Italians Arrest Twelve Russian Mafia in Successful International Enforcement Cooperation

On March 17, 1997, Italian police arrested Mr. Esin Yuri Ivanovich, the boss of The Brigade of the Sun, and twelve other operatives of one of the three main mafia organizations while they attended a meeting in an Italian ski resort. The law enforcement operation was significant because it comes from a tip from U.S. law enforcement in 1995, demonstrated efforts by the Russian mafia to penetrate high-level Italian oil purchases with the help of Italian organized crimes, and resulted in the confiscation of significant assets, as well as breaking up one of the most important Russian mafia organizations ... [more]