However, Ivankov did become criminally active in the United States. However Alexander Grant, editor for newspaper Novoye Russkoye Slovo said in 1994 Ivankov had left Russia because it was too dangerous for him there, since there are 'new criminal entrepreneurs who don't respect the likes of Yaponchik' and that he was not criminally active in the United States. The Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs advised the FBI that Ivankov had come to 'manage and control Russian Organized Crime activities in this country', advice that the FBI took on board. His reason for arriving in the United States was not initially clear. His front company in the United States was Slavic, Inc.

He had arrived on a regular business visa stating that he would be working in the film industry. Unlike the Cosa Nostra, where the boss gives out the orders, Ivankov used to go out and extort himself. Ivankov arrived in the United States in March 1992, despite having served a prison sentence of around ten years and a reputation as one of the fiercest and one of the most brutal criminals in Russia.

Moving to the United States Īccording to Alexander Litvinenko, Ivankov headed the narcotics trafficking of the Uzbek network in the United States. Though he was sentenced to fourteen years he was released in 1991, reportedly thanks to the intervention of a powerful politician and a bribed judge of the Russian supreme court. In 1982, authorities had finally caught up with him and he was arrested on firearms, forgery and drug-trafficking charges. awarded by criminal brotherhood the title of vor v zakone ( thief in law). In 1974, in Butyrka prison he was 'crowned' i.e. His gang used forged police documents to enter houses and then burglarize them. Later Ivankov became involved in gang activity. After his release, he began to move up in the criminal world, selling goods on the black market. Ivankov was an amateur wrestler in his youth and served his first prison time for his participation in a bar fight, in which he claimed he was defending the honor of a woman. Ivankov was born in Georgia, when it was part of the Soviet Union, to Olga Gostasvits and Bernard Royal-Ivankov, and lived on Iosebidze Street, in the capital of Tbilisi. 6 Ivankov successor: Alexei Petrov aka Alexei Suvorov.

Russian Prison Mafia