Vory v Zakone (Thieves-in-Law)

CommandEleven Intelligence Desk // Transnational Organized Crime Desk, status as of November 12, 2026

Bottom Line Up Front. The Vory v Zakone is a Eurasian criminal fraternity that the U.S. Treasury designated as a Transnational Criminal Organization on December 22, 2017, the first U.S. action to treat the network as a single group. Treasury linked it to extortion, arms trafficking, sex trafficking, money laundering and bribery, and named individuals including Zakhary Kalashov and Kamchybek Kolbayev plus fronts such as the Vesna Hotel and Spa in Sochi. It is not an FTO and no terror link is sourced. Georgian authorities have kept up repeated mass arrests of alleged underworld figures through 2026 (for example 44 on May 13, 2026, 29 on July 8, and 27 on July 28 with a thief-in-law charged), REPORTED by Georgian official channels.

What We Could Not Source. Current membership counts, hierarchy, and financial flows are not publicly sourced. Treated as DATA DEFICIT. We rely on the Treasury designation as reported in 2017 and Georgian police announcements as reported by Imedi.