all, I would like to object
to the term "Russian mafia," which is being used in the local
press more and more frequently even if the authors of the
relevant articles usually have in mind criminal elements from
all of the Commonwealth of Independent States republics. I am
able to state with all responsibility that, according to our
statistics and findings, citizens of the Russian Federation or
of Russian nationality represent a negligible fraction of the
foreign nationals who commit criminal activity on the territory
of Slovakia. As regards the alleged statements by the FBI
director, I dare claim that it is probably another journalistic
hoax, similar to the one fabricated recently by the
correspondent of a certain news agency about the alleged
statement by a World Bank representative regarding the situation
in four Slovak banks. Had some international mafia really
seized control of Slovakia, your authorities responsible for the
security situation in the country would have sounded the alarm a
long time ago. If they have not, it apparently means that they
have no reason to do so.