Marat Balagula

Marat Yakovlevich Balagula (; ; 8 September 1943 – 19 December 2019 ) was a Russian-American organized crime figure, crime boss, and close associate of the Lucchese crime family and Colombo crime family.

Biography

Early life Marat Balagula was born to Soviet Jewish parents in 1943 in the Russian city of Orenburg at the height of World War II. ("Balagula" is Yiddish for "wagon driver," from the Hebrew בעל עגלה.) His mother, Zinaida, had fled with the children from their home in Odesa, Ukraine after the German invasion of the USSR. At the time of his birth, Marat's father, Yakov Balagula, was on active service as a lieutenant in the Red Army.

As a young adult, Balagula obtained two advanced university degrees: one in mathematics and another in economics. For many years, Balagula also worked as a crew member of the Soviet cruise ship MS Ivan Franko, which he used as an opportunity to buy scarce Western consumer goods during his trips abroad and then sell them on the black market after returning to the USSR.

Russian mob Balagula moved his family to Brighton Beach, where he opened a restaurant, which he later sold in order to buy a chain of fourteen gas stations.

With the assistance of Leningrad-born neighborhood crime boss and former Thief in law Evsei Agron, Balagula expanded his operation while creating a series of "burn companies" to confuse the Internal Revenue Service and evade both State and Federal gasoline taxes. In time, Agron and Balagula were selling $150 million worth of fuel every month while pocketing an additional $30-$40 million in unpaid income tax. When the IRS went looking for their share, they found that all of the addresses to Agron and Balagula's fuel companies led either to telephone booths or vacant lots. Balagula's main enforcer was Boris Nayfeld, a Belarusian Jewish gangster who had arrived in America in 1978 and who was suspected by the NYPD of involvement in Agron's murder.

According to Vladimir Kozlovsky, Balagula's wealth made him a notable figure in Brighton Beach, but whenever residents of the neighborhood were asked about his line of work, they would always say that Balagula was in the gasoline business. Balagula requested a sitdown with Lucchese crime family consigliere Christopher Furnari at the 19th Hole social club in Bensonhurst. According to former Lucchese underboss Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso, who was present at the meeting, Furnari declared,

Here there's enough for everybody to be happy...to leave the table satisfied. What we must avoid is trouble between us and the other families. I propose to make a deal with the others so there's no bad blood...Meanwhile, we will send word out that from now on you and your people are with the Lucchese family. No one will bother you. If anyone does bother you, come to us and Anthony will take care of it.

In an interview with Robert I. Friedman, a Genovese crime family member recalled with a laugh, "The next time I saw Michael [Franzese] and mentioned Marat, his face went white. Christie Tick had put out the word that Marat was under his protection."

In the aftermath, New York's Five Families imposed a two cent per gallon "Family tax" on Balagula's bootlegging operation, which became their greatest moneymaker after drug trafficking.

According to Jeffrey Robinson, there was so much money coming in from the gas tax scam that it was too big for anyone to control and everyone involved was stealing money from each other. Meanwhile, among many other things, Balagula owned a New York mansion decorated in pink marble and a private island off the African coast.

According to one former associate, "The LCN reminded Marat of the apparatchiks in the Soviet Union. He thought as long as he gave them something they would be valuable allies. Then all of a sudden he was at risk of being killed if he couldn't pay to the penny."

Balagula also ran an arms trafficking ring that purchased automatic weapons in Florida, transported them to New York City, and them shipped them to the USSR for sale on the black market.

Enemies Balagula's deal with the Five Families was seen as a sign of weakness by his rival, a fellow Soviet Jewish gangster named Vladimir Reznikov. According to journalist Vladimir Kozlovsky, Reznikov was a former resident of Kyiv and is still believed in Brighton Beach to have been responsible for both the 1983 murder of mobbed up Soviet dissident intellectual Yuri Brokhin and the 1985 murder of neighborhood crime boss Evsei Agron.

Then, on June 12, 1986, Reznikov entered the Odesa nightclub in Brighton Beach. Reznikov pushed a 9mm Beretta into Balagula's skull and demanded $600,000 as the price of not pulling the trigger. He also demanded a percentage of everything Balagula was involved in. Even though Balagula immediately agreed, Reznikov allegedly threatened to kill Balagula and his whole family if the latter ever crossed him. Shortly after Reznikov left, Balagula first called Anthony Casso and then suffered a massive heart attack. He insisted, however on being treated at his home, where he felt it would be harder for Reznikov to harm him and his family. When Anthony Casso arrived, he listened to Balagula's story and seethed with fury. Casso later told his biographer Philip Carlo that, to his mind, Reznikov had just spat in the face of the entire Cosa Nostra. Casso responded, "Send word to Vladimir that you have his money, that he should come to the club tomorrow. We'll take care of the rest." Balagula responded, "You're sure? This is an animal. It was him that used a machine gun in the office." Casso responded, "Don't concern yourself. I promise we'll take care of him ... Okay?" Casso then asked, "What kind of car does he drive? Do you have a picture of him?"

In later interviews with journalist Vladimir Kozlovsky, Balagula admitted that his "associates" killed Reznikov in response to his complaints. Balagula denied having been aware at the time that those "associates" were linked to the American Mafia. After being convicted on federal charges and after an outraged Alan Dershowitz refused Balagula's demand to bribe the appeals judge, Balagula fled to Antwerp with his longtime mistress Natalia Shevchenko. Balagula then moved to Sierra Leone with mobbed up Israeli businessman and KGB spy Shabtai Kalmanovich. In Freetown, Balagula and Kalmanovich ran a very profitable scheme importing gasoline; in a deal brokered by fugitive businessman Marc Rich and financed by the Lucchese family. Balagula and Kalmanovich then moved to South Africa under Apartheid, where they arranged other deals. In later years, however, Balagula's criminal associates would say that they lost money on every deal they did with Kalmanovich.

While Agent Bibb wished to travel to South Africa to make the arrest himself, the Secret Service refused to pay for an airplane ticket. Instead, Agent Bibb contacted the security officer at the United States Embassy in Pretoria, who alerted the Johannesburg police and supplied them with photographs of both the Balagula and of his driver. However, Balagula and Shevchenko escaped arrest and fled to Sierra Leone. In an interview with journalist Robert Friedman, Agent Bibb expressed a belief that South African law enforcement officers took bribes to let Balagula get away. In December 1989, Balagula was extradited to the United States and sentenced to eight years in prison for credit card fraud.

In November 1992, Balagula was convicted at a separate trial for gasoline bootlegging and sentenced to an additional ten years in federal prison. While passing sentence, Judge Leonard Wexler declared, "This was supposed to be a haven for you. It turned out to be a hell for us." Balagula served his sentence, and was released from imprisonment in 2004.

Personal life Balagula met his future wife Alexandra at a wedding party in 1965 and married her the following year. As Alexandra disliked her husband's long absences, Balagula left his position aboard the Ivan Franko and instead began running a black market food source with the collusion of corrupt Apparatchiks, one of whom, according to Balagula, was future Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev.

Following his success as a gasoline bootlegger, Balagula moved his wife and children from Brighton Beach to a $1.2 million suburban home in Long Island, from which he commuted to "work" in New York City.

Death He died from cancer in 2019.

In popular culture The 2007 police thriller We Own the Night, which is set in Brighton Beach during the 1980s, is inspired by the efforts by law enforcement to shut down the gigantic heroin smuggling operation masterminded by Marat Balagula and Boris Nayfeld. A character inspired by Balagula is renamed Marat Buzhayev (Moni Moshonov) and a character based on Nayfeld is renamed Vadim Nezhinski (Alex Veadov).