Businessman didn't know partner was mafioso

USTI NAD LABEM (PDM staff with CTK) 19 August - Rene Slepcik, who owned the Rene&Umberto company with Sicilian mafia boss Luigi Putrone in Usti, had allegedly no idea about the Italian's criminal post, the local issue of the daily Deniky Bohemia (DB) reported yesterday.

Czech police recently detained Putrone, 44, who was sentenced to life in prison in Italy, in Usti. He is the head of an Italian mafia clan of took part in a series of murders, allegedly killing nine people himself.

Slepcik knew Putrone under the name Umberto Bonfiglio. He met the Italian in his night club in Dubi, north Bohemia, five years ago.

"I am no goody-goody, but if I had known what he was I would not have established a company with him after all," Slepcik told the paper.

He noted he regarded the Italian as a good man. "He wanted to live here as a normal man," he said, adding that Putrone frequented local pubs and liked to sit in Italian restaurants.

Slepcik said he used to meet his business partner in a fitness centre. "He [Putrone] did not want to go out with me very often, maybe over my name," Slepcik said, hinting at the fact that his family is well-known in Usti.

Mafia associate admits to collecting money in state

NEW HAVEN (AP) - A 73-year-old associate of the Gambino crime family admitted Thursday that he collected debts for Connecticut's top Mob boss, but he took issue with his nickname and asked for more time to spend with his elderly mother.

Nicola Melia, who pleaded guilty to racketeering, was a relatively minor player charged in a sweeping indictment last year that accused 18 reputed Mob members and associates of racketeering, extortion and illegal gambling. But Melia's nicknames gave him more notoriety. Speaking in a hoarse voice and sporting a neat brown suit with matching shoes, Melia said he was simply known as Nick.

Judge Janet Bond Arterton noted that the indictment referred to him as "The Greaseball" and "The Old Man." "That's incorrect," Melia said. "I've never heard that before. I've been arrested before." His attorney, H. James Pickerstein, explained that Melia might be referred to by those names when he is not present.

Melia, a Stamford resident who emigrated from Italy 50 years ago with virtually no formal schooling, admitted he tried to collect a $2,500 loan but said he wound up paying the loan when his friend didn't pay up. Pickerstein said a conversation intercepted by investigators suggested steps would be taken to enforce payment of the loan. "I'm going to do what I gotta do," Melia said, according to his attorney.

16 indicted in Mafia gambling roundup

New Jersey's highest-ranking Genovese crime family member and 15 associates have been accused of racketeering and running a multimillion-dollar sports-gambling, loan-sharking and extortion ring, federal authorities say.

An indictment unsealed Wednesday says crews of Genovese associates ran numbers games and football-ticket gambling operations out of delicatessens, social clubs and bars in Hoboken and Jersey City, netting nearly $3 million for the nation's most powerful crime family.

In addition, federal authorities said the alleged mobsters - many from Bergen and Hudson counties - preyed on Greek restaurateurs and business owners, targeting them for loan-sharking and charging them for protection.

"Today's arrests are another nail in the coffin of organized crime in New Jersey," said Leslie G. Wiser Jr., special agent in charge of the FBI's Newark division.

Authorities say Lawrence Dentico - known as "Little Guy" or "Little Larry" - was among a group of crime-family members who formed the Genovese administration after boss Vincent "The Chin" Gigante's racketeering conviction in 1997.

Reputed Mafia Figure Dies

Reputed Kansas City mafia figure Charles Moretina has died, 22 years after being convicted in a casino skimming investigation. That conviction marked the beginning of a decline of organized crime's influence in the Kansas City area.

Moretina and 10 other men were indicted in the skimming scheme,
which was the basis of Martin Scorcese's 1995 film "Casino.''

International drug mafia more active on Tajik-Russian thoroughfares

MOSCOW, August 19 (RIA Novosti) - The Russian Interior Ministry is concerned over the international drug mafia's growing activity on Russia and Tajik thoroughfares, Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev said Friday.

"Of special concern is the deteriorating criminal situation on transport linking Tajikistan and Russia," Nurgaliyev said at a joint Interior Ministry session.

According to ministry data, in 2004 and the first six months of 2005, more than 100kg of illicit drugs were confiscated in trains, cars and aircraft in Russia. Drug couriers were detained for heroin transportation.

Tajik Interior Minister Khumdin Sharipov said a high yield of raw opium had been gathered in Afghanistan in 2004, which could be "used to produce some 400 metric tons of heroin."

Nurgaliyev said 145,000 people suspected of committing grave crimes and "some 2,000 criminals are being searched for by Tajik law enforcement agencies."

Drug Suspect's Pet Squirrel Attacks Officer

A police officer in Massachusetts was treated at a hospital after a drug suspect's squirrel attacked him during an attempted arrest, according to a Local 6 News report.

Officer Dwayne Flowers said he and his partner were attempting to arrest a woman wanted on drug charges in Leominister, Mass., when her loose pet squirrel attacked.

"The claws are very sharp, I guess he mistook me for a tree," officer Flowers said. "The squirrel was moving at such speed, I didn't see it and neither did my partner standing shoulder-length away from me."Flowers drove to a hospital after the attack while other officers captured Spanky the squirrel and arrested its owner.After the arrest, Flowers' partner laughed at the attack."He had a good chuckle," Flowers said. "I tried raising him on the radio but they couldn't answer their radio call because they were too busy laughing"Flowers injuries from the attack were considered minor.

Sunday, August 14, 2005

Mafia don accused of faking his illness

LUCKNOW: Dreaded mafia don and notorious international kidnapper Babloo Srivastava is currently under psychiatric treatment at a hospital here but a police officer says this is only a ruse to ease the rigours of imprisonment.

“Barely a few months ago he had come to attend the wedding of his sister in Lucknow and looked absolutely fit and fine. I wonder if the illness is real or made-up,” said the officer of the special task force that has been keeping a close watch on Srivastava.

According to the records of the King George’s Medical University psychiatry department, Srivastava is suffering from agoraphobia, a condition doctors say is triggered by loneliness.

The police officer refused to buy this.

“We are aware that he has a stream of visitors. He has been caught several times using mobile phones inside the jail. So, where is the question of loneliness?” the officer asked.

According to him, the hospital doctors had either been bribed or intimidated to certify the illness.

Friday, August 12, 2005

Czechs arrest Italian Mafia boss

Luigi Putrone was arrested by Czech police as he ran errands

A fugitive Italian Mafia boss who has been on the run for six years has been arrested in the Czech Republic.

Police in Prague said Luigi Putrone had probably been living in the Czech Republic for several years since going on the run in the late 1990s.

An Italian court has already sentenced him in absentia to life imprisonment for murders and Mafia-related crimes.

Mr Putrone, 44, from Agrigento in Sicily, was listed among Italy's top 30 most wanted Mafia bosses.

Italian police had alerted their Czech colleagues that Mr Putrone may be in the country.

Homeland Security arrests almost 600 gang members

WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal authorities arrested 582 alleged gang members over a two-week period, officials said Monday, targeting an estimated 80 violent groups they say have spawned street crimes across the country.

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff called the gangs "a threat to our homeland security and ... a very urgent law enforcement priority."

Investigators picked up most of the offenders between July 16 and July 28 on immigration violations for being in the United States illegally. Seventy-six face criminal charges, ranging from illegal possession of a firearm to holding fraudulent documents.

Mafia-style tactics surface in court hearing

Two brothers stand accused in the Cape High Court for operating a highly-sophisticated hijacking scheme which fleeced a tobacco company of millions of rands in cigarettes.

And the man who allegedly bought the cigarettes Selwyn and Virgil de Vries are accused of stealing from hijacked British American Tobacco (BAT) Company trucks - allegedly with the help of eight accomplices - also faces a heavy sentence if convicted of being involved in the plot.

The brothers, alleged buyer Achmat Mather and alleged accomplices Julian van Heerden, Vernon Victor, Alex Anna, Gary Williams, Llewellyn Smith, Francis Ngarinoma, Edward Moagi and Darryl Pitt, face 22 charges. They include kidnapping, theft, robbery with aggravated circumstances and attempted murder.