NEW HAVEN, Conn. - An elderly used car salesman accused of being a member of the Gambino crime family was sentenced Wednesday to 13 years in prison for selling cocaine to a police informant.Victor Riccitelli, 71, was convicted of the drug charges in March. He pleaded with a federal judge not to throw him in prison for the rest of his life, saying he has "only got a few more years left."
NEW YORK (AFP) - A script of "The Godfather" annotated by Marlon Brando sold for more than 310,000 dollars at an auction of the late screen legend's personal effects at Christie's in New York.The script of the 1972 classic, which won Brando a second best actor Oscar for his portrayal of mafia kingpin Don Corleone, was the highlight of the sale, and attracted heavy bidding from the outset.
BARRANQUILLA, Colombia (Reuters) - Hundreds of Colombians arrive every week in cities along the Caribbean coast like Barranquilla, pushed north by this country's cocaine-fueled guerrilla war.Left vulnerable by a government too weak to protect them, displaced families are greeted by poverty and growing exploitation that the United Nations says is compounding the world's worst ongoing humanitarian crisis outside Africa.
Illegal paramilitary militias, formed in the 1980s by landowners trying to protect their property from Marxist rebels, have discovered how easy it is to earn 20 percent on one-month loans to the growing number of displaced people desperate to get back on their feet.
"It's expensive, but what else can I do," a 39-year-old women living in Soledad, a dusty Barranquilla suburb, told Reuters, asking not to be named.
Online merchants, especially small ones, are getting stung by the burgeoning black market for stolen credit cards.
And a rash of recent security breaches at Visa USA, MasterCard International, American Express and others this year could worsen the problem, says trade association National Retail Federation. Merchants routinely are stuck with exorbitant bank charges when items are purchased fraudulently.
NAIROBI, Kenya -- A black-market alcoholic brew laced with poisonous methanol has caused the deaths of 49 people in Kenya, medical workers said yesterday, while police searched for a woman suspected of distributing the drink to local bars.
SAO PAULO, Brazil (Reuters) - Seven of the world's major electronics and computer goods companies including Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq:MSFT - news) and Intel Corp. (Nasdaq:INTC - news) joined forces on Tuesday to fight Brazil's vast black market and piracy, which they say cost the country more than $40 billion a year in lost taxes.
In the biggest legal fight between Hollywood and the tech industry in 21 years, the entertainment moguls have delivered a knockdown punch to the nerds.
A unanimous Supreme Court decision Monday opened the way for music and movie companies to sue providers of peer-to-peer file-sharing software, which is used to download music and movies onto computers.
DRUGS squad chiefs have dealt a stark warning to Perth’s big-time pushers: “You’re not the untouchables”.
The message comes days after Tayside Police Chief Constable John Vine praised the efforts of his force in his annual report after a year-long operation secured convictions of 13 individuals in Scotland – totalling 37 years of jail time – and smashed a major racket in the process.
The Big County crackdown on drug dealers was the main focus of Operation Flogger.
Police in southeastern New Brunswick have arrested a man in connection with an explosion in a home they believe was being used to produce illegal drugs. Denis Richard has been charged with possession of marijuana for the purpose of trafficking, production of marijuana and obstruction of justice. His home in Saint-Gabriel-de-Kent blew up in May. No one was there at the time. When they combed through the ashes of the building, police say they found what appeared to be the remnants of a drug lab. Richard will appear in court on July 5 to answer to the charges.
LEMON SPRINGS - Six men were arrested and $28,000 in illegal drugs were seized in a raid by the Sanford-Lee County Drug Unit Thursday in Lemon Springs.
After law enforcement agents searched a home at 240 Stanley Road, they seized six pounds of marijuana and 0.3 grams of cocaine and arrested James Roderick Baldwin, 25, of 1219 Neville Road, Chapel Hill; Eric Ricardo Miranda, 24, of 619 York Street, Sanford; Andre Fabian Moore, 24, of 937 N. Ashe Street, Southern Pines; Derick Stephen Tyson, 27, of 427 Rosser Road, Bear Creek, and Micquis Anton Levar Lett, 24, and Sedric Lynn Womack, both of 240 Stanley Road, Lemon Springs.
Lucknow Sentinel — Over $614,657 worth of illegal drugs destined for Bruce, Grey, Huron and Perth Counties were seized, thanks to area police officers from surrounding counties.
Last Thursday, about 76 police officers of the Drug Enforcement Section of the Ontario Provincial Police, as well as South Bruce OPP, Bruce Peninsula OPP, Grey County OPP, Huron OPP and Perth County OPP have seized over $614,657 worth of illegal drugs.
NEW YORK (CNN/Money) – News that hackers broke into the database of payment processor CardSystems, which contained information on over 40 million credit card accounts, raises the obvious question: Who did it?
The FBI is investigating and doesn't discuss cases that are pending. But if recent history is any guide, there's a fair chance the hackers may not be caught, or not anytime soon.
Not that there haven't been notable successes for law enforcement.
Since last October, for example, 28 members of Shadowcrew have been indicted. Shadowcrew operated one of the largest illegal online sites that facilitated malicious hacking and identity theft by selling such key identifiers as Social Security and debit card numbers.
Federal authorities raided three San Francisco medical marijuana dispensaries Wednesday, and investigators arrested at least 13 people as part of an alleged organized crime operation using the clubs as a front to launder money.
LONDON -- Two men have been sentenced to a total of 10 years in prison for their roles in a wide range of online fraud activities, U.K. authorities said this week. Douglas Harvard, a 24-year-old U.S. citizen, was arrested by the National Hi-Tech Crime Unit (NHTCU) in Leeds earlier this month during an investigation into a conspiracy by Eastern European crime syndicates. Upon his arrest, police found documents, correspondence, and equipment for creating false identities, as well as evidence that he was being assisted by a second man, British citizen Lee Elwood. Elwood, who is 25 and based in Glasgow, was arrested a few days later and charged with conspiracy to defraud after police found a large quantity of forged bank documents, credit card holograms, computers, and other equipment, according to the NHTCU.
MINSK, June 28 (RIA Novosti) - Russia and Belarus are intending to create a single database on organized crime, a source in the Interior Ministry of Belarus said.
According to the source, this issue is being discussed at a joint session of the heads of criminal police from both countries in Gomel, Belarus. "The single database will include data on criminal organizations, their leaders and members with inter-regional contacts," the source said.
The Bronx lawyer accused of passing coded messages between jailed Bonanno godfather Joseph Massino and the acting boss was granted bail yesterday — at a very steep price.
Tommy Lee will have to fork over $2 million to be released from the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn. He will then be placed under house arrest and will have to wear an ankle bracelet.
Judge Nicholas Garaufis said his decision to set Lee free was an "extremely close call."
His lawyer, Steven Cohen, said Lee is "holding up fine," and expects his client to be home later this week.LOS ANGELES (AFP) - Acclaimed US film director Brian De Palma has signed on to make a prequel to his blockbuster 1987 mafia-battling film "The Untouchables," the industry press said.
MAJOR Melbourne mafia figure and car bomb murder suspect Domenico Italiano has died, only hours after being freed from jail.
Homicide squad detectives believe Italiano, who died on Saturday, was probably involved in the 1998 killing of mechanic John Furlan.Sources said that Furlan, 48, may have had inside knowledge that Italiano rigged a children's charity raffle.
Furlan died when his Subaru Liberty exploded in a fireball near his Coburg home as he was driving to work.
The Afghan authorities say they have burned more than 60 tons of illegal drugs in a demonstration of their efforts to curb drugs trafficking. 
Piles of drugs were set alight at eight locations around the country, the biggest being on the outskirts of the capital, Kabul.
Afghanistan produced 90% of the world's opium in 2004.
In a similar operation in Pakistan, officials say around 26 tons of narcotics were burned in Karachi.
A DRUGS gang plotted to smuggle millions of pounds worth of cocaine into the UK inside hollowed-out pianos, the Old Bailey heard.
The gang including Gary Vian, 44, from Crest Road, South Croydon, had the instruments made with secret compartments where they could stuff huge quantities of drugs, it is claimed.
Four of the dealers were caught driving a van full of cannabis resin hidden in custom-built bookcases and a chair in the shape of a Harley-Davidson motorbike.
Mukul Chawla, prosecuting, said the accused were major drug dealers.
He said: "Their trade is measured in possibly even millions of pounds."
EIGHT people were arrested in drugs raids in Huddersfield.
Police said they had seized "substantial amounts" of what is believed to be heroin and crack cocaine in addition to £3,000 in cash.
The raids were mounted in the Dalton and Kirkheaton areas yesterday.
Seven men and one woman, all local and in their early 20s, were arrested on suspicion of possession with intent to supply class A drugs.
They were detained for questioning.
A football player for Georgia Tech was slated to appear in a courtroom in California to face charges of charges regarding drug possession.
Police arrested 22-year-old cornerback Reuben Houston last Tuesday in connection with a marijuana distribution operation based in California. According to a criminal complaint filed in Fresno, Calif., Houston conspired to possess and distribute about 100 pounds of marijuana, which has a street value of about $60,000.
THREE people have been charged after class A drugs were seized in Huddersfield.
Drugs, alleged to be worth about £20,000, along with about £8,000 cash were seized by Kirklees District Drugs Team in raids at homes in Dalton and Kirkheaton last Friday.
Three people - two men aged 22 and a 19-year-old woman - were all charged with drugs trafficking and were due to appear before Huddersfield magistrates today.
Anselmo Avenido, Jr., Philippine Drug Enforcement Authority (PDEA) director general, yesterday said that the Philippine Illegal drugs is a P300 billion industry, with a good portion shipped to nearby countries in East and Southeast Asia.
Drugs syndicates operating in the country are composed of about 130 local drug groups and five international syndicates, according to Avenido.
Syndicates operating in the Philippines have a mix of nationals from Hong Kong, mainland China, Taiwan, Macau and others. "In almost all shabu laboratories, we see the participation of foreigners," said Avenido.
"The reason is because there’s no adequate technology transfer here. The chemists that have the expertise in making the shabu are foreigners," Avenido added.
CEBU CITY -- It might be a case of vigilante-style killing in Talisay City following the fatal shooting of a 40-year-old woman who figured in the police's drugs watch list.
However, Superintendent Audie Villacin, Talisay City Police Station chief, initially downplayed suggestions that vigilantes were responsible for the death of Wennie Deiparine, a resident of Barangay Cansojong.
Authorities in Tibet's capital Lhasa have destroyed about 500 kilograms of illicit drugs in the largest-ever counter-narcotics operation to mark the International Anti-Drugs day.
The drugs destroyed yesterday included 67 kilograms of heroin, 320 kilograms of poppy shell and seed, and 133 kilograms of narcotics distilled from hemp.
Tibet has stepped up efforts to crack down on drug crimes and achieved remarkable progress in its fight against drug abuse and trafficking over the past few years, deputy director of Tibet Autonomous Regional Public Security Department, Lei Jinxiang said.
But the region faces a grim situation since it is wedged between the "Golden Triangle" of Laos, Thailand and Myanmar, and the "Golden Crescent" of Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran, Lei was quoted as saying by Xinhua news agency.
VIENNA (AFP) - The United Nations drug agency warned on world anti-drugs day that even occasional use of marijuana is a link in a long and dangerous cycle of crime, degradation and terrorism.
"The links between organized crime, drug trafficking, drug consumption, drug money, arms trafficking and terrorism become clearer every day," said Antonio Maria Costa, executive director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), on Sunday. "We know that even the occasional marijuana smoker is a link in a much longer and more dangerous chain."
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. -- A woman is accused of trying to sneak drugs to inmates by handing them off in an Albuquerque courtroom.A criminal complaint accuses 22-year-old Sandra Baray of giving an envelope of marijuana to a man inside a Bernalillo County courtroom this week.The complaint said Baray approached Joseph Phelps, who was seated in a courtroom gallery in custody.
NEW YORK - Joseph Massino, who went from the New York Mafia's last old-school don to its highest-ranking turncoat in a betrayal that rocked organized crime, was sentenced to life in prison Thursday after admitting his involvement in eight mob murders.
Massino received two life sentences after he admitted ordering the slaying of Bonanno family captain Gerlando "George from Canada" Sciascia and waived his right to appeal his conviction last year for seven other slayings.
ROMANIAN police today arrested a fugitive Italian Mafia boss who has been sentenced to 50 years in jail and is suspected of running one of Europe's biggest drug rings, a spokesman said. He said Perspicace has been wanted for years and was believed to head an operation that smuggled drugs into Europe through Barcelona, Nice and Milan. "Five years ago Perspicace was the boss of one of the biggest Mafia groups in Italy, where he has been sentenced to 50 years in prison," Interpol's spokesman in Bucharest, Paolo Sartori, told journalists. According to the local police, Perspicace entered Romania with forged documents about two months ago.
Francesco Perspicace, 45, was arrested in Craiova, in southern Romania, and will be extradited to Italy "on a date to be agreed with the Italian authorities", a police spokesman in the town said.
BURBANK, Calif. - Nearly 1,300 federal and local law enforcement agents joined forces for a pre-dawn raid Tuesday against a notorious street gang blamed in the shooting deaths of two police officers. The dragnet began about 3:30 a.m. in Los Angeles, Palmdale, Rosamond, Valencia, Bakersfield and Simi Valley and capped an 18 month investigation into what Los Angeles police Chief William Bratton called one of the city's oldest and most violent street gangs. The raid netted 36 arrests, including 23 suspected members of the Vineland Boys. Police also seized 41 guns, 12 pounds of drugs and $30,000 in cash. At least 43 suspected were indicted on charges of killing a police officer, a 16-year-old witness and a host of other crimes. Eight were still at large. Police have accused some gang members of participating in the fatal shooting of LAPD Officer James Beyea in 1988 and the 2003 shooting death of Burbank Officer Matthew Pavelka. Many defendants were wanted for trafficking in cocaine, methamphetamine and marijuana, authorities said. The organization allegedly forged a treaty with the Mexican Mafia prison gang under which it agreed to pay taxes on its drug profits, according to U.S. Attorney Debra Yang. Its drug trafficking operation allegedly stretched from Hawaii to Indiana.
Explanations about the source of the Internet's phishing epidemic often involve exotic tales of Asian gangs or the Russian Mafia. It turns out, though, that your average phisher is much more likely to be someone like "C-Power," who is probably a teenager somewhere overseas with a computer in his bedroom and a lot of alarming friends in his buddy lists.
NUEVO LAREDO, Mexico - Zooming around in sport utility vehicles bristling with weapons, Mexican soldiers-turned-drug hit men have taken this border city to the brink of anarchy, infiltrating local police and threatening anyone who gets in their way.
Residents and law enforcement officials say the men are the feared Zetas, former members of a military intelligence battalion sent to the border to fight drug trafficking. Instead, they joined the Gulf Cartel, one of Mexico's top drug gangs. They adopted the name Zetas — a radio code for a military commander — recruited followers and made the city of 300,000 their home base.
A longtime Mafia asso ciate — frustrated at being passed over for induction into the mob — offered $1 million to the Gambino crime family if they made him a wiseguy, The Post has learned.
Leonard Minuto Sr., 64, whose gambling and loan-sharking operation has earned millions of dollars for the Gambinos, purportedly went from capo to capo and even went to Arnold Squitieri, the family's acting head, in a bid to get his button.
Despite making what he thought was an offer they couldn't refuse, the mob family did, snubbing him at every turn, according to sources familiar with thousands of hours of secretly recorded government tapes.
MADRID (AFP) - Spanish police have rounded up at least 22 top mafia bosses from countries of the former Soviet Union in a sting operation that has dealt an enormous blow to organized crime, said the Spanish interior ministry.
The sting, known as "Operation Wasp," was launched last week on the Spanish Mediterranean coast against the ever-growing presence of mafia groups, mostly from Georgia, specialized in money laundering.
Four hundred agents were deployed in 11 regions reaching from Catalonia to the Costa del Sol and Alicante, and were assisted by information from Interpol, Europol and the Belgian, French, Israeli, Russian and US police.
Joe Pistone, the mob-infiltrating FBI agent better known as Donnie Brasco, insists that nothing - not "The Sopranos," not "The Godfather," not any other movie - has ever captured the experience of being inside the mob like the two-part National Geographic Channel documentary that begins tonight.
If that's true, then gangster life is a heck of a lot less interesting than Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese and David Chase have led us to believe. Despite on-camera reminiscences by Pistone, other FBI agents and a number of "former gangsters," some videotaped in shadowy lighting and inadvertently comical hats, "Inside the Mafia" is surprisingly dull. In some instances, it's dull because of them.
NEW YORK - (KRT) - At the foot of the Bayonne Bridge, in the Staten Island neighborhood known as Little Mexico, crime is down - falling by more than 6 percent this year. But troubling signs remain. Fights regularly break out in the Port Richmond neighborhood's Latino nightclubs, and even more unnerving are the graffiti scrawlings for M13, a street gang with ties to the notorious Mexican Mafia. "We've got a lot of problems right now with the gangs," said a 28-year-old Mexican man who ran with a gang for five years before being jailed. "They're even going after the 14- and 15-year-old kids." A federal sting operation last month in Staten Island netted 20 members of the Mexican Mafia, shining a local spotlight onto one of California's oldest and most violent prison gangs. Its members have been accused of killing Bill Cosby's 27-year-old son, Ennis, in Los Angeles in 1997, targeting mob turncoat Salvatore (Sammy Bull) Gravano in an Arizona prison in 2002 and devising a sophisticated plot last February to murder three guards at one of California's most secure prisons. The thought of the Mexican Mafia migrating to the East Coast and laying down its roots in the city is disturbing to many.
NEW YORK - (KRT) - At the foot of the Bayonne Bridge, in the Staten Island neighborhood known as Little Mexico, crime is down - falling by more than 6 percent this year. But troubling signs remain. Fights regularly break out in the Port Richmond neighborhood's Latino nightclubs, and even more unnerving are the graffiti scrawlings for M13, a street gang with ties to the notorious Mexican Mafia. "We've got a lot of problems right now with the gangs," said a 28-year-old Mexican man who ran with a gang for five years before being jailed. "They're even going after the 14- and 15-year-old kids." A federal sting operation last month in Staten Island netted 20 members of the Mexican Mafia, shining a local spotlight onto one of California's oldest and most violent prison gangs. Its members have been accused of killing Bill Cosby's 27-year-old son, Ennis, in Los Angeles in 1997, targeting mob turncoat Salvatore (Sammy Bull) Gravano in an Arizona prison in 2002 and devising a sophisticated plot last February to murder three guards at one of California's most secure prisons. The thought of the Mexican Mafia migrating to the East Coast and laying down its roots in the city is disturbing to many.
CENTURY CITY, Calif. -- He was one gruff goombah, a "made" guy who managed to keep his head while others around him were (literally) losing theirs.
Joseph Pistone -- better known by his assumed name, Donnie Brasco -- was an FBI agent who infiltrated the Mafia for six long years. Now that his cover is blown and he's retired, there's still a contract out on his head, and he always travels under an assumed name.
What it took to worm his way into the powerful Bonanno family was a facile mind and what he calls "street smarts."
"You have to be very street smart, and you have to be a good communicator and don't ever sweat. Don't ever let them see you sweat. Whenever I see a guy sweat, I know he's nervous, and I know I can do him," says Pistone, who's nattily dressed in dark olive slacks, a beige, striped sweater and brown moccasins.
Both a self-penned book and a powerful movie, "Donnie Brasco," followed Pistone's exploits as he navigated the mean streets of the Mafia hierarchy.
Part of his daring story will be told when the National Geographic Channel presents the four-hour special "Inside the Mafia" on June 13 and 14.
Some close calls
During his tenure, there was more than one bone-chilling moment, says Pistone, who served in Naval Intelligence before he went joined the FBI.
"I had individuals that were jealous of me because I was a younger guy, new face, only a couple of years around. I had good relationships with the capos that were running the family, so guys were jealous of me there. And the worst thing you could be called in the mob or on the street was 'informant.' So I had one guy, Tony Mira, particularly, who was a made guy who I had many run-ins with. And he went to the bosses and told them I'd stolen $250,000 in a drug deal that we did. That's a big no-no -- stealing money from the mob," he smiles.
"'Course, he's a made guy so they had to listen to him. We had several sit-downs over that situation. A sit-down is basically a meeting. He brings in his people. I have to have my representatives, and luckily, my representatives won the sit-down because if you lost a sit-down, in that situation -- where the infraction is stealing money from the mob -- they're gonna kill you."
Another time two wiseguys who'd just been released from jail didn't like the new kid on the block and complained to the boss about Donnie Brasco. " 'Look, we don't trust him, we don't know him.' And they had this right because they're made guys. So I come to the club one day and go in and the capo says, 'Donnie, we gotta talk. We have to straighten this out.' Now I'd been with these guys nine, 10 months, so we go into the back room, they lock the door and put their guns on the table. You've got to convince them you're Donnie Brasco, otherwise you're going out rolled up in a rug," he says.
BANGKOK, June 3 (TNA) - The police are preparing to issue arrest warrants for a number of national level politicians suspected of involvement in protection rackets in Bangkok, the national police inspector warned today.
The announcement comes after a month-long crackdown on Bangkok mafias, who typically demand protection money from traders and motorists.
Pol. Gen. Sereepisut Taemeeyawes, the National Police Inspector, who chairs a Bangkok mafia suppression committee, said that evidence pointed to the involvement of high-ranking Bangkok administrators and local and national politicians in the protection scams.
Over the next month, investigative officers would issue warrants for their arrest, he said.
Since the launch of the police crackdown on mafias, police in Bangkok have arrested 95 suspects and are taking legal action against 38, some of whom are municipal officials and police officers. (TNA)--E006
A suspected member of the infamous Russian Mafia likely will spend nine months in jail for an insurance scam orchestrated here.
Gyorgy Kovacs told a judge and prosecutors Wednesday that he wants nothing more than to return to his homeland of Hungary.
But, Waynesboro Circuit Judge Humes J. Franklin wants to keep tabs on the alleged mafia man for a little while, and doled out a 1½-year sentence. Kovacs, 31, of Brooklyn, N.Y., already has spent nine months in jail awaiting trial and sentencing, however.
“If he’s going to stay in this country, I want to know what he’s doing because I don’t believe for a minute this was an innocent scheme,” Franklin said Wednesday.
Franklin declared Kovacs guilty three months ago of falsifying his driver’s license as well as two counts of falsifying an application for a car title at the local DMV office.
Investigators suspect that Kovacs and other New York mobsters targeted the Hopeman Parkway DMV to falsify licenses and other paperwork.
Among the two cars Kovacs falsely registered here was a 1981 Lincoln Town Car that was bombed in New York.
How the insurance scheme worked remains a mystery to authorities, as does why the Russian Mafia picked the Waynesboro DMV in the first place.
Though the FBI and New York Police are investigating other ties to the scheme, Kovacs’ trial is the only Virginia link that authorities have uncovered.
“I’d like to travel back to my home country,” Kovacs told Franklin. “I’m very sorry about the whole thing, and I’d like to go home.”
SAN ANTONIO (AP) - A Texas Mexican Mafia's gang captain has been sentenced to 18 years in prison after pleading guilty to conspiracy to traffic more than a kilogram of heroin.
Jesse "Chuy" Ramirez, 33, was facing 30 years to life, but his sentenced was reduced because of his plea.
Officials say Ramirez was the highest-ranking of four gang members sentenced Wednesday.
Gang members who testified in the April trial of four co-defendants referred to Ramirez as a member of "la mesa" and "the house," meaning he controlled decisions and the 10 percent street tax the group collected from drug dealers.
A federal judge also sentenced Maria Elena "Hela" Flores, 45, to 11 years and three months in prison. Albert Delgado, 23, and Daniel "Dirty Dog" Valles, 41, each received five years and 10 months in prison for their roles in the conspiracy.
The case's other 24 defendants will be sentenced later this month or in July.
Burning drug piles