Transnational crime: The case of Russian organized crime and the role of international cooperation in law enforcement

Demokratizatsiya, Winter 2002 by Shelley, Louise

The Russian FBI initiative followed from a larger international initiative within the FBI to globalize its activities and place personnel in countries with large domestic criminal organizations, such as Italy or Hong Kong. Therefore, the FBI office in Moscow was opened by an agent who had previously worked in Hong Kong. The basis for the global expansion is the underlying belief that a network of close working contacts is essential to successful investigations.

In Russia, the FBI is willing to cultivate a variety of relationships with different actors in the law enforcement apparatus because they believe they will remain their present and future partners in investigations, despite oscillations in American-Russian relations. The pragmatism of the FBI and its encompassing approach reveal a very different conduct of policy than that of traditional diplomats. In the late 1990s, State Department officials were interacting almost exclusively with the Yeltsin circle, whereas the FBI continued to maintain contact with ousted law enforcement professionals with whom they had developed good working relationships. Their pragmatic approach made them not want to "put all their eggs in one basket." The power of the FBI has given them leeway to bypass the ambassador and even the White House on investigations that they have undertaken in cooperation with Russian colleagues.

Other Law Enforcement Cooperation

The FBI has opened an office in Budapest with full investigative powers. The Hungarian-American law enforcement cooperation is intended not only to address Hungarian organized crime but also to fight criminals from the former Soviet Union operating in Hungary and other countries of Eastern Europe. An elite body of investigators, removed from criminal infiltration, was established to deal with serious transnational crime and global money laundering. 31

Although the FBI was the first law enforcement agency to have a permanent presence in Moscow, other law enforcement agencies are now present at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow--for instance, U.S. Customs, the Internal Revenue Service, the Drug Enforcement Agency, Immigration and Naturalization Service, and the Secret Service--and they are beginning to develop cooperative relationships with Russian colleagues. 32 The DEA has had a strong relationship with their counterparts in the Ministry of Interior and with the KGB (now the FSB) since the mid-1990s, and there has been much sharing of information on crop cultivation by region.

The Department of Justice Office of Overseas Prosecutorial Training runs a significant program of training at the International Law Enforcement Academy in Budapest and throughout the countries of the former Soviet Union. It also coordinates the Department of Justice's prosecutors who are placed overseas to promote law enforcement training and cooperation. Central to this is the development of documents legally admissible in American courtrooms. Personnel have been in Russia since the mid-1990s and numerous training programs have been conducted in different regions in Russia, often in conjunction with ABA/CEELI, the criminal justice initiative for Central and Eastern Europe sponsored by the American Bar Association.