Russian mafia boss was shot dead on Tuesday in the Black Sea resort of Sochi, site of the 2014 Winter Olympics.

Russian mafia boss was shot dead on Tuesday in the Black Sea resort of Sochi, site of the 2014 Winter Olympics.

Real estate owner Eduard "Karas" Kakosyan, 31, was gunned down near a gas station in the centre of town a month after another mafia chief and friend was shot and wounded, Interfax reported.

Authorities are searching for two men in connection with the shooting, a police spokesman told AFP.

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"The young men left the scene of the crime on a motorcycle," the spokesman said.

According to Russian media, Kakosyan's death appears to be the latest in a series of shootings targeting mafia bosses jostling for a share of the Olympic construction windfall.

Kakosyan was close to one of Russia's top mafia bosses, Aslan Ussoyan, who was shot and wounded in central Moscow in September, Interfax reported.

Ussoyan had clashed with other mafia groups over the division of a commercial empire linked to the construction of buildings for the 2014 games, the Kommersant daily reported.

That empire was allegedly controlled by Zakhar Kalashov, considered the "godfather" of the Russian-Georgian mafia. Kalashov was arrested in Spain and sentenced in June to seven and a half years in prison for money laundering.

Score settling in the grab for Olympic investments also accounted for the murder of yet another Sochi organised crime boss, Alik Sochinsky, who was killed last year in Moscow, according to Russian media.

The future Olympic town has been transformed into a vast construction site, as workers begin erecting more than 100 structures, including a main stadium and an ice-skating ring.