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The 2018 U.S. National Security Strategy warns that transnational criminal organizations (TCOs) “weaken our allies and partners [by] corrupting and undermining democratic institutions�� and that “some state adversaries use TCOs as instruments of national power.��

No authoritarian regime has exported corruption and criminality with greater impact than Vladimir Putin’s “mafia state.�� TCOs linked to senior Russian political and business figures have reportedly engaged in money laundering, theft, bribery, and a multitude of other crimes across Europe.

In February, prosecutors in Madrid opened a major trial against alleged members of the Tambovskaya-Malyshevskaya gang, accusing them of money laundering and the “creation of a criminal community in Spain.�� Based on more than a decade of investigations, the trial provides unprecedented insights into the Kremlin’s export of corruption through Russian TCOs.

On May 25, �����’s Kleptocracy Initiative welcomed Spain’s Judge José Grinda Gonzalez, and U.S. experts for a discussion about investigating and prosecuting Russian organized crime, defending democracy and the rule of law, and pushing back against the Kremlin’s kleptocratic encroachment.