Why a gangster’s death in Central Asia matters

Such is the globalisation of the modern underworld, that the fate of a gangster you may never have heard of, in a country of which you may know little, may actually matter to you. I’d suggest this is true of the Kyrgyz godfather Kamchy Kolbayev, who was killed on Wednesday by a bullet in the head, during a police operation to arrest him in the capital, Bishkek.

Kolbaev was widely recognised as the most powerful gangster in the Central Asian nation of Kyrgyzstan. Born in 1974, he took fullest advantage of the political and economic disruption that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union in the 1990s to establish a criminal empire that spanned smuggling drugs (notably heroin from Afghanistan), protection racketeering and money laundering. Although he split his time between Bishkek, Moscow and Dubai – and it may be worth noting just how many gangsters from across the post-Soviet space have businesses or residences in the UAE – he was largely able to operate with impunity at home.