How the Kremlin uses Italian organized crime groups to sponsor pro-Russian forces in Slovakia

The Slovak politicians-Italian mafia business links were discovered following the killing of Slovak journalist Ján Kuciak in 2018. The authorities believe Kuciak was murdered in relation to his work. He had recently been examining claims that a senior aid to Fico had business links with a man suspected of ties to the Italian mafia. Peter Pellegrini, who replaced Robert Fico after the latter was forced to quit in the wake of the murders of Kuciak.

Pellegrini was Fico’s deputy for the last two years, and while the protests that forced the former prime minister quit have been put on hold, there are concerns among those campaigning for a cleanup of government corruption that little will change.

The Calabrian mafia syndicate “Ndrangheta (family of Diego Roda, who is connected with the Vadala family, involved in the murder of Jan Kuciak) associated Italian businessmen live in the eastern part of Slovakia, on the border with Ukraine.

There is a high probability that the Kremlin may co-work with another clan, Libri (Francesco Zindato), one of the most influential groups in the Ndraghetta, the Calabria-based criminal association. In Slovakia, the group had an interest in the energy business and had access to government institutions through the state advisor Mária Trošková, a close collaborator of Prime Minister Robert Fico. Later Trošková was appointed as MP Viliam Jasaň’s assistant. In March 2015 Maria Trošková left Jasaň’s office and started working for none other than PM Fico at the Government Office. Italian mafioso Antonio Vadala, who faced charges in Slovakia, massively supports the ruling Smer party, mainly campaigning on social networks. He praises Fico in front of his Italian friends, defends minister Kaliňák, who was involved in the weapons transportation from the warehouses of the Slovak Ministry of Defense to the training camp of the Russian paramilitary organization ‘Night Wolves’-linked to the Russian Federal Security Service. Vadala owns a network of agricultural enterprises in the east of Slovakia.

Kuciak’s final piece of work, completed by a consortium of journalists, investigated why Fico had hired Mária Trošková, and then 27-year-old former model and Miss Universe contestant, as one of his assistants despite what it was described as her relative lack of political experience. Trošková had been a business partner of Antonino Vadala, 42, with alleged close ties to Italy’s ’Ndrangheta’ mafia group.

In 2008, the Russian mafia ‘Ndrangheta’ and Camorra formalized their cooperation. The Russian mafia controls Italian farms and freight transport, both internationally and in Italy. There is a high probability that Slovak criminal groups-affiliated with ‘Ndragheta’ are the ones who blocked freight transport from Ukraine to Slovakia. 

The Russians provide drugs, in particular heroin and cocaine, to Italy. In 2015, the US State Department international drug control strategy report named Slovakia a “jurisdiction of high priority”. According to the report, Slovakia has ‘high levels of domestic and foreign organized crime, predominantly from Eastern and South-Eastern Europe’.

The large shipment of Captagon pills seized in Italian ports indicates that the supply of allegedly Syria-produced amphetamines is also supported by the Russians.

In 1998, the Solntsevo Bratva criminal syndicate in the Solntsevo District of Moscow got its own leader in Rome, who coordinated the Russian mafia’s investments in Italy. The Solntsevo gang was supervised by the FSB and affiliated with the Kremlin. Its leader Sergei Mikhailov (nickname Mikhas) was personally decorated by ex-Patriarch Alexy II with 20 highest awards of the Russian Orthodox Church. Thus, most likely, the Kremlin’s connection with the Slovaks through the Italian mafia is maintained through the Russian FSB-SVR (Foreign Intelligence Service) assets, used in the transnational cocaine trade.

The Solntsevo gang also took part in predisposing Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban to cooperate with the Russians. According to Dietmar Clodo, a German citizen and member of the RAF terrorist group, in the 1990s Orban received funds from Semion Mogilevich for the Fidesz party. To Clodo’s statements, as the price for his release from the jail, Mogilevich had to give some of his property and provide a service to the Kremlin by giving compromising evidence on Viktor Orban.

Therefore, it confirms the fact that the Russian mafia is involved in operations to ‘encourage’ Eastern European politicians to cooperate. The information about the possible Russians’ sponsoring of Fico party through Italian criminal groups proves the connection of the Russian mafia and criminals in Western Europe. Moreover, the RLI’s reports on engaging foreign criminal groups to support Russian intelligence and subversion operations also confirm this collaboration.