Russian mafia boss shot dead by sniper
Source: Guardian.UK
One of Russia's most powerful mob bosses was shot dead by a sniper in broad daylight in central Moscow on Wednesday, in a suspected contract killing.
Aslan Usoyan, 75, better known by his mob name "Ded [Grandpa] Hasan", had survived at least two previous attempts on his life.
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Usoyan, an ethnic Kurdish Yezidi originally from neighbouring Georgia, had built a vast criminal empire stretching across the former Soviet Union. He is believed to have been in a conflict for years with fellow crime boss Tariel Oniani, known as Taro, as the two battled for territory.
The war has been bloody. Many of those killed were Usoyan lieutenants working in Sochi, home to highly lucrative construction projects as the resort prepares to host the Winter Olympics in 2014. The most high-profile victim was Vyacheslav Ivankov, better known as "Yaponchik [Little Japanese]", who was killed by a sniper rifle in Moscow in 2009. The FBI suspected him of being a leading Russian crime boss in the United States following the fall of the Soviet Union.
Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jan/16/russian-crime-boss-aslan-usoyan-shot
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Did the Olympic organizers pay off the wrong mob boss?
