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Iosif Blondi


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Iosif Blumkin
Iosif Blumkin was born on 17 August 1983 to a middle class mixed-Jewish family in Odessa, Soviet Ukraine. He is the second born child of Semyon Romanovich Blumkin (b. 1951) and Anastasiya Yakivna-Blumkin (nee Fersht) (b. 1956). His older brother Meir Blumkin (b. 1978) was also born in Odessa. Semyon is a Russian Jew from Odessa with family roots in Oryol and Rostov-on-Don. Anastasiya is a Ukrainian Jew who was born-and-raised in Yevpatoriya, Crimea. The Holocaust killed 80% of his family on both sides and the survivors emigrated to Israel. Iosif, his brother Meir, their parents and grandfather Valentyn (b. 1926 - d. 1993) were their only family leftover in Ukraine.

 

Childhood
Iosif was raised in Odessa, Ukraine in the 1980s and 90s. Specifically his family resided in the Tsentr and Moldovanka districts of the city. His father was a financial manager for the regional Soviet government, and post-1991, for private companies. His mother was a cook and restaurant manager. His family weren't dysfunctional and presented with no addictions, mental illness or abuse. In the early 1990s, the family faced financial struggles caused by the Soviet economic collapse. His parents were sporadically employed and resorted to food banks and charities to provide for the family. For years, Semyon worked construction and at dockyards when finance jobs weren't available.

 

In 1999, Semyon and Anastasiya divorced because of their financial problems and mutual affairs. Semyon took custody of Iosif, then aged 15, and emigrated to Israel. He turned 16 shortly after arriving there. Meir remained behind in Odessa to manage a beachside family restaurant. Within a year, Iosif and his father were dual citizens of Ukraine and Israel. Iosif finished secondary school in the Shapira district of Tel-Aviv. While schooling in Ukraine and Israel, he wrestled and Olympic weightlifted. Following graduation, he was called up for Israeli Defense Forces service at 18. However, a family friend working in recruitment fraudulently dismissed this obligation.

 

From 2001 - 2004, Iosif moved out and lived on his own around Tel-Aviv. He was employed in landscaping, warehouses and construction as a general laborer. His wages never exceeded the equivalent to $22.00 USD hourly. In the meantime, he continued Olympic weightlifting and began training boxing at gyms across Tel-Aviv. At age 20, he started bouncing at the city's nightclubs. He made new friends in the nightlife who were drug dealers. Over time, these friends proved that selling drugs earned more than regular jobs. Iosif then quit working as a general laborer to be a nightclub drug dealer.

 

Criminal career in the Middle East and Europe
Blumkin’s criminal work and connections in Israel opened other opportunities in Ukraine. From 2004 - 2007, he returned to his native Odessa for criminal purposes. He was employed by Anton Baiul's (b. 1961) criminal group; he met Anton himself while bouncing at his nightclubs in Tel-Aviv. He was a drug dealing bouncer in Odessa who was occasionally sighted with Anton in the streets at first. Eventually, he was appointed to his security detail and later his personal driver. It was presumed that Iosif was armed at all times for such tasks. Odessa police photographed Iosif driving Anton around the city's Downtown multiple times.

 

Iosif worked for Anton Baiul's criminal group in Odessa as a drug dealer and enforcer. His natural aptitude, discipline and motivation for criminal work earned him advanced promotions. After three years, he was a nightclub security manager with a growing legal cover. Within Anton's criminal group, Iosif was an overseer of local debt collection, and later, drug smuggling from Odessa to Kyiv. Additionally he remains a suspect in the homicides of Hrihoriy Shpak (b. 1982 - d. 2002), Yevhen Kulyk (b. 1979 - d. 2002) and Ivan Ibragimov (b. 1976 - d. 2004). These are drug-related homicide cases that've gone cold. Corruption and bribery caused the investigations to fail. In 2005, he married an Israeli he met in Tel-Aviv, named Yana Kolmel (b. 1980). He paid for and supported Yana's emigration to Ukraine from Israel. A police informant reported that Iosif was controlling and domineering towards his wife in public and that their relationship was generally poor. 

 

In 2007, Anton Baiul's criminal group were busted by the Odessa police. Iosif was arrested and criminally charged for minor offenses. The charges were dropped and he was released for lack of evidence. The police were unable to tie the homicides back to him at the time. In 2008 he returned to Israel for five months, where his wife initiated a divorce. In the meantime, Anton and his co-conspirators were sentenced to decades behind bars in Ukraine. Anton is still serving a life sentence at the Zhytomyr Prison. In mid-2008, Iosif returned to Odessa and faced financial struggles. He sold his own drugs to people in the streets while working construction and warehouse jobs out of desperation. His divorce was incredibly costly at the time. Through common friends, namely other members of the Baiul Criminal Group, he went to Germany.

From 2008 - 2018, Iosif resided in Germany initially with work permits before receiving permanent residency. Throughout this decade, he went to-and-from Germany and Ukraine when permit renewals were needed. In 2009, he started working for a Russian crime boss, Grigoriy Bugayev (b. 1964 - d. 2016), who owned Club Boulon in Kreuzberg, Berlin. While residing in Berlin, Iosif would further his criminal career. More experienced, physically bigger and smarter, it wouldn't take long for him to be one of the key players in Grigoriy Bugayev's rise to power. From 2009 - 2013, he worked for Street Captain Viktor Chernin as a drug dealer in Tempelhof, Berlin. His strong work ethic and positive attitude was personally noticed by Grigoriy Bugayev over the years. Viktor Chernin recommended Iosif for promotion within the gang.

 

Rise & Fall in Germany
In 2013, Iosif's criminal career peaked. Grigoriy opened a second nightclub in another area of Berlin and appointed Iosif as the general manager of Club Boulon. Despite being a nightclub manager, he was still in the streets while running Viktor and later Grigoriy's criminal errands. However, this increasingly happened less because of his new responsibilities. Taking care of the club's finances and staff was a task that Iosif had no trouble finishing. He ran his own crew that worked on simpler criminal tasks, such as hijacking trucking shipments and selling stolen property. It's also in 2013 that Iosif married for the second time. He married a 19 year old German girl named Kristina Hasselhoff, a Berlin native.

 

Iosif’s criminal career in Europe came to an end in the late 2010s. The Bugayev Gang were dismantled by rival groups and the Berlin police. Grigoriy Bugayev himself was discovered dead by the police at his Tiergarten apartment in 2016. In the press release, Berlin police stated that the crime was "particularly brutal". He was attacked at home by assailants using edged weapons, who stabbed and slashed him to death. His rope-bound body was found left in his bathtub and was slashed open, as if slowly draining his blood was the purpose. In the meantime, multiple Bugayev Gang members were arrested and criminally charged. Their charges largely included drugs and firearms, along with some for pimping and homicide. All arrested members were Russian, Belarusian and Ukrainian nationals.


Criminal Intermission

Iosif’s criminal activities after 2016 are largely unknown. He departed Berlin and was transient around Germany, with his wife, for two years. While traveling through rural Germany on the backroads,  the couple lived out of Air BnBs, hotels and travel lodges. His wife Kristina suffered a nervous breakdown after her mother in Berlin died from a heart attack. Her mental deterioration was worsened by her addictions to cocaine and amphetamines. Kristina served Iosif with divorce. In 2018, it was finalized while the two visited Frankfurt together. Left on his own, and with nothing going for him anymore, Iosif entered the U.S. Green Card Lottery. He was motivated to start a new life and get away from his underworld problems in Europe.

 

In 2019, Iosif moved to Barcelona, Spain for two months. He was burned out and sick of crime. However, his attempt at working in Barcelona's nightlife failed. And with limited Spanish and poor cultural understandings, he was relegated to cooking at a seafood restaurant. He did all of this on a tourist permit. He returned to Ukraine and settled in Kyiv while waiting for his Green Card approval. In Kyiv, he kept a low profile and found employment installing residential smoke alarms for minimum wage.

 

American Arrival
Iosif arrived in Vice City, Florida after his Green Card approval in 2020. He came on a direct flight from Kyiv, Ukraine. Accompanying him to America was Andrei Ruda, a Moldovan arms dealer with ties to Liberty City and Vice City. Together in Vice City, they joined the Shulga Mafia as associates, which was chaired by Roman Shulga (b. 1967). Roman remains one of the first post-Soviet mob bosses to operate in Florida. His crime group have been there since 1995. Iosif rapidly became acquainted with Roman by taking significant loans from the start. This money was wasted in gambling dens inside the backrooms of Little Havana and Hialeah. This careless spending created a strain between the two gangsters.

 

Eventually, Roman discovered that Iosif was having a relationship with his 16 year old daughter, Sadie. Iosif had enamored the minor with money and drugs such as cocaine. Infuriated, Roman put a hit out on Iosif's head for $100,000. Blumkin’s criminal partner, Andrei Ruda, betrayed him by accepting the hit. Andrei aggressively sought Iosif out in the streets for weeks, searching Little Havana and Hialeah with a crew of shooters. In response, Iosif went into hiding before fleeing Vice City. He departed the city one sweltering night with his car, $8,000 in cash and two luggage bags of clothing. The following morning, his hideout was discovered and thoroughly trashed by Andrei's crew. 

 

Los Santos Organized Crime Membership
Iosif drove across the United States until reaching Los Santos, SA in November 2020. While traveling, he lived out of his car and dumpy highway motels. For income, he worked a series of laboring jobs which paid under-the-table in cash. During these months he lost significant weight from irregular sleep, distress and poor physical exercise. On 05 October 2020, Iosif picked up a hitchhiker in Tuscaloosa, AL while en-route to Jackson, MS. He intended to rob the hitchhiker at gunpoint after learning that he had $500 cash, an ounce of marijuana and 10 grams of cocaine. However, the hitchhiker was one step ahead, and tried robbing Iosif instead. A struggle ensued and Iosif shot the hitchhiker dead in his car while pulled over on a rural service road. The body was dumped in the marshes outside Baton Rouge, LA and remained unidentified for three years. In August 2023, the remains were identified as that of Randall Michaels, a 51 year old homeless transient from West Virginia. His homicide remains unsolved.

 

In 2021, having Itay Waknine as his investor, Iosif created the Vinewood Bouncers alongside Matei Popescu, David Utkin and Lucas Archer. The business, although troubled with criminality due its involvement with the now defunct Vespucci's Russian mob, remains operational in Los Santos today. At the same time, Iosif was one of Wave Entertainment's board members and helped them run one of Los Santos' oldest clubs, Bahama Mamas.

Move to Chicago
In 2022, looking for new opportunities, Iosif relocated to Chicago where he was introduced through an acquaintance to a Russian mob figure known only as 'Mark'. Iosif started working at Mark's casino and other illegal gambling dens over the city by being his personal bodyguard and managing day-to-day operations, ensuring profit. The work proved easy and lucrative thanks to its shady side; the blackmailing of prominent businessmen who frequented the establishment and running an illegal prostitution ring staffed with trafficked women from Eastern Europe, mostly Ukraine, proved to be extremely profitable and powerful.

 

Over his time in Chicago, Iosif got caught up with several young women enamored with his wealth and underworld connections. They showered him with affection and gifts, but also made increasing demands on his time and finances. By late 2023, Iosif was exhausted from juggling multiple jealous "girlfriends" and the pressures of Mark's criminal enterprise; dealing with gambling addicts calling him on his phone multiple times a day, smaller rival criminal organizations and the increasing possibility of a case took a toll on Iosif's mental health.

 

Police Crackdown and Escape to Los Santos
In November 2023, a joint task force of Chicago PD and the FBI launched a major operation targeting Mark's organization. They raided gambling dens and bordellos across the city, making dozens of arrests. Thanks to his low profile and experience, Iosif managed to avoid being implicated. With Mark's operation in shambles, Iosif decided it was time to get out of Chicago. He took off for Los Santos in early 2024.

Upon returning to Los Santos, although the heyday of the nightlife in the city were over, his old associates were still running Vinewood Bouncers. Figuring that VB could serve as his backbone while he looks for better opportunities, Iosif took back control. He reconnected with former contacts in the city's underworld and began rebuilding his network along with David Utkin again.

 

Credits to the story also goes to @13 Ways after I gave him a few vague bullet points back in 2021.

Edited by wechselbalg
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