Mark Galeotti: European security concerns bring Russian mafia back onto agenda
A police vidoegrab handout shows the living room in a house in Castelldefels, province of Barcelona, occupied by one of 28 people arrested 20 June 2005 in the Barcelona area -- most of them alleged members of the Russian mafia, during an operation against international organized crime on the Catalonian Mediterranean coast in what is reported to be the largest operation of the kind in Europe.
In the 1990s, the so-called "Russian Mafia" was Europe's new nightmare, an overblown threat surging west into Europe instead of Soviet tanks. In the 2000s, it had become a cliché, the thriller-writer's staple. Now it is back on the agenda, with serious concerns that organised crime has become a 'fifth column' of the Kremlin's effort to undermine European security.
