RUSSIAN-SPEAKING MAFIAS IN PRAGUE AT WAR
Prague Daily Monitor
March 11 2008
Czech Republic
Prague, March 10 (CTK) – Russian-speaking criminal gangs have settled
their accounts in the streets of Prague’s centre at least three times
since November 2007, the daily Lidove noviny (LN) wrote Monday in
connection with a Saturday shooting.
Two unknown gunmen opened fire in the afternoon in Parizska street
near the Old Town Square, injuring two Russian-speaking men and
driving away.
Both injured men are in hospital and guarded by police, the paper
writes.
Jan Subert, spokesman for the BIS counter-intelligence, said the
incident seemed to be part of "a continuing war between Caucasian
groups, and the Armenian and Chechen mafias."
The shooting probably ended the truce the two groups called late
last year.
On November 13, 2007, a Russian-speaking man was stabbed at Wenceslas
square in the city’s centre.
Two weeks later, a driver died in a gunman’s attack in the neighbouring
district of Vinohrady.
The police say the hired shooter was supposed to kill a different
man, a Russian mafia boss, but made a mistake. The driver was killed
because he drove the same type of car, a luxurious Bentley limousine.
Police later revealed that both attacks were probably performed by
one and the same person, a Chechen man.
Subert told the paper that peace between mafia gangs never lasted long.
As for similar incidents, Prague was no exception among European
cities where mafias from the East settled, he said.
"The groups closely guard their territories because their business
is extremely lucrative, being it drugs, weapons or prostitution,"
Subert told LN.