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This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Crime in Estonia" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (July 2008) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

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It has been suggested that Human trafficking in Estonia be merged into this article. (Discuss) Proposed since June 2009.

There are several criminal organizations operating in Estonia. Each of these groups has at least ten active members, and the largest ones are thought to have close to one hundred members.

Crime statistics

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Crime in Estonia" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (June 2009) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

Crime in Estonia has exploded since the collapse of the Soviet Union. According to statistics published in Britain in 2008 about the period 1991–2001, the number of crimes increased by 84% from 1991 to 2001. The number of drug-related crimes increased by 1993% between 1997 and 2001 alone. An average of 9.4 people per 1000,000 per year were killed in Estonia between 1999 and 2001. Significant increases in drug-related crime and drug use prompted international concern in 1996.

Crime organizations

Organized crime in Estonia has flourished since the mid-to-late 1990s. There are various criminal gangs and organizations specialising in different types of crime. These, like Estonian society in general, are also stratified according to the ethnic backgrounds of their participants. While Estonia has both significant indigenous and ethnic Russian gangs, Estonia's ethnic Estonian criminals are more international than their Russian counterparts.

The Common Fund

The Common Fund is a traditional umbrella organisation of criminal groups, a trade union of sorts which settles conflicts and establishes the boundaries of the spheres of interest of the various groups. The group also helps imprisoned members.

The Council

The Council is the Estonian-language equivalent of the Common Fund and mainly comprises young Estonian businessmen, who help in the transit of large consignments of drugs, and who are also involved in other types of economic crime.

The Estonians' Group

The Estonians' Group (also known as Linnuvabrik's group after a village near Estonia's capital) is a disparate gang because the leaders of its different factions are in conflict with each other. The group specialises in the international drugs trade, car theft, and economic crime in the Nordic countries and Western Europe.

The Kemerovo Group

The strongest group, the Kemerovo group, operates in the drug business, prostitution, car theft, and extortion. The group has four main figures, of whom one is above the rest. This mainly ethnic Russian criminal group has begun to spread out into the Nordic countries.

The Stasi Group

The Stasi Group is an ethnic Russian gang which specialises in stealing cars and selling them back to their owners.

The Okun Group

The Okun Group, named after its boss, is involved in extortion, larceny, and car theft. The members have close ties with criminal elements in Russia.

The Azeri Group

The Azeri Group comprises about 50 men from Azerbaijan, and focuses on the heroin business. They work together with fellow Azeris in the Nordic and the Baltic countries.

Varia

Corruption

A total of 326 corruption-related offenses were identified and registered in 2008, considerably below the number registered in 2006, when 511 instances of corruption were found, but 17% higher than in 2007, and slightly higher than in 2003. These accounted for just 0.6% of all criminal offenses. Overall in 2008 Estonia ranked 27th in a list of the least corrupt countries in the world (out of 180). For comparison, the United States ranked 18th and Russia ranked 147th.

Illegal alcohol

Cheap, homemade illegal alcohol has repeatedly caused deaths of in the Baltic country. At least 67 people were known to have died in an unprecedented pandemic in 2001, when an illegal alcohol mass poisoning began killing people in early October of 2001.

Intellectual rights piracy

According to the International Intellectual Property Alliance (IIPA), internet piracy, particularly regarding File Transfer Protocol (FTP) servers and peer-to-peer (P2P) systems, emerged as a predominant intellectual piracy concern in Estonia, which was designated for a "special mention" in the organization's 2006 report. Piracy of optical discs was also identified as a "serious problem": the IIPA remarked that the Estonian market "remains under threat from pirate optical disc product manufactured in other countries, notably Russia. As a general trend, however, the import of pirate goods is decreasing due to the growth of locally produced pirate CD-Rs and DVD-Rs." Estonia's courts "generally only impose minimum sentences for intellectual property crime, despite the new Penal Law and Misdemeanor Act of 2002, which increased maximum penalties."

Jewellery theft

In December 2006, it was estimated that Estonian criminals were responsible for 140 robberies of jewellery and watch stores in Finland, the Netherlands, Portugal, Italy, Spain, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Denmark, and Sweden during the last three years. The value of the lost property is estimated to be 25 million Euros.

Narcotics

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The illegal drug trade's turnover in Estonia according to 2008 estimates might be several billion kroons. According to the opinion of senior superintendent of narcotic crimes department at North Police Prefecture only 1 pct of the whole amount of drugs on the market is confiscated in Estonia.

Criticism

Unresolved historical crimes have caused international outcry among activists and Jewish groups preserving the memory of the Holocaust. In Estonia the local participation in Holocaust crimes of the Second World War was particularly extensive and contributed to the high rates of Jewish victimization in the country. Yet despite the existence of numerous unprosecuted Nazi war criminals in the Baltic states, as well as others living overseas, practically no concrete results have been achieved on their persecution. Estonia has done very little to prosecute its own Nazi war criminals. Up to now the Estonian authorities have never initiated a single investigation of a local Holocaust perpetrator.

References

1. ^ Archer, Clive. New Security Issues in Northern Europe: The Nordic and Baltic States and the ESDP. London: Routledge, 2008. ISBN 041539340X, ISBN 9780415393409. P. 25.
2. "1996 International Narcotics Control Strategy Report, March 1997". U.S. Department of State. March 1997. Retrieved 6 June 2009.
3. "Estonia". Human Rights Reports of Europe and Central Asia. 2008. The Protection Project. Johns Hopkins University. Retrieved 6 June 2009.
4. Harju, Jukka. "Estonia's Obtshak Crime Organisation a Major Supplier of Finnish Illegal Drug Market". Helsingin Sanomat International Edition. 23 April 2002. Retrieved 6 June 2009.
5. ^ "Crime in Estonia in 2008." Criminal Policy Studies No 10. Pp. 48-52 Tallinn: Ministry of Justice. Criminal Policy Department. 2009.
6. Corruption Perception Report accessed on June 14, 2009
7. "Estonia Alcohol Death Toll Rises Again". BBC News. 15 October 2001. Retrieved 13 June 2009.
8. ^ "Special Mention: Estonia". International Intellectual Property Alliance 2006 Special 301. Retrieved 6 June 2009.
9. Kuusi kultaryöstöa kahdessa vuodessa, Helsingin Sanomat, December 20 2006, page A13
10. Koovit, Kaja (2008-10-03). "Estonian narcotics market turnover exceeds EEK 5 billion". Baltic Business News. Retrieved 2009-06-14.
11. Zuroff, Efraim (2005). "Eastern Europe: Anti-Semitism in the Wake of Holocaust-Related Issues". Jewish Political Studies Review. Retrieved 2009-06-08.

• Organised crime situation report 2001 at www.coe.int/ (Council of Europe)

Further reading

• Saar, Jüri, Anna Markina, Andri Ahven, Aet Annist, and Jaan Ginter. Crime in Estonia: 1991-2001. 2003. ISBN 9985751094.

See also

• Estonian mafia

Links

• Misplaced Pages articles in need of updating from July 2008
• Articles to be merged from June 2009
• Crime in Estonia