Marat Balagula

Marat Balagula
Born	September 8, 1943 Orenburg, USSR
Alias(es)	The Russian Tony Soprano
Allegiance	Russian Mafia American Mafia Lucchese crime family
Charge(s)	Gasoline bootlegging
Conviction(s)	10 years in federal prison
Status	Released in 2004
Occupation	Mobster, mob boss
Spouse	Natalia Shevchenko (mistress)
Parents	Jakov Balagula (father), Zinaida Balagula (mother)

Marat Balagula (born September 8, 1943, Orenburg, USSR) is a Russian - Ukrainian Jewish immigrant, former mob boss, and associate of the Lucchese crime family. He has often been referred to as "the Russian Tony Soprano."

Biography

Early life

According to Robert Friedman,

"Marat Balagula was born in 1943 in Orenburg, a small Russian town, at the height of World War II. His mother, Zinaida, fled with the children from their home in Odessa after the German Wehrmacht swept across the Russian steppes. Marat's father, Jakov, was a lieutenant in the Red Army; Balagula claims that he was one of the armored corps that stormed Berlin during the last desperate hours of the war. In the harshness of the Stalin era, the Balagulas led a comfortable. middle class life. Jakov worked in a factory manufacturing locks, as did his wife. Young Marat, an average high school student, was drafted into the Soviet Army at the age of nineteen and served as a bursar for three years, after which the Party assigned him to manage a food co-op in Odessa. Determined to get ahead, Marat attended night school, receiving diploma as a teacher of mathematics and then a business degree in economics and mathematics. Like many ambitious Russians with capitalist predilections, he promptly plunged into the country's flourishing black market. He quickly learned to attend to the demanding appetites of the apparatchiks, making certain that the choicest meats and produce was delivered to them."^[1]

Start in America

In 1977, Balagula decided to move his family to the United States under the Jackson-Vanik Amendment. At first he worked as a textile cutter in Washington Heights, Manhattan for $3.50 per hour. His wife Alexandra later reminisced, "It was hard for us, with no language, no money."^[2]

According to Robert I. Friedman,

"Balagula's fortunes improved markedly when he relocated his family to Brighton Beach and began to work for the infamous vor Evsei Agron... Agron, it turned out, was no match for the ambitious Balagula. While Agron's technical expertise didn't go beyond seeking sadistic new uses for his electric cattle prod, Balagula wanted to lead the Organizatsiya into the upscale world of white collar crime, and with the experience he had gained in the Soviet Union, he developed a business acumen that put him in a class by himself. surrounded by a cadre of Russian economists and math prodigies at the Odessa restaurant, he acquired a knowledge of global markets that enabled him to make millions in the arcane world of commodities trading. He also energetically cultivated the Italian mobsters he met as Agron's consigliere. After Agron was executed, Balagula organized his followers into a hierarchy, much like the Italian Mafia and before long, succeeded in transforming the Organizatsiya into a multibillion dollar a year criminal enterprise that stretched across from the tatters of Communist Eastern Europe, Africa, and Southeast Asia. Ultimately, however, it was Balagula's spectacular success in the gasoline bootlegging business -- a scheme that would reportedly earn him hundreds of millions of dollars and an honored position with the Italian Mafia -- that would usher in the first Golden Age of Russian organized crime in America."^[3]

Russian mob

In the aftermath of Agron's murder, Balagula took over as the most powerful Russian gangster in Brooklyn. According to a former associate,

"Marat was the king of Brighton Beach. He had a Robin Hood complex. People would come over from Russia and he'd give them jobs. He liked professional men. Guys came over and couldn't practice medicine or use their engineering degrees. He sought them out. He was fascinated with intellectuals. He co-opted them. He put them into the gasoline business, he put them into car washes or taxi companies. He'd reinvest his own money in their business if they were having trouble. He had a heart."^[4]

According to a former Suffolk County, New York prosecutor, however, there was another side to Balagula.

"Everybody in Brighton Beach talked about Balagula in hushed tones. These were people who knew him from the Old Country. They were really, genuinely scared of this guy."^[1]

American Mafia

After the Colombo crime family began shaking down his gasoline business, Balagula asked for a sitdown with Lucchese crime family consigliere Christopher Furnari at Brooklyn's 19th Hole social club. According to Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso, who was a Lucchese soldier present at the meeting, Furnari declared,

"Here there's enough for everybody to be happy... to leave the table satisfied. What we must avoid is trouble between us and the other families. I propose to make a deal with the others so there's no bad blood.... Meanwhile, we will send word out that from now on you and your people are with the Lucchese family. No one will bother you. If anyone does bother you, come to us and Anthony will take care of it."^[5]

In the aftermath, New York's Five Families imposed a two cent per gallon "Family tax" on Balagula's bootlegging operation, which became their greatest moneymaker after drug trafficking.^[6] According to one former associate,

"The LCN reminded Marat of the apparatchiks in the Soviet Union. He thought as long as he gave them something they would be valuable allies. Then all of a sudden he was at risk of being killed if he couldn't pay to the penny.^[7]

According to author Philip Carlo,

"Because Gaspipe and Russian mobster Marat Balagula hit it off so well, Casso was soon partners with Balagula on a diamond mine located in Sierra Leone, Africa. They opened a business office in Freetown. Casso also arranged for an Orthodox Jewish friend of his named Simon Stein, a diamond expert and member of the DeBeers Club, to travel from the Forty-seventh Street diamond district to Africa to smuggle -- in the linings and collars of great overcoats and in secret compartments of very expensive leather luggage -- particularly brilliant diamonds back into the country."^[8]

Enemies

According to Carlo,

"It didn't take long for word on the street to reach the Russian underworld: Marat Balagula was paying off the Italians; Balagula was a punk; Balagula had no balls. Balagula's days were numbered. This, of course, was the beginning of serious trouble. Balagula did in fact have balls -- he was a ruthless killer when necessary -- but he also was a smart diplomatic administrator and he knew that the combined, concerted force of the Italian crime families would quickly wipe the newly arrived Russian competition off the proverbial map."^[9]

Shortly afterward, on June 12, 1986, Balagula's rival, a psychopathic hitman named Vladimir Reznikov, entered the former's nightclub in Brighton Beach. Reznikov pushed a 9mm Beretta into Balagula's skull and demanded $600,000 as the price of not pulling the trigger. He also demanded a percentage of everything Balagula was involved in. After Balagula promised to get the money, Reznikov snarled, "F--- with me and you're dead -- you and your whole f---ing family; I swear I'll f--- and kill your wife as you watch -- you understand?"^[10]

Shortly after Reznikov left, Balagula suffered a massive heart attack. He insisted, however on being treated at his home in Brighton Beach, where he felt it would be less difficult for Reznikov to reach him. When Anthony Casso arrived, he told Balagula, "Send word to Vladimir that you have his money, that he should come to the club tomorrow. We'll take care of the rest."^[11] Casso also requested a photograph of Reznikov and a description of his car.^[12]

The following day, Reznikov arrived at Balagula's nightclub to pick up his money. Instead, Reznikov was confronted by Gambino associate Joseph Testa, who fatally shot him on Casso's orders. According to Casso, "After that, Marat didn't have any problems with other Russians."^[13]

Downfall

In 1986, Balagula was masterminding a $750,000 credit card scam when a business associate, Robert Fasano, began wearing a wire on him for the U.S. Secret Service.^[14] After being convicted on Federal charges, Balagula fled to Antwerp with his longtime mistress Natalia Shevchencko.^[15] After three years as a fugitive, Balagula was arrested in Frankfurt am Main, West Germany on February 27, 1989.^[16] In December 1989, Balagula was extradited to the United States and sentenced to eight years in prison for credit card fraud.^[17]

In November 1992, Balagula was convicted at a separate trial for gasoline bootlegging and sentenced to an additional ten years in Federal prison. While passing sentence, Judge Leonard Wexler declared, "This was supposed to be a haven for you. It turned out to be a hell for us."^[17]

Balgula served his sentence and was released from Federal prison in 2004. ^[18]

Quotation

• "They claim I made $25 million dollars per day bootlegging. It's crazy! I got nothing. What have I got? The government took my apartment in Manhattan, my house in Long Island, $300,000 in cash. They said, 'If you don't cooperate with us you'll go to jail for twenty years.' ...They want me to tell them about the Mafia, about gasoline, about hits. Forget it. All these charges are bullshit! All my life I like to help people. Just because a lot of people come to me for advice, everybody thinks I'm a boss. I came to America to find work, support myself, and create a future for my children."^[19]

In popular culture

• In the video game Grand Theft Auto IV, a Russian mob boss named Mikhail Faustin may be based on Marat Balagula.

References

1. ^ ^{a b} Friedman 2000, p. 43
2. ^ Friedman 2000, p. 45
3. ^ Friedman 2000, pp. 45–46
4. ^ Friedman 2000, p. 42
5. ^ Carlo 2008, p. 120
6. ^ Friedman 2000, p. 53
7. ^ Friedman 2000, pp. 53–54
8. ^ Carlo 2008, p. 151
9. ^ Carlo 2008, p. 152
10. ^ Carlo 2008, p. 153
11. ^ Carlo 2008, p. 154
12. ^ Ibid.
13. ^ Friedman 2000, p. 55
14. ^ Friedman 2000, pp. 61–62
15. ^ Friedman 2000, p. 62
16. ^ Friedman 2000, p. 64
17. ^ ^{a b} Friedman 2000, p. 65
18. ^ [1]
19. ^ Friedman 2000, p. 66

Further reading

• Carlo, Philip (2008). Gaspipe: Confessions of a Mafia Boss. William Morrow. ISBN 0061429848. 
• Devito, Carlo. Encyclopedia of International Organized Crime. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2005. ISBN 0-8160-4848-7
• Friedman, Robert I. (2008). Red Mafiya: How the Russian Mob Has Invaded America. Little, Brown and Company. ISBN 0316294748. </ref>

Persondata
Name	Balagula, Marat
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	September 8, 1943
Place of birth	Orenburg, USSR
Date of death
Place of death