Racket is our terrible past

Racket is the criminal acquisition of other people's income with the use of violence and threats. Popularity this word acquired in the perestroika period, in the nineties of the twentieth century.

Racketeers were called small criminal gangs engaged in "cover-up". They forcibly imposed their protection services on various small cooperatives or firms, which at that time were many. The purpose of these services was to get a gang from the merchant of a profit, for which racketeers protected him from attacks by other competing groups.

Bandit romance

Racket of the 90s was a real scourge of the country, but then not everyone understood the horror of what was happening. The image of the racketeer was enveloped in a halo of romanticism and fearlessness, in this direction the public consciousness was deliberately formed . Bandit groups consisted mainly of former athletes and military men, who, because of state reforms, lost their favorite business and were below the poverty line, and in front of them waited a meaningless existence.

At the head of the groups were usually former criminals. After watching the cheap western militants, they introduced in the late eighties the concept of "racket".

Why it became possible

Racket is a criminal, forcible removal of most of the profits.

With the beginning of the official resolution of entrepreneurial activities and the appearance of the first merchants in the USSR, the main "business" for bandit groups was extortion. By the mid-nineties of the twentieth century, they controlled almost 85% of enterprises, except those engaged in security business. Do not fall under the "roof" racket only organizations that were under direct law enforcement protection.

The first entrepreneurs received no legal support and, in order to survive, were forced to cooperate with criminals. Businessmen were often involved in gang warfare for zones of influence, there was no one to ask for help, since racketeering is not just gangsters. A considerable part of law enforcement officers was corrupt and connected with racketeering. The article of the Criminal Code, where entrepreneurship was outlawed, was abolished only at the end of 1991.

Dashing 90s

At the "criminal appeal" sounded, young offspring from the social lower classes rushed into the bandit groups. Children from dysfunctional families, where mothers counted every penny, and fathers often beat them on a drunken bench. In big cities they did not go for study - they attracted easy ways of profit, impunity and permissiveness. It was fashionable to go "into bandits," racket became almost an official way of earning.

Such small members of gangs settled in rented apartments for eight people, slept on the floor, on mattresses, received $ 500 salaries, had one used car for five people.

At first all these gangs had enough space, but the more they became, the more difficult it was to divide the cities into zones of influence. And then the shooting began ...

Bandit wars

Despite the widespread opinion that bandits of the 90s, racketeering, rampant violence appeared exclusively thanks to the criminal world, it's impossible to say so definitely.

Bandit wars began in 1993, coinciding with the peak of political struggle within the ruling Russian elite. At the same time, the first armed clashes began in Chechnya, overgrown a year later in a real war. All events began almost simultaneously and continued in parallel. This makes us think that all three phenomena have one source. And not criminals, and living by its own, different from other laws, a special caste rules ball then.

Never again do not know the exact number of crimes committed by bandits in those days. Only in Moscow for the time that the investigation was going on, about fifty murders were discovered, the guns and explosives were withdrawn by centners.

In 1994, the capital was killed the largest number of gangster authorities. In this war it was impossible to understand where the friend is, where the enemy is, who is fighting whom. And now forever will remain unknown who killed whom.

In post-perestroika times, many gangs created their own security structures and officially legalized, and the term "racket" went out of use. Many of the former authorities went into business or politics.

Banditry, groupings, racketeering - it's all left in the last century and has become the pages of history. It's time to draw conclusions to avoid repetition.