Firstly, late 1970s – early 1980s. It is the period when organized criminality in USSR began. This was mostly small illegal business with legal «co-operative societies», as well as big illegal business under the protection and with the participation of the leader communist party and state authorities, illegal exchange of currency and speculation («farcovka»). Scandals involving the illegal manufacturing and sale of cotton, fruit, caviar and fish in the 1970s and 1980s revealed for the first time the close alliances that «tenevics» (shady dealers) and other «traditional» criminals had with executive staff and official leaders of the Soviet Republics (the first secretaries of the Central Committees of the Communist Party in Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, Moldova, Georgia, Kazakhstan were all at some point involved in scandals), the central bodies of Communist Party, as well as government and law enforcement bodies.