Investigation“Geopolitics of the mafias” (4/6). A time weakened under the pressure of the ex-president Mikheïl Saakachvili, the criminal caste of “Vory”, of their Russian name, reinvested its native ground of the Caucasian South. By making arrangements with the Church and the power in place.
An hour’s drive, southwest of Tbilisi, the Georgian capital, the village of Dmanissi was only known for its prehistoric site listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The Caucasus, to the north, is not far, the border with Armenia, to the south, very close. On May 17, this small town of about 3,000 inhabitants suddenly came out of anonymity. The Minister of the Interior, Vakhtang Gomelauri, and the head of the state security services, Grigol Lilouashvili, made the trip to put an end to the violent riots between the local Azeri and Georgian communities. The situation has been out of control for two days now, despite the city being sealed off by police reinforcements.
USSR
ARMENIA
TURKEY
AZERBAIJAN
GEORGIA
Moscow
Novosibirsk
Irkutsk
Tbilisi
Holy-
Petersburg
Zugdidi
Sukhumi
Kutaisi
TURKEY
ARMENIA
RUSSIA
AZ.
Dmanissi
Tbilisi
1. Birth in the gulags of the USSR
Main gulag, where the “thieves in the law” were born (Vory v zakone)
Soviet Union (1922-1989): when it fell, the Vories prosper
2. Repression in Georgia under Mikheil Saakashvili (2004-2013)
Law of 2005: membership of “thieves” is punished by prison
2013 amnesty: release of incarcerated Vorys, on condition that they leave the country
3. Export of the criminal model abroad
Exile of several Vories after Georgian anti-mafia laws
4. Conflict for power
Vor clans vying for power today
Inconvenient Georgians, “Svans”, named after the Svaneti Mountains to the west, led a punitive expedition against Azeri Muslim traders who refused to give credit for beers. Hundreds of nearby Muslim villagers came to the rescue. Late in the evening, the leaders of the two communities meet in the city council chamber for a reconciliation session, under the aegis of members of the government and the clergy. “There is nothing ethnic about this affair, it is common law”, asserts, against all evidence, the Minister of the Interior, who adds: “Azeris are full citizens and Azerbaijan is a strategic partner. “
For the opposition to the government, this affair would reveal above all the troubled links maintained by the state held for ten years by the Georgian Dream Party, under the control of the oligarch Bidzina Ivanishvili, with the Georgian mafia, known under the name of ” Thieves in the Law ”. According to Kakha Okriachvili, opposition figure and former deputy for Dmanisi, “These criminals act with impunity because they feel protected by the government and Georgian Dream”.
Gigi Ougoulava, former mayor of Tbilisi, assures us that “The interior ministry asked for help from Mohammad Gourbanov, known as “Maga Rustavsky”, a high level Azeri Thief in law living in Turkey to end the conflict ”. Roustavsky was a close relative of Nadir Salifov, known as “Gouli”, an Azeri Thief killed in Turkey, in 2020, while he was claiming the role of boss of this international mafia organization.
Pro-Slavic, pro-Russian and pro-Church
In the village of Dmanissi, where 65% of the population is of Muslim origin, criminals had all the more solution to this crisis, according to Chota Utiachvili, long head of the organized crime department at the Ministry of the Interior, that it is their rivalries that would have triggered this violence: “The clashes in Dmanisi are linked to struggles between Thieves clans within the law. Since the death of “Gouli”, the Azeri, Georgian Thieves have been advancing their pawns in this region where they are in the minority, hence the racketeering operation of the Azeri trader “.
You have 84.77% of this article to read. The rest is for subscribers only.