He’s been accused of everything from buying an entire airline just for trafficking heroin to selling nuclear weapons, yet somehow Semion Yudkovich Mogilevich lives free.
Semion Mogilevich had been a colossal — and elusive — fig in the international criminal underworld since the 1990s . As the remorseless drawing card of the so - called Red Mafia of Russia , he has been described as “ the world ’s most hefty mobster ” — and for well ground .
Mogilevich has reportedly had his hands in extortion , large - scale drug trafficking , whoredom , and even nuclear weapons trading . He was at one point take an experiential menace to Israel and Eastern Europe .
Even though he is known as the “ Brainy Don ” for his knight bachelor ’s stage in economics and financial acumen , Mogilevich did not shy aside from violence . He is said to have employed prepare Afghanistan war veterans as his enforcer — and they mutilated enemies and associate so badly that other Russian crime radical quietly dissipated .
Mark Nilstein/Getty ImagesSemion Mogilevich is estimated to be worth $10 billion.
His control extended to Russian - Ukrainian gun companies , he has alleged links toDonald Trump , and ties toVladimir Putin . Despite his FBI “ Wanted ” position , however , he lives freely in Russia to this daytime . The question remains : Why ?
How Semion Mogilevich Became The “Brainy Don”
Mark Nilstein / Getty ImagesSemion Mogilevich is estimated to be worth $ 10 billion .
bear on June 30 or July 6 , 1946 , in Kiev in the Ukrainian Soviet Union , Semion Yudkovich Mogilevich was raised in the Podol region by Judaic parent . The ambitious unseasoned criminallaunchedhis career in the 1980s by scamming fellow Russian Jews who simply sought to emigrate to Israel or America .
Mogilevich promise Jewish kinfolk that he would purchase their assets , deal them de jure for a fair market place economic value , and then graciously return the proceeds , but as one might expect , he simply pocketed the money . He served two prison terms for this stunt .
TwitterThe “boss of all bosses” made the FBI’s Most Wanted list the same year as Osama Bin Laden.
Meanwhile , many of those Soviet Jews he defrauded settle in the Brighton Beach area of Brooklyn , New York , and lay down their own mob . Donald Trump would becomeembroiledwith these characters , as they bailed him out of a series of bankruptcies .
TwitterThe “ boss of all boss ” made the FBI ’s Most Wanted list the same year as Osama Bin Laden .
In the last years of the Soviet Union in the late eighties , Russian veterans of the war in Afghanistan returned home intolerant of conventional life style . The scatter social structure of Soviet companionship essentially impart way of life to a new geological era where supervising had disappear entirely . As the government slid into obliviousness , hardened soldiers were capable to create their own illegal business largely unrestricted .
Stanislav Krasilnikov/TASS/Getty ImagesMogilevich during a 2009 court hearing in Moscow shortly before posting bail. The charges were also dropped a few months later.
What followed was the meteoric rise of organised crime , the “ Bratva , ” sodality , or the Red Mafia .
In this environment , the cunning Mogilevich shined . His fiscal acumen apply him a substantial advantage over more footling thugs and he took to money laundering for the Solntsevskaya Bratva , a well - organized Russian crime family , through a petroleum import - export company he started called Arbat International . The corporation was registered in Alderney , a known tax haven .
Stanislav Krasilnikov / TASS / Getty ImagesMogilevich during a 2009 court hearing in Moscow before long before send bail . The bearing were also dropped a few months afterward .
FBIMogilevich landed on the FBI’s Most Wanted list after defrauding thousands of Canadian investors $150 million through a fake magnet company based in Philadelphia.
Among his companion was Vyacheslav Ivankov , who became the Godfather of the Russian mob in America until he wasconvictedof extortion in 1996 . The FBI also identified a Monya Elson , who worked alongside Mogilevich in his laundering and prostitution activeness , who referred to the “ Brainy Don ” as “ the most powerful mobster in the world . ”
Becoming The World’s Most Wanted Gangster
FBIMogilevich landed on the FBI ’s Most Wanted list after defrauding thousands of Canadian investor $ 150 million through a simulated magnet company base in Philadelphia .
In the other 1990s , Mogilevich moved to Israel where , according to Israeli intelligence , he “ succeeded in make a foothold ” and developed “ significant and influential [ political ] ties . ” He also collected a series of pseudonyms , include the identity of one Sergei Schneider , and held Russian , Ukrainian , Israeli , and Greek passports .
He espouse his Magyar lady friend , Katalin Papp , and relocate with her to Prague where he install a serial of legal night club that eventually become hub for whoredom .
Alexey Filippov/TASS via Getty ImagesThe “Brainy Don” was using the pseudonym Sergei Schneider when he was accused of tax evasion in 2009.
In 1993 , he and leaders of the Solntsevskaya crime family made a lucrative understanding . They acquired a jewelry business in Moscow and Hungary which became a front for jewelry , antiques , and art acquisitions that they had steal from Russian Christian church and museums . The Solntsevska pack even soak nontextual matter collector ’ homes , broke into easterly European and German synagogues , and hike rare religious books and Torah they then fruitfully sell .
The next year , Mogilevich bought a license to bribe and sell weapons — and buy up much of Hungary ’s arms industry . He absorbed everything from trench mortar and anti - aircraft gun factories to gun shell and fervency equipment manufacturers . It ’s believe that Mogilevich also handle in nuclear branch . He once even try out to broker a deal to ditch American toxic dissipation in the Chernobyl region .
Mogilevich also purchased a bankrupt airway from a former fundamental Asian Soviet republic for zillion of dollars in John Cash to traffic diacetylmorphine out of the Golden Triangle . He controlled everything that issue forth and went into Moscow ’s Scheremetyevo International Airport , which Elson call a “ moon curser ’s paradise . ”
Mark H. Milstein/ANS/Getty ImagesMogilevich’s mansion was in the diplomatic quarter of Budapest and shared the same street with Chinese, Austrian, and Vietnamese embassies.
Around this time , the FBI began to take observance of Semion Mogilevich , in part because he was believed to have allegedly take part in a $ 150 million scheme to hornswoggle thousands of investors in a Canadian company , YBM Magnex , which was based just outside Philadelphia and supposedly made attraction . Mogilevich had fake text file for the Securities and Exchange Commission that raised the company ’s stock price near 2,000 percent .
The FBI was also stun by Mogilevich ’s economic discernment . As Craig UngerwroteforThe New Republic , Mogilevich “ subdue a science that was profoundly coveted by the most redoubtable gangsters on the major planet : He take muddy money and made it neat . ”
Alexey Filippov / TASS via Getty ImagesThe “ Brainy Don ” was using the pseudonym Sergei Schneider when he was impeach of tax evasion in 2009 .
Alexey Filippov/TASS/Getty ImagesMogilevich in court on tax evasion charges in Tushino court. Sept. 7, 2009. Moscow, Russia.
Meanwhile , the FBI also institute that Mogilevich had been strategically feed Hungarian police and Germany ’s Federal Intelligence Service ( BND ) selective information about rival gang . By providing them with details on rivals he not only appear accommodative , but he also made it unacceptable for authorities in Belgium , Germany , and Austria to investigate him as he was part of an ongoing contract bridge .
At the same meter , he bolstered his sleeper with other Russian crime groups and the Italian Camorra . He ran his own organization much like the American mafia . A 1998 FBI paper discover that Mogilevich was the head of a chemical group of about 250 criminals , two of whom , Ivankov and Elson , are cognise killers .
Mogilevich ’s Prague headquarters allegedly appear like posh villas from outside , but within , was said to be a torture chamber . From there , “ the knob of all bosses ” also reportedly issue declaration Orcinus orca with weapon .
“ Victims do n’t stand for anything to him , ” an FBI agent report . “ And what makes him so grievous is that he operates without borders . ”
His Ties To Vladimir Putin And Donald Trump
Mark H. Milstein / ANS / Getty ImagesMogilevich ’s star sign was in the diplomatical poop of Budapest and divvy up the same street with Chinese , Austrian , and Vietnamese embassies .
In addition to fraud and the lucrative trafficking of triggerman and drugs , Mogilevich used his resource to recruit the energy sphere . He bought his way into natural accelerator pipeline in Russia and Eastern Europe , which was a moneymaking move considering the fact that Russia is responsible for for supply around 30 percent of Europe ’s gas .
The Ukrainian prime minister , Yulia Tymoschenko , had taken notice of this move . He stated publicly that there was “ document proof that some powerful criminal social system are behind the RosUkrEnergo ( RUE ) party . ”
But Mogilevich was finallycaughtin 2008 on tax dodging charges , not unlikeAl Capone .
Mogilevich post bail in July 2009 and was consequently commit on the FBI ’s Most Wanted tilt , alongside Osama bin Laden , with a $ 100,000 reinforcement for information lead to his arrest .
But because there is no extradition treaty between Russia and the U.S. , it seem Mogilevich hold out and operates freely under Vladimir Putin ’s protection to this mean solar day . According to former Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma , the two figures have been closelipped acquaintance — for a very farsighted time .
“ He ’s on good terms with Putin , ” said Kuchma . “ He and Putin have been in impinging since Putin was still in Leningrad . ”
While there ’s no grounds that he and Donald Trump have ever met in someone , a hatful of Mogilevich ’s underlings have done handsome business organization with the president in the yesteryear . David Bogatin , a Russian gangster whousedTrump properties for money laundering , was connect closely to the YBM scam . There is also the thing of Trump ’s transaction with the Brighton Beach mobsters , some of who even survive in Trump Tower .
Alexey Filippov / TASS / Getty ImagesMogilevich in court on tax nonpayment charges in Tushino court . Sept. 7 , 2009 . Moscow , Russia .
The “ Brainy Don ” has unwaveringly deny all the charges he sustain in America and has flippantly pleaded ignorance .
“ How can you say that there is a Russian mafia in America ? ” Mogilevich once require . “ Where are the connections with the Russians ? How can there be a Russian mafia in America ? Where are their connections ? ”
As it stands , Mogilevich lives free in Moscow with his family . With close associations with the Solntsevskaya group , former Russian and Ukrainian political leader , and moneymaking fingers in every pie — it certainly appear that he ’ll continue that way .
After learn about the world ’s most sinewy mobster , Semion Mogilevich , read aboutRussian hitman Alexander Solonik . Then , read about two more ofthe most powerful gangsters still awake today .
