Potato Bag Gang
The Potato Bag Gang, a manifestation of the Odesa mafia, was a gang of con artists from Odesa that operated in New York City's Soviet émigré community in the Brighton Beach area of New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ... in the mid-1970s. Criminal activity Posing as merchant sailors, they would offer to sell victims bags full of antique gold rubles for thousands of dollars each. In reality, only the sample coin was authentic, and the bags were full of potatoes. See also * Ukrainian mafia * Russian mafia References Further reading * Fraud in the United States Former gangs in New York City 1970s in New York City 1970s crimes in New York City {{crime-org-stub ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Confidence Trick
A scam, or a confidence trick, is an attempt to defraud a person or group after first gaining their trust. Confidence tricks exploit victims using a combination of the victim's credulity, naivety, compassion, vanity, confidence, irresponsibility, and greed. Researchers have defined confidence tricks as "a distinctive species of fraudulent conduct ... intending to further voluntary exchanges that are not mutually beneficial", as they "benefit con operators ('con men') at the expense of their victims (the ' marks')". Terminology Other terms for "scam" include confidence trick, con, con game, confidence game, confidence scheme, ripoff, stratagem, finesse, grift, hustle, bunko, bunco, swindle, flimflam, gaffle, and bamboozle. The perpetrator is often referred to as a scammer, confidence man, con man, con artist, grifter, hustler, or swindler. The intended victims are known as marks, suckers, stooges, mugs, rubes, or gulls (from the word ''gullible''). When accomplices are e ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Odesa
Odesa, also spelled Odessa, is the third most populous List of cities in Ukraine, city and List of hromadas of Ukraine, municipality in Ukraine and a major seaport and transport hub located in the south-west of the country, on the northwestern shore of the Black Sea. The city is also the administrative centre of the Odesa Raion and Odesa Oblast, as well as a multiethnic cultural centre. As of January 2021, Odesa's population was approximately On 25 January 2023, its Historic Centre of Odesa, historic city centre was declared a World Heritage Site and added to the List of World Heritage in Danger by the UNESCO World Heritage Committee in recognition of its multiculturality and 19th-century urban planning. The declaration was made in response to the Odesa strikes (2022–present), bombing of Odesa during the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which has damaged or destroyed buildings across the city. In classical antiquity a large Greek settlement existed at its location no later than t ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Brighton Beach
Brighton Beach is a List of Brooklyn neighborhoods, neighborhood in the southern portion of the New York City Borough (New York City), borough of Brooklyn, within the greater Coney Island area along the Atlantic Ocean coastline. Brighton Beach is bounded by Coney Island proper at Ocean Parkway (Brooklyn), Ocean Parkway to the west, Manhattan Beach, Brooklyn, Manhattan Beach at Corbin Place to the east, Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, Sheepshead Bay at the Belt Parkway to the north, and the Atlantic Ocean to the south along the beach and Riegelmann Boardwalk, boardwalk. It is known for its high population of Russian Americans in New York City, Russian-speaking immigrants, and as a summer destination for New York City residents due to its beaches along the Atlantic Ocean and its proximity to the amusement parks in Coney Island. Brighton Beach is part of Brooklyn Community Board 13, Brooklyn Community District 13, and its primary ZIP Code is 11235. It is patrolled by the 60th Precinct ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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New York City
New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive with a respective county. The city is the geographical and demographic center of both the Northeast megalopolis and the New York metropolitan area, the largest metropolitan area in the United States by both population and urban area. New York is a global center of finance and commerce, culture, technology, entertainment and media, academics, and scientific output, the arts and fashion, and, as home to the headquarters of the United Nations, international diplomacy. With an estimated population in 2024 of 8,478,072 distributed over , the city is the most densely populated major city in the United States. New York City has more than double the population of Los Angeles, the nation's second-most populous city. [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of the longest-running newspapers in the United States, the ''Times'' serves as one of the country's Newspaper of record, newspapers of record. , ''The New York Times'' had 9.13 million total and 8.83 million online subscribers, both by significant margins the List of newspapers in the United States, highest numbers for any newspaper in the United States; the total also included 296,330 print subscribers, making the ''Times'' the second-largest newspaper by print circulation in the United States, following ''The Wall Street Journal'', also based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' is published by the New York Times Company; since 1896, the company has been chaired by the Ochs-Sulzberger family, whose current chairman and the paper's publ ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Merchant Sailor
Maritime transport (or ocean transport) or more generally waterborne transport, is the transport of people (passengers or goods (cargo) via waterways. Freight transport by watercraft has been widely used throughout recorded history, as it provides a higher-capacity mode of transportation for passengers and cargo than land transport, the latter typically being more costly per unit payload due to it being affected by terrain conditions and road/rail infrastructures. The advent of aviation during the 20th century has diminished the importance of sea travel for passengers, though it is still popular for ferry, short trips and cruise ship, pleasure cruises. Transport by watercraft is much cheaper than transport by aircraft or land vehicles (both road and rail), but is significantly slower for longer journeys and heavily dependent on adequate port facilities. Maritime transport accounts for roughly 80% of international trade, according to United Nations Conference on Trade and Developm ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Potatoes
The potato () is a starchy tuberous vegetable native to the Americas that is consumed as a staple food in many parts of the world. Potatoes are underground stem tubers of the plant ''Solanum tuberosum'', a perennial in the nightshade family Solanaceae. Wild potato species can be found from the southern United States to southern Chile. Genetic studies show that the cultivated potato has a single origin, in the area of present-day southern Peru and extreme northwestern Bolivia. Potatoes were domesticated there about 7,000–10,000 years ago from a species in the '' S. brevicaule'' complex. Many varieties of the potato are cultivated in the Andes region of South America, where the species is indigenous. The Spanish introduced potatoes to Europe in the second half of the 16th century from the Americas. They are a staple food in many parts of the world and an integral part of much of the world's food supply. Following millennia of selective breeding, there are now over 5,00 ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Ukrainian Mafia
The Ukrainian mafia ( Ukrainian: Українська мафія) is a collective of various organized crime related elements originating in Ukraine. Such organizations are regarded as one of the most influential types of organized crime coming out of the former USSR, including also the Russian mafia, the Georgian mafia, the Chechen mafia, the Armenian mafia and the Azerbaijani mafia. Ukrainian criminal organizations are involved in a significant number of illegal activities. Although Ukrainian criminal organizations are for the most part independently operating enterprises, they are sometimes connected with Russian mafia organizations, such as the case with Semyon Mogilevich. History Following the collapse of the former Soviet Union, there were large stockpiles of arms left in Ukraine. The rise of the Ukrainian mafia came from their participation in the illicit international arms trafficking. Between 1992 and 1998, some $32 billion in military material disappeared from m ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Russian Mafia
The Russian mafia ( or ), also known as Bratva ( ; ) less as Obshchak (Общак) or Brigades (Бригады) , is a collective of various organized crime related elements originating or/and operating in Russia. In December 2009, Timur Lakhonin, the head of the National Central Bureau of Interpol within Russia, stated that "Certainly, there is crime involving our former compatriots abroad, but there is no data suggesting that an organized structure of criminal groups comprising former Russians exists abroad" on the topic of international Russian criminal gangs. In August 2010, Alain Bauer, a criminologist from France, said that the Russian mafia "is one of the best structured criminal organizations in Europe, with a quasi-military operation" in their international activities. The Russian mafia, according to Mark Galeotti, an expert in modern Russia, is a highly organized and global criminal network that emerged and expanded significantly after the collapse of the Sovi ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Fraud In The United States
In law, fraud is intentional deception to deprive a victim of a legal right or to gain from a victim unlawfully or unfairly. Fraud can violate civil law (e.g., a fraud victim may sue the fraud perpetrator to avoid the fraud or recover monetary compensation) or criminal law (e.g., a fraud perpetrator may be prosecuted and imprisoned by governmental authorities), or it may cause no loss of money, property, or legal right but still be an element of another civil or criminal wrong. The purpose of fraud may be monetary gain or other benefits, such as obtaining a passport, travel document, or driver's licence. In cases of mortgage fraud, the perpetrator may attempt to qualify for a mortgage by way of false statements. Terminology Fraud can be defined as either a civil wrong or a criminal act. For civil fraud, a government agency or person or entity harmed by fraud may bring litigation to stop the fraud, seek monetary damages, or both. For criminal fraud, a person may be prosec ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Former Gangs In New York City
A former is an object, such as a template, gauge or cutting die, which is used to form something such as a boat's hull. Typically, a former gives shape to a structure that may have complex curvature. A former may become an integral part of the finished structure, as in an aircraft fuselage, or it may be removable, being used in the construction process and then discarded or re-used. Aircraft formers Formers are used in the construction of aircraft fuselage, of which a typical fuselage has a series from the nose cone to the empennage, typically perpendicular to the longitudinal axis of the aircraft. The primary purpose of formers is to establish the shape of the fuselage and reduce the column length of stringers to prevent instability. Formers are typically attached to longerons, which support the skin of the aircraft. The "former-and-longeron" technique (also called stations and stringers) was adopted from boat construction, and was typical of light aircraft built until th ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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1970s In New York City
Year 197 ( CXCVII) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Magius and Rufinus (or, less frequently, year 950 ''Ab urbe condita''). The denomination 197 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years. Events By place Roman Empire * February 19 – Battle of Lugdunum: Emperor Septimius Severus defeats the self-proclaimed emperor Clodius Albinus at Lugdunum (modern Lyon). Albinus commits suicide; legionaries sack the town. * Septimius Severus returns to Rome and has about 30 of Albinus's supporters in the Senate executed. After his victory he declares himself the adopted son of the late Marcus Aurelius. * Septimius Severus forms new naval units, manning all the triremes in Italy with heavily armed troops for war in the East. His soldiers embark on an artificial canal between the Tigris a ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |