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After the fall of the Soviet Union, the Russian mafia expanded its reach across the globe, especially setting its sights on the United States. In 1992, Vyacheslav Kirillovich Ivankov was spotted here in New York, reportedly to either organize all Russian organized crime in the United States or because upstart criminals in Russia weren't respecting him. Either way, his presence made both local and federal authorities very nervous, because he was a vor v zakonye, a "thief-in-law," the Russian mob equivalent of made man within the La Cosa Nostra.
Ivankov—nicknamed "The Jap" or "Little Japanese" due to his slanted eyes and knowledge of martial arts—had tattoos that are hallmarks of being a vor and ran an extensive, brutal extortion ring in Russia. The NY Times reported in 1994, "He is believed to have slipped into the United States last year with a false passport. He has been seen strolling on Emmons Avenue in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, and dining at the Rasputin, a nightclub in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, and at the Russian Samovar, a midtown Manhattan restaurant, said detectives with the New York City Police Department."
A member of the Russian Ministry of Interior also told the Times that Ivankov's presence in America was "terrifying because his presence in the states will implant a new kind of criminal ideology that will give birth to crimes characteristic of Russian criminals." By June 1995, the FBI arrested him for extorting a Russian investment firm (two of the businessmen were kidnapped at gunpoint; one of their fathers was killed in Russia). The feds also noted his alleged history of drug trafficking and arms smuggling.
