First‑Person Column

On September 27, 1990, our country (first the Soviet Union, and then successively Russia) officially joined Interpol, and in October of this year, we will mark an event from 30 years ago that was not recorded at the time in any media source, but which had colossal importance.

In the mid-90s, the West made a series of powerful attempts to exert pressure on Russia as a country posing a threat from the "Russian mafia." For young Russia, this caused colossal harm both to the promotion of the economic interests of civilized business in Western Europe and to the country's law enforcement agencies, which for this reason were not trusted by Western colleagues in solving crimes of an international nature.

Then, in Turkish Antalya, our delegation, led by me, defended and finally rid the country and society of the myth created in the West, which had long caused harm, about the "Russian mafia" and its threat to the global community.

From the high rostrum of the 65th session of the Interpol General Assembly, the whole world heard from the planet's chief police officer — Raymond Kendall — that the "Russian mafia" does not exist, but there are individual Russian-speaking organized crime groups from the republics of the post-Soviet space. "Leave this term, gentlemen," said the Secretary General, "to the discretion of illiterate segments of society and certain Western media sources..."

For this to happen, our group had to conduct a very large amount of preparatory work to convince the Scotland Yard police officer to dispel this myth... ⭐

From that delegation of General Assembly participants in the "wild" nineties, Pyotr Petrovich Gorodov, who works today as Deputy Attorney General of Russia, notes that from that time on, recognition and trust in our employees (then still militia) from Western partners increased noticeably. ⭐⭐⭐

This was also stated at that time by the Minister of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation, General of the Army Anatoly Sergeyevich Kulikov, who believed that this was a breakthrough in strengthening international cooperation in countering international crime.⭐⭐⭐

Ivan Sardak
President of the IPA Russian Section