A 🧵 about Putin, his reliance on organized crime and why the alliances he forged with criminals have and will have a huge impact on our futures. /1 #Russia #OrganizedCrime In the 70s & 80s, the KGB and their allies controlled Russian organized crime to a great extent and used them for large scale drug and people trafficking, sophisticated money laundering and whatever else could hurt West Europe and the United States. /2

We need the #EuropeanUnion and the #UnitedStates to open up all their registries of land and property to investigative reporters and researchers to be able to look up real estate owned by Putin and his cronies. #Ukraine The Kremlin and its oligarchs source their lethal power from the obscurity of secret bank accounts and hidden real estate in the West. Unified and open registries of real estate across the EU and the US would considerably expose Russian kleptocrats (and not only) #Kleptocracy