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At the outset Dermirshian's Mosbank was in reality nothing more than a conduit to launder the vast sums of money that his criminal empire generated during the Yeltsin years, when Russia resembled the Wild West and huge fortunes were made. Each week suitcases filled with millions of dollars left Moscow, via the bank’s newly acquired jet, destination Belgrade, the capital of Yugoslavia, a country on the brink of disintegration, embroiled in a vicious civil war as its component republics fought for their independence.
The money was transported to Montenegro where it was discretely loaded on board a yacht: that of the Mosbank’s new and dynamic youthful head, Sergei Tarasov: destination Cyprus or Monte-Carlo.
Since that time, Russian organized crime had taken a foothold on the French Riviera and Spain, pumping money in stalled property developments. At the other end of the Mediterranean, backed by one million Russian Jews, it created a powerful base in Israel, controlling Tel-Aviv’s diamond and financial markets.
Dermirshian’s men had eliminated uncooperative leaders such as Aslan Usoyan, who was shot dead in January 2013 by a sniper’s bullet as he left a Moscow restaurant just one mile from the Kremlin. Usoyan, a Yezidi Kurd born in Soviet Georgia in the 1937, was one of the old guard Mafiya bosses.
Usoyan’s clan had been embroiled in a long turf war with rival groups from Chechnya and Dagestan for the control of casinos and night clubs with gangland style executions. One of the reason’s for Dermirshian’s ire was Usoyan’s entry into the hotel and property business, the kind of presence feared by legitimate hoteliers and real estate businesses.
Times had changed and Mosbank was a distant memory. Well before the retirement and demise of the old Mafiyosa in Monte-Carlo, Interbank and INI Moscow had become respected institutions, though they still banked nebulous funds from even more nebulous clients.
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