In a Very Cold Case Finally at Trial, a Subtext of Russian Mobsters

In the Eastern European immigrant neighborhoods of South Brooklyn, where the notorious heroin smuggler Boris Nayfeld was running the Brighton Beach waterfront, the collapsing Soviet bloc had opened new routes for money laundering. The crime syndicates of the early 1990s began to expand their ambitions beyond extortion and racketeering toward increasingly complex financial fraud.

Among the strivers and the hustlers, the thieves and the aspiring gangsters, were four Ukrainian men, none much older than 21, who roamed the billiard halls and the boardwalks as a crew seeking to impress Mr. Nayfeld, prosecutors have said.

One of the men, Boris Roitman, 21, did not survive the summer of 1992. He was killed by two shotgun blasts delivered in an alley beside a tennis court. The first slug obliterated his heart. His killing went unsolved for more than a decade.