The head of the criminal syndicate is named Pyotr Chechik. This is a nod to Jeremiah S. Chechik who directed several episodes in the series.
When Beck first sees Chechik, he asks Michael, "Is there a Russian word for 'hard-ass'?" We then see a freeze-frame of Chechik captioned with a Russian word pronounced "ustupki" and the English word "hardass". In fact, the Russian word shown means "concessions" in English.