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nuclear power plant was arrested on suspicion that he may have supplied information about this
facility to Chechen rebels.
In some instances, those involved in Chechen organized crime rings inside Russia have
returned to their homeland to fight on the separatists’ side. These gangsters can potentially take
advantage of established criminal channels to help the Chechnya-based radical separatists acquire
NBC components and organize terrorist acts. 56 Some organized crime and terrorist gangs have
already begun to merge, according to a senior Russian police official. 57
However, most Chechen ganglords who have settled in Russian cities are unlikely to assist in
the organization of a catastrophic nuclear terrorist attack unless they are fanatically dedicated to the
president Aslan Maskhadov’s book titled Honor is More Valuable Than Life. Sergei Avdeyev, “Chechens Gain Access to
Nuclear Warheads,” Izvestia, March 22, 2002, available at
http://www.therussianissues.com/topics/53/02/03/22/13892.html as of July 4, 2002.
56 The Federal Service of Tax Police estimated that most of the financing for Chechen rebels comes from Chechen
organized criminal groups, which controlled more than 2,000 private companies and banks across Russia in 1999.
Rossiiskaya Gazeta quoted deputy director of this service Aslanbek Khaupshev on November 20, 1999 as saying that
dozens of companies that Chechens control in Moscow alone were involved in laundering money, some of which went
to finance Chechen separatism. One scheme, which was exposed by the Russian tax police, provided for oil to be
shipped from primitive oil refineries in Chechnya to be illegally sold through a firm in neighboring Dagestan. The
refineries were owned by Chechnya-based warlords Shamil Basayev and Khattab. By the end of 1999 the tax police had
ruptured “illegal channels of financing” that were set up by Chechen organized crime groups in Primorskii Krai,
Astrakhan, Novgorod and Lipetsk regions. The police also exposed twelve companies owned by the so-called wahabbis
in Karachayevo-Cherkessia. Timofei Borisov, “Ekh Dollary, Da Na Tarelochke” [Dollars on the plate], Rossiiskaya
Gazeta, November 20, 1999, available at http://www.rg.ru/anons/arc_1999/1120/44.htm as of July 14, 2002. Hozh-
Ahmet Nuhayev is one of the prominent Chechen figures who has combined participation in organized crime with
separatism. While still a student at Moscow State University, Nuhayev helped to organize an illegal group for the
liberation of Chechnya. In an interview with the German “Die Woche,” Nuhayev described how he formed a group of
reliable and tough Chechens in the late 1980s to offer Moscow businessmen protection in exchange for acceptance of
the Chechens as legitimate business partners. In 1994, Nuhayev was indicted by the federal authorities for extortion and
fled Moscow for Chechnya where Dudayev, then president of Chechnya, offered him the position of counter-
intelligence chief, which Nuhayev accepted. “Profile, Hozh-Ahmet Nuhayev,” RFE/RL, August 24, 2001, available at
http://www.rferl.org/businesswatch/2001/08/7-240801.asp as of July 5, 2002.
57 “Interior Ministry Sees Organized Crime Merge With Terrorist Groups,” Interfax, November 14, 2002.
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