Turf wars around AvtoVAZ carmaker are raging on

There have already been four wars. Also, the fourth major police crackdown is in progress.

It was provoked by the contract killing of Police Major chief of the Togliatti Internal Affairs Directorate District Extortion and Prostitution Department. The major was gunned down in his Lada car on May 22, 2000. Police have since busted several large crime organizations, 11 of whose members have been ar­rested, among them its leader. The crackdown also took a toll on mafia kingpins with five of them as well as brigadiers in the cities of Samara, Togliatti, and Chapayevsk detained and taken into custody. Yet none of that is likely to make much difference to the crime situation in the region.

It all began in the late 1980s, when mafia kingpin (Alexander Maslov) knocked together a bunch of athletes and people with criminal records, who started off with running shell games and then went into extortion racket. Already at the time the kingpin organization comprised eight groups. They were based on rigorous subordination and discipline, role assignment, and punishment of the unruly. The first private enterprises that emerged in the city immediately passed under the control of the criminal community. By 1992, Togliatti had been effec­tively divided up between criminal structures. They controlled agricultural mar­kets, minor sales outlets, private firms, and charity lotteries and other gaming operations abundant at the time. Extortion racket among enterprises and individ­uals buying cars became a considerable source of revenue. First attempts were made to place AvtoVAZ under control.

Profits became huge and that could not fail to trigger fierce competition within the criminal world itself. In the fall of 1992, the so-called first mafia war broke out in Togliatti. Among its casualties were Alexander Maslov himself and several other mafia bosses. Warfare peaked in March 1993, when a shoot-out occur outside the Zhiguli Hotel involving some 70 members of different crime groups. The first war ended up with the aforementioned Vdovin-Naparnik emerging as undisputed authority in the city. Meanwhile, criminal structures tightened their grip on Togliatti's business, industry, and economy. The huge financial resources that Naparnik's gang concentrated in its hands considerably enhanced the man's role in Russia's criminal world. His growing authority irked many mafia bosses who were denied a slice of the AvtoVAZ pie. So the 1994-1995 period saw the second mafia war with 66 people killed in gangland shoot-outs alone. The second war led to a new lineup of forces in Togliatti. The city and the plant were divided into zones of influence controlled by several powerful, influ­ential clans: the Naparnik group and friendly Tatar gangs under Snamil were opposed by Ruzlyaev and Sirota gangs. And there were also the Chechen Shamada group and the Zhiguli group, whose core consisted of Georgian mafia kingpins, that held strong positions in the city.

An attempt on the life of Petrov, Ruzlyaev's bodyguard, and a police officer who accompanied him, in late 1996, marked the beginning of the third mafia war. Soon after the attempt on Petrov, two leaders of a crime group associated with Naparnik were gunned down.

March 1997 saw a rise in contract hits. Togliatti turned into a veritable Chicago of the 1920s. At the time former Russian Interior Minister Anatoly Kulikov decided to launch in Togliatti Operation Cyclone, which recalled a military rather than a police operation. The reason was that AvtoVAZ was literally in the hands of organized crime groups. It had to be freed with heavy special-task police forces, shop after shop and warehouse after warehouse. Mean­while, the mafia war went on. As a result, Ruzlyaev was murdered, in April 1998. As he took over from Kulikov, Sergei Stepashin followed up with the next two stages of Operation Cyclone. Although AvtoVAZ had been partly mopped up, criminal groups continued to settle scores with each other. Redivision of structures that made up the economic base of Ruzlyaev's crime group led to a series of gang­land hits in Togliatti, in 1999 and 2000. The murder of Durasov, former chairman of the Foundation for Social Support of Law Enforcement Special-Service Veterans, in March 2000, was followed by the killing of heads of major commercial enterprises affiliated with the Foundation, as well as of its own founders and top executives including Minak, its new chairman (gunned down in February 2000). In all, in the course of the fourth mafia war, there have been 16 hits and two attempts.

What is the situation like at present? Mafia groups continue to turn super profits. Last year alone, organized crime groups pocketed in excess of 500 million rubles from illegal operations at AvtoVAZ. Experts believe this year the figure is unlikely to decline. The city is still divided into spheres of influence by five organized crime groups comprised of at least 400 members.

Togliatti is still a major crime center in Russia. Mafia structures are highly via­ble and can adapt to any economic and political setup. Neither can the physical elimination of mafia bosses change anything much there since nature abhors a vacuum. Moreover, the orthodox criminal world — the community of kingpins — long ago set its sights on Togliatti. Some of them laid down their lives just to approach the plant's super-profits. But they never gave up on the city. Orga­nized crime groups from other regions have also been taking interest in Togliat­ti. So, any organizational, financial, and economic changes at AvtoVAZ will be covertly controlled by various criminal groups. New turf wars and new police crackdowns in the city are inevitable.

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