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Rise of the Red Mafia Organized crime has been chronicled in many television shows, movies, and books. Organized crime is and always will be a part of our everyday lives. These mafia families have their fingers dipped into gambling, drug dealing, prostitution, the gas industry, and any thing they can get a cut on. There is no way to abolish these crime families, they control law enforcement and even government officials through bribes and even threats. The Italian Mafia is most widely known but the Russian Mafia as I learned in the article “Brighton Beach Goodfellas” is just as bad and are involved in just as many crimes. This article talks about the rise and fall of Red Mafia boss Marat Balagula. “Marat Balagula was born in 1943 in Orenburg, Russia” (Freidman 43). Marat lived a very middle-class life with both of his parents working in a lock manufacturing factory. Marat was drafted into the Soviet army at the age of 19 and he served for three years. After his service Marat attended night school receiving his diploma as a teacher in mathematics and then a business degree in mathematics and economics. From there Balagula jumped into the flourishing black-market and from his black-marketeering Marat was able to