Over the last two years, a federal investigation into Russian and Italian organized crime in the ports of Newark and Elizabeth, N.J., turned up the expected mix of mundane mob staples: extortion, cigarette smuggling, money laundering.

But federal agents said they also came across a bit of criminal enterprise that for pure creative corruption struck them as remarkable: a loose-knit web of companies was smuggling tens of millions of gallons of American-made grain alcohol--including some from one of the country's oldest distilleries--to Eastern Europe to slake a seemingly boundless thirst for that most Russian of spirits, vodka.

The smuggling genius, such as it was, lay in the fact that the 190-proof alcohol from America's heartland was disguised with dye and shipped in giant containers marked as windshield-wiper fluid, cologne, mouthwash and cleaning solvent.

Once in Russia, the smugglers, using a chemical formula provided in some cases by an American distiller, removed the coloring, diluted the grain alcohol with water, and sometimes added what the federal authorities said was vodka flavoring. The product, which was then distributed by groups controlled by the Russian mob, thus evaded millions of dollars in import taxes and tariffs.

The reconstituted mouthwash and cleaning solvents found a welcome and lucrative place in the black market.

Investigators said that when the dye was effectively removed, it was--all things Russian considered--not half bad.

As part of the case, agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms are investigating as many as six distillers around the United States, and nearly a dozen brokers and freight forwarders, several law-enforcement officials said.

Investigators suspect that the shippers have ties to some of the most powerful mob clans in Russia, and that the organizations, including the Solintsevskaya and Ismailovskaya groups, control the distribution of the alcohol in Russia and in some countries in Eastern Europe, the officials said.

"It takes a lot of organization to get millions of gallons from the distilleries in the U.S. to the streets of Moscow," said Edgar Domenech, the special agent in charge of the ATF's New York office. The agency, which in addition to investigating firearms and explosives trafficking regulates the alcohol industry, is supervising that part of the joint investigation, while the FBI is overseeing other aspects of the case, including those involving Russian organized crime.

Since the days of the czars, vodka has played an significant role in the nation's life and politics.

It accounted for 35 percent of the Soviet Union's income until oil and gas became big moneymakers in the 1980s. But that number plunged to roughly 4 percent in Russia after President Boris Yeltsin liquidated the state monopoly in 1992. And with the collapse of the economy, many local producers failed and foreign distillers began to export quantities of grain alcohol to Russia and neighboring countries.

When the Russian government slapped heavier tariffs on imported alcohol in the mid-1990s, the black market boomed, opening up more opportunities in the trade for the ubiquitous Russian mob. Now, untaxed, smuggled and homemade vodkas are believed to account for more than half of the estimated 568 million gallons consumed in Russia annually.