The Chechen Mafia Strikes Back: War Profiteering, School Sieges and a Turncoat Named Kadyrov
09/19/23 • 53 min
1 Listener
The Soviet Union is toast, Chechnya is at war and Grozny, its embattled capital, is being bombed to dust. Gangs of Chechen criminals are getting rich off the bloodshed, capitalizing on gun- and drug-running networks that flourished under Communism.
When the war ends a new breed of Chechen mobster-terrorist emerges, empowered by Arab Jihad and financed by goons who've grown fat on the patronage of oligarchs. After a brutal period of rocket strikes, school sieges and plane hijackings, Chechnya enters a new, stable—but semi-feudal—stage, led by a family of boxers and religious zealots: the Kadyrovs.
Sign up today at butcherbox.com/underworld and use code UNDERWORLD get $20 off your first order.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The Soviet Union is toast, Chechnya is at war and Grozny, its embattled capital, is being bombed to dust. Gangs of Chechen criminals are getting rich off the bloodshed, capitalizing on gun- and drug-running networks that flourished under Communism.
When the war ends a new breed of Chechen mobster-terrorist emerges, empowered by Arab Jihad and financed by goons who've grown fat on the patronage of oligarchs. After a brutal period of rocket strikes, school sieges and plane hijackings, Chechnya enters a new, stable—but semi-feudal—stage, led by a family of boxers and religious zealots: the Kadyrovs.
Sign up today at butcherbox.com/underworld and use code UNDERWORLD get $20 off your first order.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Previous Episode
Becoming the Chechen Mafia: Ancient Outlaws, Soviet Scabs and a British KGB Plot
In this episode we track the concept of the Chechen Mafia—not an easy thing to define—from ancient invasions and the creation of the "Abrek", or "outlaw-exile," through Soviet repression, Stalin's deportations and the "Scab War" of the feared Gulag Archipelago.
The rise of a Communist blackmarket later allowed Chechens in Siberia and Kazakhstan to carve out their own illicit empires, outside of Russia's "Thieves World." These newfound gangsters coalesced with an independence movement, whose bloodshed would reach all the way to central London—at the scene of a brutal, 1993 double-murder.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Next Episode
Ex-Con Mercenaries, Wagner, Prigozhin, and the Russian Mafiosos Fighting in Ukraine with Joshua Yaffa
The Russian mercenary/state aligned outfit Wagner emerged from the early days of the war in Ukraine, led by an ex-con turned hot dog salesman turned Putin lapdog. In no time, they were operating in the Middle East and Africa, and Yevgeny Prigozhin's stock as a warlord began to rise. When Russia's full scale invasion started to falter, Wagner started trawling Russian prisons like the villain in a Fast and Furious movie. Soon, though, his star rose a little too high and that never ends well in Putin's Russia. We're joined by New Yorker writer and Between Two Fires author Joshua Yaffa, who has covered Wagner's rise and Prigozhin's fall.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
If you like this episode you’ll love
Episode Comments
Featured in these lists
Generate a badge
Get a badge for your website that links back to this episode
<a href="https://goodpods.com/podcasts/the-underworld-podcast-141517/the-chechen-mafia-strikes-back-war-profiteering-school-sieges-and-a-tu-33684085"> <img src="https://storage.googleapis.com/goodpods-images-bucket/badges/generic-badge-1.svg" alt="listen to the chechen mafia strikes back: war profiteering, school sieges and a turncoat named kadyrov on goodpods" style="width: 225px" /> </a>
Copy