Potato Bag Gang Explained

The Potato Bag Gang, a manifestation of the Odesa mafia,^[1] 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 in the mid-1970s.^[2]

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.^[3]

See also

• Ukrainian mafia
• Russian mafia

Further reading

• Book: Hettena, Seth . May 2018 . Trump / Russia: A Definitive History . Melville House . 978-1612197395 .

Notes and References

1. Book: Orleck, Annelise . Elizabeth Cooke . The Soviet Jewish Americans . 1999 . Greenwood Publishing . 978-0-313-30074-5 . 116 . 2008-09-13 .
2. Blumenthal, Ralph (04 June 1989). "Soviet Émigré Mob Outgrows Brooklyn, and Fear Spreads", The New York Times.
3. Book: Manning, George A. . Financial Investigation and Forensic Accounting . 1999 . CRC Press . 978-0-8493-0435-4 . 179 . 2008-09-13 .