Happy Nation [90s in Estonia]

Estonia is currently one of the safest countries in Europe, but between the 1990s and the 2000s, organized crime prevailed and it was characterized by a loose alliance of mobster groups, principally of Russian origins, with a wide range of different rackets: prostitution, motor vehicle theft, drug trafficking, and previously also "providing" workers to building contracts in Finland, where the criminal organizations were confiscating a share of workers' wages. Although small size, the Estonian mafia was hierarchical and well-organized, which has enabled its survival to this day, albeit to a much more modest form. Also, the murder rate was considerably higher than ever during the same period in Estonia; for example, an average of 9.4 people per 100,000 per year were killed in Estonia between 1999 and 2001. According to statistics published in Britain in 2008 relating to the period 1991–2001, the number of crimes increased by 84% from 1991 to 2001. The number of discovered drug-related crimes increased by 21 between 1997 and 2001. Overall, crime has fallen precipitously between 1995 and 2010, by close to 70%.