Mafia On Ice

7 Pages 1657 Words

s.rusmafia.html).” According to the reports the unnamed player named threats to his family, requests of six-figure payments, threats to blow up his car and actual acts of damaging his property and threats against people he lived with as some of the things that were acted upon him (http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/hockey/nhl/news/1997/06/10/news.rusmafia.html).
Some players have been able to get around the mafia’s efforts. In 1996, Alexander Molgilny went straight to the FBI for help after being targeted by the mafia. Another, Alexei Zhitnik, actually fought fire with fire and was quoted as saying that he would be turning to a “more powerful criminal to take care of the problem (http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/hockey/nhl/news/1997/06/10/news.rusmafia.html).”
Two players Pavel Bure and Slava Fetisov in particular were involved in an interview with PBS’s Frontline called “Mafia Power Play” in 1999.
After and extensive search the FBI shut down a New York based extortion and money laundering stake that was run by Russian gangster Vyacheslav Ivankov (http://organizedcrime.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.pbs.org%2Fwgbh%2Fpages%2Ffrontline%2Fshows%2Fhockey%2Fetc%2Fsynopsis.html).
The FBI invest...