From: Vice
By Mark Galeotti
As Putin’s “little green men” were taking Crimea back in March, I was speaking with both cops and gangsters in Moscow who saw this as a great business opportunity—a chance for Russian gangs to move into new turf, make new alliances, and open up new trafficking routes.
They were thinking far too small. Already it has become clear that the conflict in Ukraine is having an impact on not just the regional but the global underworld. As one Interpol analyst told me, “What’s happening in Ukraine now matters to criminals from Bogotá to Beijing.”
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Why does it matter if the ships dock at Sevastopol rather than Odessa? Because if the former can offer lower transit costs and new routes, then not only does it mean the Crimeans can take over existing smuggling business, it also makes new ventures economically viable. For example, already, counterfeit cigarettes are being smuggled to northern Turkey, having been brought into Crimea on military supply ships. Perhaps most alarming are unconfirmed suggestions I have heard from Ukrainian intelligence services—admittedly hardly objective observers—that some oil illegally sold through Turkey by Islamic State militants in Syria might have been moved to Sevastopol’s private Avlita docks for re-export.
