ST. PETERSBURG - Cruising along Moskovsky Prospekt on the night of Oct. 5-6 in his brand-new Volvo sedan, Alexander Malyshev, media myth and alleged mafia boss, was pulled over and busted by special agents from the Security Ministry.


Malyshev's arrest signaled the start of a combined operation between police and ministry forces that netted 28 supposed members of his gang around the city, and freed seven Muscovite hostages they were apparently holding, according to Valeriya Kuznetsov, spokesman for the Security Ministry's corruption and contraband unit.


If found guilty, Malyshev, 34, would not be the first crime lord nabbed in St. Petersburg.


Nor would he be the last. In fact, according to Sergei Sidorenko, chief of the Interior Ministry's anti-organized crime wing for northern and northwestern Russia, Malyshev's gang had merely filled a gap left by rivals arrested earlier.


In St. Petersburg alone, members of organized crime groups number over 2, 000, Sidorenko said. But St. Petersburg is only one city in his jurisdiction, which stretches from Murmansk to Pskov.


"For that whole region I've only got 470 people. Of course, it's very little", said Sidorenko. "It's not possible to stop the mafia here".


Even if Malyshev, whose trial began on Oct. 10 in St. Petersburg, is convicted and given a life sentence, organized crime experts agree that removing one individual, no matter how powerful, means little in light of the city's widespread - and growing - mafia activities.


Aside from being understaffed, law enforcement officers are often outgunned by their opponents, whose weapons range from pistols to machine guns to "you name it", said Sidorenko, who has 25 years police experience. He also advised police in Afghanistan for two years.


"I consider this to be a war", he


said, "In Afghanistan there was a war with shooting all over the place. Here it is even more complicated".


As long as the economic situation deteriorates, organized crime is expected to grow in St. Petersburg, with younger bosses simply replacing those who get arrested.


In 1990, police arrested Viktor Kumarin, leader of the powerful Tambovskaya organization. In 1991 they put Vladimir Feoktistov, another St. Petersburg mafia heavyweight, behind bars. But to little effect.


Whether or not Malyshev was the "Godfather of St. Petersburg's mafia", as the daily Vecherny Peter-burg claimed, an underworld boss who earned his money through extortion and commercial speculation, he was certainly wealthy.


At the time of his arrest, when asked where his shiny new Volvo was from, Malyshev, who has no official job, answered that "nice people gave it to me", Kuznetsov said.