1. Varese F., 2012, The Structure and
the Content of Criminal
Connections: The Russian Mafia in
Italy, European Sociological Review
By Mark Moore

2. What is the article investigating?
1. Why do organized crime groups establish
foreign outposts?
2. Do these groups have a non-traditional, flat
internal structure, lacking ‘centres of
gravity’?
3. How do orders and information pass through
the network?

3. What data is the article based on?
• The Solntsevskaya crime group – founded in Moscow in
mid 1980s.
• Merged with other criminal organisations. By end of
1990s was one of the most powerful Eurasian
organized crime groups in the world.
• Ivan Yakovlev, key player in group, attempted to open
an outpost in Rome in mid 1990s.
• Russian-Mafioso turned state witness informed FBI of
Yakovlev’s presence in Rome, who informed Italian
police.
• Launched investigation and data collected has been
used for the analysis in this article (phone taps).

4. 1. Findings: motives for establishing
foreign outposts
• Widespread belief among scholars that
contemporary crime groups intentionally take
advantage of globalisation by opening foreign
outposts.
• E.g. ‘Take advantage of attractive labour or
raw material markets, so do illicit business’
(Shelley, 2006: p.43)

5. • Article finds that in case of Solntsevskaya
crime group, Yakovlev fled to Rome as a result
of fear of being killed in Moscow.
• He concludes from this that Mafia groups ‘find
themselves abroad as a consequence of
pressure at home’ (Varese 2012: p.8), rather
than rationally deciding to expand abroad.
1. Findings: motives for establishing
foreign outposts

6. 2. Findings: do groups have a flat
internal structure?
• Recent contributions to the sociology of
organized crime suggest that the internal
structure of organized crime groups are now
flat, lacking ‘centres of gravity’.

7. 2. Findings: do groups have a flat
internal structure?
• Circles: Nodes representing
nationals from former USSR.
• Squares: Nodes representing
Italians.
• Size of node depends of number
of people person is in touch with.
• Arrows indicate actors who are in
phone contact.
• Shows group does have
hierarchical structure. Three
actors have a high degree of
connection.
• Network is highly centralized
around a few individuals (centres
of gravity).
• Outpost was ‘polycentric’ rather
than flat.

8. 3. Findings: Interactions within the
network
• Using ‘content analysis’ – Varese looked at the
purpose of each phone call e.g. economics
investments (51.7%), group management
(22.8%), resource acquisition (18.9%).
• Found that orders come from Yakovlev – the
Boss, and then a few trusted individuals,
including his wife and right hand man, relay
the information through the network.

9. Conclusion:
1. The Solntsevskaya crime group established
itself abroad due to pressures at home, not
to take advantage of globalization.
2. Group was centered on a few key actors, thus
outpost was polycentric, not flat.
3. Orders come from the Boss, and are then
passed by a few key, trusted individuals to
the rest of the network.