European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - November 01, 1993, Darmstadt, Hesse                                V German Poland Border a Magnet for Black marketeers and thieves mine was  r germans typically walk across the two Lane Bridge to Sluice which has 10 Gas stations and of taxi Drivers and take taxis to the Bazaar for bargains in polish products such As baskets audits butter and of Ruff. Two detectives and a Moscow policeman question a couple about Black Market dealings. Lawless Moscow. Continued from Page 19 As big brother stopped watching. Russia s murder rate has almost tripled since perestroika began and stood at 19.9 per 100,000 residents in the first six months of this year double the american rate. Gangs Are blamed for much of the crime wave. Police say Russia has almost 3,300 organized crime groups some armed with Kalashnikov sub machine guns hand grenades and other leftovers from the splintered soviet army. The new mafiosi Are easy to spot in Moscow s pricier restaurants. They shamelessly ape every cliche1 of the Hollywood gangster movie. They favor italianate zoot suits and bottled blondes in Lycra. They sneer through Clouds of cigarette smoke and speak an incomprehensible Slang. Their violent conduct is even More jarring in one bloody week in july they staged Gangland shootouts in Moscow that killed eight people and wounded six More. Four people were killed when seven men from Chechnya the Southern Republic that is gaining a reputation As the Sicily of Russia drove up to a russian italian Auto Dealership on Leninsky Prospect and started shooting in apparent retaliation for the business failure to pay Protection Money. A police spokeswoman said that Security guards inside the Dealership returned fire an Alfa Romeo also was riddled with bullets. M until glasnost soviet police could and did arrest hooligans and dissidents for tune Yastro or failure to work a crime usually punished by a year at hard labor. Now beleaguered authorities Are overrun by Brazen narcotics traffickers kidnappers bombers counterfeiters and even train robbers and arrest and conviction rates Are dropping. Expressing concern about the possibilities of the russian crime wave becoming an Export american and German Law info Cement officials recently offered their Aid and know How to their counterparts in Moscow while most of Russia struggles to convert to capitalism the bad Guys have quickly found their Market Niche. In the soviet Union murder for hire was simply unheard of except in decadent Western crime thrillers. Now the russian press runs splashy interviews with hit men known by the English word  before Petukhov said uis was Only in the realm of  one group of free Lance hit men told the Magazine Ogo Nyok that two thirds of their clients Are women who want to do in their men. Any person can be killed even Yeltsin himself they boasted if Only it is paid  while state inspired fear once made soviet citizens Law abiding the anarchic russian democracy has come to mean liberation for criminals a License to make Money by. Importing the sea Miest aspects of Western culture. Prime time television carries Commer Fais for Gas pistols brass Knuckles and other weapons had Core pornography is sold openly a few Steps away from the once dreaded Kab Headquarters. All the social and Law enforcement structures that used to restrain people were liquidated by democracy " Petukhov said. By july at least 32 russians had been killed by paid assassins Stolitza Magazine reported. The victims included two imprisoned gang Kingpins three lawmakers a factory director and the head of a military Academy. Russians who do business with the West including emigres who come Back to help cinch deals for their foreign employers Are presumed to be awash in hard currency and Are at special risk for extortion muggings Kidnap and murder. In the past month the 36-year-old director of a russian Canadian company and a partner in the russian american Tren mos restaurant in Moscow were each murdered in what appeared to be professional hits. Some of the new victims clearly Are gangsters or former Black marketeers with Shady connections. But businessmen complain that Law enforcement has been too Quick to assume that anyone preyed upon by gangsters must be one of them. In the Early Days of perestroika police considered businessmen to be economic criminals and were slow to protect them. The image of businessmen As speculators parasites and mafiosi is still widespread there is a very anti business tendency in Russia today said the Friend of the woman murdered in the bomb attack. I can t say people Are Reading these articles about slain businessmen with sorrow and  he said the prevailing attitude is you drive a Mercedes you Are killed. Too bad for  i _. A German policeman patrols a crossing Point on the polish Border. Russia s Klondike of crime mtg. Norvy i � i Helsinki olo Stockholm by Frank Bajak the associated press our poles sit on a shaded Bench near the peace Bridge in Sluice Poland a bustling Crossroads of the new Europe. They Are thinking up ways one says of making a living without having to make a  smuggling maybe they laugh but won t say. All Are in their 30s or 40s, say they Are unemployed and refuse to offer names or professions. Cross Border Commerce with Germany much of it illicit is the Lifeblood of this somewhat shabby Frontier town of 20,000, which looks across the Oder River to the prosperous West. Sluice s Industrial base consists of two Small clothing factories on the verge of bankruptcy. When the soviet Empire collapsed Sluice pronounced woo Bee Tseh and More than a dozen other quiet polish Border towns became magnets for Opportunity seekers honest and nefarious from All Over Eastern Europe.  Black marketeer smugglers car thieves and gun runners abound. Cigarettes which Cost twice As much in Germany As in Poland Are the biggest problem said Klaus Schade Deputy chief of German customs across the River in. Frankfurt an Der Oder. Schade estimates cigarette smuggling accounts for about $1 million a month in lost customs duties at his _ crossing one of 25 on the polish German Frontier. Sluice is a town in which you d Best not leave your car alone unguarded for Long. Almost every Day they steal a car in Sluice says town spokesman Marcin Jablonski. I know because poles Cross the other Way work and to buy such Superior German goods As Tandy toys and building materials germans drive into Poland for gasoline at two thirds the Price and few return Home without the 200 duty free cigarettes allowed. On this Day a police jeep with a cracked Windshield did Roadblock duty at the polish end of the two Lane Bridge to Frankfurt an Der Oder. More than two do in times this year says spokesman Dariusz Goralski of the polish Border guard 4rvwarsaw, speedsters driving cars stolen in Germany have rammed Border barricades and disappeared into the polish night. Refugees Are another problem Germany strengthened its Border patrol after imposing a Tough new Asylum Law in. July. Every week Germany returns up to 300 illegal aliens to Poland said Volker Amler of Border patrol East in Berj Irv. All travellers from the East except poles need visas to enter Germany. Poles and germans May Cross freely into each other s territory. Hence the wave of humanity that streams through the 25 polish German Border stations at some places in such volume that Roswog can take hours. A taxi Driver whose apartment overlooks the peace Bridge described one Way cigarettes enter Germany customs free. " at about 5 . Each Day when the alertness of customs officers is Low a see people walk to the German end of the Bridge. And drop big bags filled with cigarette Cartons Down to their friends on the _ promenade below. The Driver who spoke anonymously for fear of the smugglers said a runner who drops two bags of 50 Cartons each can make $500, twice the average monthly wage in Poland. All this unsavoury activity troubles Korneliusz Maczkowski a retired craftsman who has lived in Sluice All his life. The people who live Here and Don t get involved in Trade or smuggling suffer complains Maczkowski a 66 shoppers with electronic gear head Back to Poland where consumer goods have a High resale value. Year old widower who scrapes by on a monthly pension equal to $90. Because of the Border Trade food costs 50 percent More in Sluice than 30 Miles to the East. Real estate prices have also shot up to the Point where a modest 750 Square foot apartment costs $18,000, or seven years average pay. Have a look Over there at the hotel Polonia if you want to see people up to no Good says Maczkowski. Outside the hotel which the local tourism office does not recommend some russians were making Auto License plates measuring a finished one against a Blank White Sheet of steel. A few paces away a Man in a White silk shirt opened nearly to his Navel stands negotiating with a Confederate. His polish is weak and thickly accented. He and a Friend Are asked where they Are rom. They refuse to _. Answer.  the associated pressuring night patrol in the rough Border town of Vyborg Russia the two policemen passed dozens of prostitutes Shook hands with a Pimp and watched Shady characters try to lure tourists into illegal currency deals. What can we do about it we can t prove anything sgt. Mikhail Yatskiv said. He is one of 38 officers who use four rickety jeeps to patrol Vyborg a bustling town of 80,000 people too Many of whom Are criminals. In the course Folh Eirfie hour patrol Yatskiv and his partner Anatoly kor Shagin broke up a fight Between two women put them in jail and arrested a Drunken Womark sleeping in a Park. Police chief Anatoly Petrov likens Vyborg open to the West after 50 years of stagnation to a town in the Alaska Gold Rush. It s a Magnet for prostitutes pimps and All kinds of Wheeler dealers from former soviet republics he said. It s become a real Klondike of crime. I know some of my men must be on the take from the mafia to  the mafia a russian description for All sorts of organized crime has infiltrated the hotel business in Vyborg controls alcohol and tobacco sales and demands Protection Money from shopkeepers according to local newspapers. Some of the reports Are exaggerated but i think we have to face the fact that something like this is going on Petrov said. The growth of crime in Vyborg mirrors conditions elsewhere in the former soviet Union. But it is particularly pronounced Here and particularly ironic in a City the soviets had policed so Well because of its nearness to Finland. Petrov said officers Are paid Only 40,000 rubles a month about $27, so it s difficult to get  the chief acknowledged the temptation of corruption and noted that two policemen not always popular at Border towns frisk a crime suspect. Police also Are hampered by poor equipment and a shortage of personnel. Vyborg is just 12 Miles East of Finland on the main Moscow Helsinki Highway. The soviets left the City to ruin along with the rest of finnish Karelia seized by the soviet army in 1944. But the end of communism and the soviet Union have made it a Crossroads of azerbaijani jewelry Sellers finnish Timber merchants russian entrepreneurs armenian Gold dealers and criminals from everywhere. Prostitutes sit in bars and line the streets. Dealers in liquor and Black Market currency accost visitors. Drivers ignore the Speed limit. Officers Yatskiv and kor Shagin in Gray uniforms and peaked Caps revolvers on their hips began their evening patrol with a drive past the hotels. There s no mafia Here kor Shagin said. Things Are fairly quiet minutes later they stopped to shake hands with a Young Man in expensive Western clothes loitering outside the Druzsba Vyborg s main tourist hotel. On the previous evening the same Man " had moved through the hotel lobby and bar offering prostitutes Vodka and sparkling wine priced in foreign currency. When the policemen were asked about the Man kor Shagin replied we Don t kno exactly what he does but he s some sort of businessman. There Are Many businessmen around these  20 tin stabs and stems monday november 1,1993 tin Tab and strips