leaders of Russia’s criminal elite convened on a yacht in the Moscow RiverTariel Oniani, had organized the meeting to discuss a conflict .

leaders of Russia’s criminal elite convened on a yacht in the Moscow River recently, the police moved swiftly to stop the meeting. In black masks, with weapons drawn, commandos pounced from a hovering helicopter onto the roof of the yacht, starting a media frenzy when they briefly detained 37 men known here as Vory v Zakone or “thieves-in-law.”A Mafia-like caste forged in the Soviet gulag, the Vory v Zakone maintain a hallowed place in Russia’s criminal lore, something akin to the notorious Five Families in the annals of New York crime.Though the Vory’s influence appears to have waned, Russians have long had an affinity for the group, perhaps because it has come to symbolize opposition to the country’s often arbitrary political and legal practices, academics and other experts say.After the Soviet Union collapsed, the Vory v Zakone “hit platinum,” said Andrei D. Konstantinov, a journalist and novelist who has written about criminal subcultures. “Everyone started to sing about this topic, to talk about it, to make television series, write books,” he said. “It became fashionable.” In the last 15 years the Vory have spread around the world, from Moscow to Madrid to Berlin and Brooklyn. They are involved in everything from petty theft to billion-dollar money laundering schemes, while also acting as unofficial jurists among conflicting Russian criminal factions. Born of Stalin’s prison camps, the Vory grew into criminal barons that kept order in the gulags and governed the dark gaps in Soviet life beyond the reach of the K.G.B. While the Communist Party held a steadfast grip on government and society, they had something of a monopoly on crime.With their own code of ethics, hierarchy and even language, they formed a society in opposition to rigid Soviet conformity, surviving on theft and black market dealing when not in prison. When the Soviet Union fell, the Vory emerged from the broken country’s peripheries to exploit the legal chaos. By all accounts, they infiltrated the top political and economic strata, while taking command of a burgeoning mafia that spread murderously through the post-Soviet countries.The Russian news media covered the raid on the yacht this month with apparent delight. The major channels showed scenes of commandos marching the handcuffed gangsters single file to waiting buses. Most were later released for lack of evidence connecting them to a crime. The authorities did not explain why they had conducted the raid if they had no basis to bring charges against those detained.
Some speculated that a major crime boss, Tariel Oniani, had organized the meeting to discuss a conflict with a rival don, Aslan Usoyan, known as Grandpa Hassan. The rift, reports said, threatened to erupt into a full-scale war.
“There will be war and there will be blood,” said the operator of vorvzakone.ru, an Internet portal that monitors the activities of the Vory. He insisted on anonymity because of the sensitive nature of his work. He said Mr. Oniani was at the meeting and detained, but not Mr. Usoyan.In an interview with the newspaper Vremya Novostei, “Grandpa Hassan” denied rumors of impending violence.
“We are peaceful people and don’t bother anybody,” he said. “We are for peace, in order to prevent lawlessness.” In fact the Vory have been linked to numerous brutal murders in the post-Soviet period. Authorities have accused them of ordering contract killings and carrying out kidnappings and innumerable financial crimes.
To be inducted into the Vory’s society involves a life devoted to crime, and, traditionally, an adherence to a strict ethical code, said Aleksandr I. Gurov, an expert on Vory who headed the organized crime units of the Soviet Interior Ministry and the K.G.B. He is now chairman of the commission on ethics in the Russian Parliament. Compared with the Mafia in Italy, Mr. Gurov said, the Vory “have less rules but more severe rules.”