World champion boxer Avtandil Khurtsidze and professional mixed martial arts fighter Levan Makashvili were among 33 members and associates of a Russian crime syndicate detained in New York on 7 June for allegedly engaging in a panoply of crimes around the country.
Both Khurtsidze and Makashvili are charged with violating the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organisation (RICO) Act and conspiracy to commit wire fraud. Both charges carry up to 20 years in prison and either a fine of $250,000 or twice the money gained or lost as a result of their crimes.
Makashvili has been accused of plotting to ‘defraud casinos through the use of electronic devices and software, designed to predict the behaviour of particular models of electronic slot machines, thereby removing the element of chance from play of those machines’.
Makashvili’s lawyer Levan Natroshvili said that his client was ‘arrested by mistake’ and claims ‘he is absolutely innocent’.
Khurtsidze called the indictment ‘a very serious misunderstanding’ on his Facebook profile on 8 June, and urged his fans ‘not to panic’. Khurtsidze was due to defend his WBO middleweight title in a fight with Billy Joe Saunders, but this was cancelled after his arrest.
The majority of the detainees, allegedly members and associates of a Russian criminal syndicate, reside in Brooklyn, New York.
In a statement, acting Manhattan US Attorney Joon H Kim said that the ‘dizzying array of criminal schemes’, committed by this organised crime syndicate, allegedly include a murder-for-hire conspiracy, a plot to rob victims by seducing and drugging them with chloroform, the theft of cargo shipments containing over 10,000 pounds of chocolate, and fraud against casino slot machines using electronic hacking devices.
According to the US Department of Justice, the organised criminal group, ‘the Shulaia Enterprise’, was operating under the direction and protection of Razhden Shulaia, aka ‘Brother’, ‘Roma’, a Russian ‘thief-in-law’.
‘Those members and associates, and Shulaia himself, engaged in widespread criminal activities, including acts of violence, extortion, the operation of illegal gambling businesses, fraud on various casinos, identity theft, credit card frauds, and trafficking of large quantities of stolen goods’, an official US statement said.
Over the last month, Azerbaijan’s official government news agency Azertac has published multiple articles focusing on ethnic Azerbaijani candidates running for the ruling Georgian Dream party, while failing to provide a platform for Azerbaijani opposition candidates.
On 16 October, Azertac interviewed Georgian Dream MP Zaur Darghalli, who said that his party had guaranteed stability in Georgia, and elaborated on how it was able to keep the peace for the last 12 years.
‘These elections are
With Georgia’s parliamentary elections inching closer, both the ruling Georgian Dream party and the many groups representing the opposition are scrambling to prepare for the critical vote on 26 October.
This week, OC Media’s Robin Fabbro, Mariam Nikuradze, and Shota Kincha discuss how the pre-election campaign period has been going, claims of electoral violations by Georgian Dream, and the atmosphere in Georgia ahead of the vote.
Read more:
* Who’s who in Georgia’s pa
Georgia’s parliamentary elections on 26 October, unlike the previous vote, will be held without any gender quotas. As women’s representation in Georgian politics remains an issue, we have examined the electoral lists of all the major parties and groupings and ranked them based on how many women they included — and how highly they were placed.
The ruling Georgian Dream party pushed through mandatory gender quotas ahead of the 2020 parliamentary and 2021 local elections in an apparent bid to pro
A Georgian elections watchdog has published a report outlining the increased use of AI technology in the pre-election period, including the creation of deep fakes based on opposition politicians.
On Tuesday, the International Society for Fair Elections and Democracy (ISFED) reported that anonymous actors had used AI technologies to forge the voices of Georgian President Salome Zourabichvili and For Georgia chair Giorgi Gakharia in videos shared on social media.
According to ISFED, one such a
World champion boxer 
