Since a spying scandal in late September, Russian authorities have deported hundreds of Georgians in retaliation for what it considered provocative actions on the part of Tbilisi. Russia also has imposed a postal and transport blockade on its southern ex-Soviet neighbor, shut down at least three casinos in Moscow allegedly owned by the Georgian mafia, and arrested suspected Georgian crime bosses.
The ministry's department for economic security said the criminal group in Moscow was headed by a Georgian-born crime boss known as Dzhuba. It controlled over eight credit organizations in Moscow and had "strong ethnic and financial relations with criminal elements of the Georgian diaspora."
"This channel was actively used for transferring money to Georgia and other countries," the department said in a statement. "The money came mainly from illegal banking operations, casinos, robberies and embezzlement of budget funds."
Investigations have also established that the group had links with officials in Russian government agencies.
"According to our information, the interests of this group had been actively lobbied by some officials in the Russian Finance Ministry and the Bank of Russia. The group also had criminal links with some officials in Russia's law-enforcement and governmental systems," the statement said.
The group had been laundering illegally-obtained money through banks in Moscow, including Vek Bank and Centurion, which had their licenses revoked this summer by the Central Bank over breaches of banking legislation, including the law on money laundering.
The group's "income from illegal banking operations amounted to over $500,000 daily," the statement said.
Crime boss Dzhuba held a forged passport, and had been living in Russia illegally. The Interior Ministry said Dzhuba left from Moscow for Nice via Monaco on October 8, allegedly to purchase property, and has not been heard of since.
"This crime boss has close relations with Georgians, who fought in [Georgia's breakaway republic] Abkhazia, as well as with Russian criminal groups," the statement said. "He is known to have said... that his money was intended for 'a small victorious war'."
The ministry's department said earlier Tuesday that it, together with the Financial Intelligence Service, had tracked down a criminal group that had laundered over 200 billion rubles ($7.5 billion), $390 million and 66 million euros between April 2004 and January 2005.
The department said the group was comprised of managers from two commercial banks, one of which was Vek Bank, the same bank used by Dzhuba's group.
