By A.Savin (Wikimedia Commons · WikiPhotoSpace) (Own work) [FAL or CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
Mikahil Mamiashvili, the head of the Russian Wrestling Federation who allegedly assaulted a female wrestler following a loss at the Rio Games, owes nearly 2 million rubles in bank loans.
According to a recent report, the Kuntsevo District Court in Moscow upheld the claim from the ‘MAST-BANK’ credit institution against Mamiashvili. According to Russian tabloid LIFE, the former Olympic champion had taken a loan in 2014 and only paid a portion back. After inconsistent payments, Mamiashvili seemingly stopped paying in 2015 and has now been ordered by the court to pay back 1 million rubles from the initial principal and 900,000 rubles in compounded interest.
Mamiashvili, an alleged gangster with longstanding ties to the Georgian mafia in Moscow, told LIFE that he was trying to solve the problem with the bank in a “peaceful manner.”
While Mamiashvili is now the president of the Russian Wrestling Federation, a FILA Bureau Member, and the vice president of United World Wrestling, the governing body for Olympic wrestling, he has been unable to mask his shady past. While in the midst of his burgeoning sports career, Mamiashvili met Otari Kvantrishvili, the most influential Georgian gangster to operate in Russia during the 1980s and 90s.
The fall of the Soviet Union served up bountiful capitalist opportunities for the mobsters. During the first half of the chaotic, free-for-all 1990s in transitional Russia, Kvantrishvili was the brash, public face of gangsters in Russia. He rubbed shoulders with celebrities and politicians before announcing that he wanted to form his own political party, the ‘Sportsmen of Russia.’
Following Kvantrishvili’s death in 1994, Mamiashvili stepped out of the spotlight and focused on a career in sports administration.