On this day in 1937, Aslan Usoyan was born. The Russian mob boss spent years embroiled in gang wars and was arrested 8 times during his lifetime, on charges of extortion.

He was shot by a sniper after leaving his office in 2013. He was 75 years old.

On this day in 1937, Aslan Usoyan was born in the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic, in the small village of Dzhavakhishvili. He would go on to become one of the most powerful and feared criminal figures in post-Soviet Russia, rising to the very pinnacle of the notorious Vory v Zakone — the "Thieves in Law" — a criminal brotherhood with roots stretching back to the Stalinist gulags of the 1930s. In many ways, Usoyan represented the old world of organised crime meeting the brutal new realities of the post-Soviet underworld.

Known by his street name "Grandpa Hassan," Usoyan built his reputation over decades, eventually commanding enormous influence across Russia, Eastern Europe, and into the criminal networks of the Middle East and Central Asia. Unlike the American mob bosses of the mid-twentieth century — the Lucky Lucianos and the Al Capones who carved up cities with boardroom-style precision — Usoyan operated in a far more chaotic and violent landscape, one shaped by the collapse of the Soviet Union and the scramble for power and resources that followed. His empire stretched across gambling, protection rackets, and organised extortion, and he was arrested no fewer than eight times throughout his life on various charges, though he consistently managed to avoid lengthy imprisonment.

His career was defined in large part by a savage and prolonged gang war with rival Vory boss Tariel Oniani, a conflict that left a trail of bodies across Russia and beyond throughout the late 2000s and early 2010s. The two men fought for supremacy over criminal networks that spanned continents, and the violence associated with their rivalry drew significant attention from Russian law enforcement and international intelligence agencies alike. Usoyan survived multiple attempts on his life, a testament both to his cunning and to the loyalty he commanded from those around him.

On 16th January 2013, that luck finally ran out. Usoyan was shot by a highly skilled sniper as he left a restaurant in central Moscow. The bullet struck him in the chest, and despite efforts to save him, he died shortly afterwards. He was 75 years old. The killing bore the hallmarks of a professional contract hit, and though suspicion fell on his longtime rivals, no one was ever conclusively brought to justice for the murder.

Aslan Usoyan remains one of the defining figures of the post-Soviet criminal world, a man whose life and violent death encapsulated the brutal struggle for power that consumed organised crime in Russia following the fall of the USSR. His legacy endures as a stark reminder of just how deeply the Vory v Zakone shaped the criminal landscape of an entire era.