Table Of ContentTHIEF IN LAW
A guide to Russian prison tattoos and Russian-
speaking organised crime gangs.
By
M.G. Bullen
www.thiefinlaw.com
ISBN - 978-5-4386-1041-0
Copyright© M.G. Bullen 2016
Edited by Brendan Clifford
Cover design by Svetlana Kuznetsova
Illustrations by Alina Malkovskaya
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be
reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express
written permission of the copyright holder except for the use of brief
quotations in a book review. All photographs copyright of the author
unless otherwise stated.
Printed in Russia.
First Printing 2016.
Published by:
One's Own Publishing House Ltd.
Repina St., 41
Saint-Petersburg, Russia, 199004
isvoe.ru
[email protected]
+7 (812) 900-21-45
www.thiefinlaw.com
With thanks to
Brendan Clifford, Gennady Ermolovich, Alexi Zaharov, Maria Simonyan,
Tim Wade, Nina Villa, Diane Watson, Tracy Wise, Andreas Piastowski,
Olga Birkina, Garry Nicholson and Alexey Frolov.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
A HISTORY OF RUSSIAN CRIME AND TATTOOS
The understandings
1941-1945 the Great Patriot War
After the victory
From Stalin to Brezhnev
THE NEW RUSSIANS 1985-1999
The impact of Gorbachev’s reforms
The return of the Vor
The 1990’s
Shock therapy
The Modern Era
Police reforms
World Prison Populations 2005-06
Go west
The top ten most wanted
Criminal tattoos on women
CONCLUSION
The end of the tattoo?
ARTIST’S IMPRESSIONS OF THE MOST COMMON CRIMINAL
TATTOOS
Satanic markings
Ring tattoos
REAL LIFE EXAMPLES
Nationalist tattoos
TESTIMONIALS ABOUT THE ORIGINAL PRESENTATION.
Letters of recommendation
Sources and acknowledgements
INTRODUCTION
In the last twenty years the western world has become the target of a
new phenomenon in organised crime. A group more vicious than any
experienced before, more professional, more intelligent, more fearless
and far more successful have taken criminal accomplishments to a new
standard. The Russian mafia, the Thieves in Law, or to use the official
law enforcement term, Russian Speaking Organised Crime Groups
(RSOCG’s), have run rough shot over the old order of criminal gangs and
have taken organised crime to a new level. These Russian-speaking
groups now dominate the underworld of not just their own country but of
Europe and the rest of the world. Money laundering, multi-million dollar
frauds, mass-car theft, extortion on a grand scale, political corruption,
prostitution, people trafficking, arms dealing and murder are all part of the
criminal world where the Thieves in Law, or the Vory-v-Zakone to use the
real Russian term, are the undisputed rulers.
Almost unknown to the average man in the street, this silent, ultra-
efficient group emerged from the ruins of the Soviet Union. They
immediately began to dominate the economy and everyday life in the
new Russian Federation and soon spread west, sweeping across the
continent and taking over the traditional crime gangs of Central and
Western Europe.
The Russian mafia have become an untold success story and a multi-
billion dollar industry. Its members include PhD’s, former police and
special forces’ officers, senior military men, politicians and even
members of the Russian academy of science. But the majority of its
ranks are made up of tough, tattooed men recruited from the vast prison
network of the former USSR. It is so well organised that members across
the world pay into a central fund, the obshak, an insurance pot the
Thieves can fall back on when in times of trouble or imprisonment. It has
no ethnic divides which gives it an unlimited pool of men it can draw
upon. It uses a coded language of tattoos to keep out infiltration from law
enforcement, has a strict code of ethics that ensures loyalty and
obedience are adhered to and punishes harshly any deviation from that
code.
The civilised world is under siege from this red terror but due to the
organisations extremely skilled use of political corruption and the
influence that affords them, the western media and political classes either
have no idea that is actually exists in London, New York and Berlin, or
have more than likely chosen to keep silent in order not to disturb their
political narrative and to line their own pockets.
The book you are about to read is an extended version of Vor-v-Zakone,
a guide to Russian prison tattoos and Russian speaking organised crime
groups, a training package given to the British police and to law
enforcement agencies worldwide between 2011 and 2014. This
presentation formed part of the Metropolitan Police's behaviour detection
officer (BDO) training programme and was part of the study course for all
new Detective Sergeants in five police forces across the South East of
England. It has been presented at New Scotland Yard on numerous
occasions to hundreds of British police officers and has formed part of
specialised training given to the UK’s Special Branch and immigration
officers at ports and airports throughout England. It has been presented
at the Czech Republic's main police training centre in Prague, to
intelligence officers of the United States Air Force, to officers from across
Europe at the International Police Association (IPA) training centre near
Cologne, Germany, to officers from the FBI, DEA and regular State and
City Police during training provided by Gang Prevention Services in the
United States of America, to criminology students at Cambridge
University and at dozens of other police, educational and social
establishments across the United Kingdom.
The National Police Improvement Agency (now the College of Policing)
approved the project for sanctioned use in British police training in 2011
and this allowed the author access to materials not available to civilian
writers and educators. The initial purpose of the work was to teach police
officers how to recognise the prison tattoos worn by offenders from
Russia and Eastern Europe, who now make up a significant proportion of
the individuals British police deal with on a daily basis. However, the
the individuals British police deal with on a daily basis. However, the
training grew to show the origins, activities and story behind Russian
speaking organised crime groups and the people who make up this
sinister underworld. This book is aimed not only at law enforcement
officers but it is also ideal for people with a curiosity in Russia and its
sub-cultures, or for anyone who has a passing interest in crime and the
conduct of the illegal underworld that lurks in the shadows of our daily
lives.
Prior to the training package this book was based upon, there was
absolutely no sanctioned police training in the United Kingdom on this
subject. The author was one of the only fluent Russian speaking police
officers in the UK and one of only a handful of officers with any practical
knowledge and experience on the subject of Russian organised crime.
When the original programme was being written the UK Interpol office
based in the north of England were contacted and a formal request for
information was made. The response was that since the Litvinenko affair
there was no longer any co-operation between the UK and Russian
police forces and that the Russian bureau was now being covered by the
Portuguese section. The officer in charge of Interpol’s Russian issues
said, “I don’t really know anything about this. Have you tried contacting
the Americans?” As a result, the information in this book became a
valuable resource for police forces across the English speaking world. In
2015 the author resigned from the British police and emigrated to North
America where he now works as a full-time writer and translator for one
of the world’s most successful sports teams. This means for the first time
information that was previously only available in the Russian language, or
to law enforcement personnel can now be brought to the public’s
attention. This book fully exposes the prison tattoos of the Thieves in Law
and the role of the Russian mafia in the modern day European crime
story.
Parts one to three contain information on the history, structure and
activities of Russian organised crime gangs up to the present day. In the
fourth, you will be able to view the artist, Alina Malkovskaya’s
impressions of the most commonly worn Russian criminal tattoos,
