Moscow Court Acquits Russian Mafia Boss Ivankov

Moscow City Court has acquitted Vyacheslav Ivankov, a notorious Russian mafia boss charged with the murder of two Turkish citizens.

On Monday, the court of jury found Ivankov not guilty of the murder. Prosecutors have said they will appeal the verdict in Russia’s Supreme Court. The acting Moscow prosecutor, Vladimir Bakun, said on Tuesday the jurors were biased because seven of them either had previous convictions, or had relatives who were taken to court.

According to the investigators, Ivankov and another notorious criminal known by the nickname of Sliva (Plum) killed the Turkish citizens in a Moscow restaurant in 1992. One of them died at the scene and the other later at a hospital.

In 2000, Moscow prosecutors charged Ivankov with the murders in his absence; he was in the United States at the time. On July 15, 2004, soon after his deportation from the United States, he was charged with the murders again.

Ivankov also known as Yaponchik (Little Japanese) had already become notorious for creating the Solntsevskaya criminal organization in Russia in 1980. In 1982 he was imprisoned on robbery charges. After arriving in the United States he ran the Russian mafia throughout the country and reportedly became the highest-ranking Russian criminal in the United States.

He was arrested in New York in 1995 on charges of organizing a sham marriage and supervising the extortion of several million dollars from an investment firm. The courts indicted him after a two-year investigation and sentenced him to nine years and seven months in prison. He was going to be released early for good behavior, but his sentence was extended after a fight with another inmate thought to be a deliberate provocation.

Ivankov was extradited to Russia on July 11, 2004.

'Mafia cops' are due out of jail

The "Mafia Cops" are going home.

Two ex-NYPD detectives accused of being hitman for the mob could walk out of jail as early as tomorrow after federal prosecutors in Brooklyn decided not to appeal a decision which gave them bail.

Louis Eppolito, 56, and Stephen Caracappa, 63, are scheduled to be in Brooklyn federal court Thursday at noon to have relatives sign various documents securing their bail bonds.

Both men were ordered released from pretrial detention earlier this month by Judge Jack B. Weinstein who set bail for each at $ 5 million. The bail is being secured by property they and relatives are posting.

Federal prosecutors filed a letter with the court late Tuesday saying they wouldn't appeal Weinstein's ruling, said a spokesman for the Brooklyn U.S. Attorneys Office.

Calls to mafia don traced to phone of Bollywood heartthrob Khan

MUMBAI (AFP) - Calls to mafia don Abu Salem were traced in 2001 to the home phone of Bollywood heartthrob Salman Khan, the western Indian Maharashtra state government said.

Mob informant says Taccetta innocent of golf-club murder scheme

TOMS RIVER, N.J. - A mobster-turned-informant has filed court papers saying his cousin, a reputed Lucchese crime boss, was not involved in a scheme leading to a notorious 1984 Mafia hit.

A lawyer for Thomas Ricciardi, who is in hiding through the federal Witness Protection Program, filed an affidavit in Superior Court on Thursday claiming Martin Taccetta was not involved in the death of Vincent J. Craparotta, who was beaten to death with a golf club in 1984.

In 1993, Taccetta was acquitted of that murder but convicted of extortion along with Ricciardi. Prosecutors successfully argued the men conspired to kill Craparotta, a Jersey Shore contractor, to intimidate his nephews into sharing proceeds from their gambling business.

US authorities accuse dock workers union of being under mafia's influence

NEW YORK (AFP) - US authorities filed a racketeering lawsuit against a dock workers union accused of being under the influence of the New York mafia.

The Gambino and Genovese mafia clans have controled ports in New York, New Jersey and Miami since the 1950s, the Justice Department said in a statement.

The suit was filed against the International Longshoremen's Association, AFL-CIO, some top ILA officials, including longtime president John Bowers, and several organized crime members, the department said.

"For decades the waterfront has been the setting for corruption and violence stemming from organized crime's influence over labor unions operating there, including the ILA and its affiliated Locals, as well as port-related businesses," it said in a statement.

"Since the late 1950's, two organized crime families -- the Gambino family and the Genovese family -- have shared control of various ports, with the Gambino family primarily exercising its influence at commercial shipping terminals in Brooklyn and Staten Island, and the Genovese family primarily controlling those in Manhattan, New Jersey and the Port of Miami," it added.

The civil complaint asks that a court-appointed trustee be named to oversee the ILA and its benefits fund. It also wants an order barring union officials and organized crime members from the union, its benefits fund and the waterfront.

Judge orders "Mafia cops" freed on bail, says case is weak

Two former police detectives accused of leading double lives as Mafia hitmen were ordered freed on bail Thursday after a federal judge said the government's case against them was weak.

U.S. District Judge Jack Weinstein said the statute of limitations may have run out years ago on nearly all the charges against Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa. Both are accused of participating in eight murders on behalf of organized crime in the 1980s and early 1990s.

Federal prosecutors charged the former detectives with engaging in the killings as part of a racketeering conspiracy, which has a five-year statute of limitations. The last killing occurred in 1991.

The judge said the charges seem to me to be relatively stale

Gangs back to prey on motorbike taxi drivers

It's business as usual for gangsters who extort money from motorcycle taxi drivers in several areas in the city.

After a short break at the beginning of the high-profile war against mafia, the gangsters have returned _ this time with new tactics.

Instead of demanding protection money from drivers, they are taking advantage of the motorcycle taxi registration process, which allows taxi drivers to wear an orange vest with the district name and a registration number.

The gangsters apply for the registration and illegally rent the vests to drivers who are charged between 2,000-20,000 baht as an upfront payment and 300-1,500 baht a month. Many vests with the same number are not unusual.

Unloading Business At Fulton Fish Market May Draw Mafia's Attention

A former Giuliani official reportedly says a city plan to open up bidding on unloading licenses at the new Fulton Fish Market could be a boon for the mafia.

According to a report in Monday’s edition of the New York Post, the city is allowing operators of the market to bid on licenses to unload fish for the first time since 1995. That move is drawing criticism from former Deputy Mayor Rudy Washington, who was in charge of the market's cleanup under former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani.

Washington tells the paper he disagrees with taking open bids. He says most of the mafia's control of the market was conducted in the unloading process.

A single Long Island company has been in charge of unloading fish for the past 10 years. However, the Post says officials who back the new policy insist all potential bidders have been checked out, and that the mafia will not return to prominence.

The Fulton Fish Market moves from Lower Manhattan to Hunts Point in the Bronx later this month.

Mafia 'godmother' turns collaborator to give her children a future

Giuseppina Vitale was a hard woman of the Mafia, one of the new breed of "bosses in skirts" to which the Sicilian mob has grudgingly grown accustomed.

So many bosses are in jail that often the only person available to keep the funds flowing and the mobsters in line is little sister.

Giusy (pronounced "Juicy") Vitale played her part with conviction. The Mafia was her family's life. Her brothers, Leonardo and Vito, were rising stars of the Palermo underworld, spoken of in hushed tones as the likely heirs to capo di capi Bernardo "The Tractor" Provenzano, who has been on the run for more than 40 years.

But Vitale, 33, is now a collaborator with justice and has been telling a Rome court what it is like to grow up in such a family.