The Chechen mafia (Russian: Чеченская мафия Chechenskaya mafia) is one of the largest organized crime groups operating in the former Soviet Union next to established Russian mafia gangs, which originally consisted of criminals of Chechen ethnicity who later also tried to recruit former Russian special military forces, police and army officers. It has substantially decreased its presence in Moscow by 1994 after Slavic mafia groups united against their Chechen counterpart, with assistance from Russian police and the FSB (the former KGB). As it happened most of Chechen gang members returned to Chechnya and joined the rising Chechen separatist movement. The Chechen mafia is often referenced to as the "Russian mafia" in Europe, because most people of Chechen ethnicity speak Russian and many immigrated from the Russian Federation during the wars.
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