Former middleweight world boxing champion from Georgia found guilty of racketeering, wire fraud charges

Avtandil Khurtsidze, a boxing champion and enforcer of Razhden Shulaya, a "thief-in-law,” has been found guilty of racketeering and related charges in connection with a sprawling and violent criminal enterprise operating in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Nevada, and abroad. 

"As a unanimous jury found, Razhden Shulaya and his chief enforcer, Avtandil Khurtsidze, engaged in an array of criminal schemes that included violence, extortion, theft, trafficking in stolen goods, and fraud.  Shulaya, a Russian ‘vor v zakone’ or ‘thief-in-law,’ is now a convicted thief under U.S. law. Both defendants now await sentencing for their crimes,” Manhattan U.S. Attorney Geoffrey S. Berman said. 

According to the evidence at trial, the Shulaya Enterprise was an organized criminal group operating under the direction and protection of ‘thief-in-law’ Razhden Shulaya. 

A ‘thief-in-law’ refers to an order of elite criminals from the former Soviet Union who receive tribute from other criminals, offer protection, and use their recognized status as ‘vor’ to adjudicate disputes among lower-level criminals.  

US investigators say that Shulaya with his associates was engaged in widespread criminal activities, including acts of violence, extortion, the operation of illegal gambling businesses, fraud on various casinos, identity theft, credit card frauds, trafficking in large quantities of stolen goods, money laundering through a fraudulently established vodka import-export company, payment of bribes to local law enforcement officers, and the operation of a Brooklyn-based brothel.

The trial has revealed that most members and associates of the Shulaya Enterprise were born in the former Soviet Union and many maintained substantial ties to Georgia, Ukraine, and the Russian Federation, including regular travel to those countries, communication with associates in those countries, and the transfer of criminal proceeds to individuals in those countries. 

Avtandil Khurtsidze, formerly a middleweight boxing champion, acted as Shulaya’s chief enforcer and, as such, engaged in multiple acts of extortion and violence.  

"Khurtsidze was captured on video twice assaulting others in service of the Shulaya Enterprise, participated in recorded acts of extortion of gambling debts,” reads the statement by US Department of Justice. 

"Shulaya and Khurtsidze jointly participated in a scheme to defraud casinos by targeting particular models of electronic slot machines using a complicated algorithm designed to predict the behavior of those machines. Shulaya obtained the technology used to commit that fraud through violence, including through the 2014 kidnapping of a software engineer in Las Vegas.  Shulaya and Khurtsidze then refined that technology by training lower-level members of the Shulaya Enterprise to execute this casino scam using smartphones and software developed by the Enterprise,” reads the statement.

Shulaya was found guilty of one count of racketeering conspiracy, conspiring to traffic in stolen goods, conspiracy to traffic in contraband tobacco, identification document fraud, and wire fraud conspiracy, which altogether carry a potential maximum penalty of 65 years in prison.  

Khurtsidze was found guilty of one count of racketeering conspiracy and one count of wire fraud conspiracy, each of which carries a potential maximum penalty of 20 years.