For the final two parts of CONTRA VIII, Dimitri and Khalid shift their focus to the origins of the Russian Mafiya in the 1980s and 1990s, as depicted in Robert I. Friedman’s 2000 book “Red Mafiya: How The Russian Mob Has Invaded America”. Topics include:
Friedman getting threatened by the “brainy don” Semion Mogilevich after his Village Voice exposé, Vyacheslav Ivankov, Monya Elson, the cattle prod wielding gangster Evsei Agron, and the long strange career of deeply sus Rabbi Ronald Greenwald…
Jacob Bogatin (and his “Crime Nerd” brother David), ex-IDF cocaine dealer to the stars Boris Goldberg and his gf Tonya Biggs (Bob Guccione’s daughter), Russian crimelord Marat Balagula and the Long Island gasoline bootlegging boom of the 1980s, Russian mob cutouts buying Getty Oil, NY Governors Hugh Carey and Mario Cuomo getting bootleg oil cash for their campaigns, ultra-sus double (triple?) agent Shabtai Kalmanovich and the Sierra Leone blood diamond trade, Efim Laskin smuggling weapons to the Red Brigades in Italy (GLADIO ALERT), and more.