The Mafia's shadow men

In their quest to assemble fragments of the past into a coherent explanation for why things happened as they did, historians tend to take one of two paths. Some stick to the deeds of kings, presidents and famous military commanders, agreeing with Thomas Carlyle that "the history of the world is but the biography of great men." Others contend that the engines of history are really to be found in the anonymous multitudes, whose collective needs and capabilities determine the overarching economic, technological and social realities that shape the world and its future. And then there is a third notion, usually discredited but always seductive, that history is the product of a different breed of great men: the kind who plot their schemes in dark shadows and keep their identities secret. Such a man was Sidney Korshak.

20 Suspects Detained in Stock Market Manipulation Operation

Istanbul’s financial police broke up an organized crime gang accused of money laundering and market manipulation, the Turkish channel NTV reported.

Turkish Capital Market Committee experts, acting on tips that there were manipulation attempts at the Istanbul Stock Exchange market, detected irregularities in the shares of five companies.

Having been informed about the irregularities, financial police teams detained 20 suspects in simultaneous operations.

The investigation into the issue in still underway.

N.Y. man is accused of doing crime family’s South Florida ‘dirty work’

Before Clement Santoro put a gun to a man's head, broke his fingers and bloodied his nose, the accused mob associate had dinner with other members of the Genovese organized crime syndicate at a West Palm Beach restaurant called -- fittingly -- Soprano's, a prosecutor said Monday.

According to state records, the restaurant, named after the HBO television drama about a New Jersey crime family, is owned by Renaldi Ruggiero of Palm Beach Gardens, the man prosecutors say ran South Florida operations for the Genovese family.

Drug mafia's infiltration of military grows clearer

The killing of 10 Colombian policemen by army soldiers illustrates the depths to which the drug mafia may have penetrated the military.

BOGOTA - It was a set of killings like few others in Colombia's long and violent history.

Many of the 11 dead were members of an elite police unit raiding a drug lord's lair. The shooters were army soldiers allegedly on the payroll of the accused trafficker, Diego Montoya, who is next to Osama Bin Laden on the FBI's most wanted list.

The military called it a ''friendly fire'' incident. But the attorney general said it was a ''massacre,'' and when a military tribunal tried to handle the case, his office took over the case in a rare show of legal muscle.

Indeed, the scandal surrounding the death of 10 members of the judicial police -- known as DIJIN, its Spanish acronym -- and an informant in early June has not just damaged the reputation of the army and the government, but raised questions over traffickers' infiltration of the government at a time when Colombia is seeking continued U.S. aid for the fight against illicit drugs.

Appeals court upholds Detroit Mafia figure's sentence

DETROIT A federal appeals court upheld the 71-month prison sentence given to a man described by the government as the Detroit Mafia's one-time underboss.

Seventy-eight-year-old Anthony Zerilli contends that U-S District Judge Lawrence Zatkoff failed to properly consider his advanced age and poor health when sentencing him in an extortion case.

Judge overturns convictions of NY "Mafia cops"

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A federal judge on Friday overturned the racketeering convictions of two former New York police detectives accused of murdering for the Mafia, citing the statute of limitations.

The judge denounced retired detectives Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa as "heinous criminals" but said federal prosecutors failed to show their conspiracy continued up until five years before the charges were brought.

The men were each sentenced to life in prison following their three-week trial in March for committing eight murders for the Luchese crime family from 1986 to 1990.

Their lawyers appealed their convictions after U.S. District Judge Jack Weinstein expressed concern throughout the case about the "thin connection" between earlier and later crimes contained within their racketeering conspiracy charges.

Head of Naples mafia arrested in Spanish resort

BARCELONA — Spanish police arrested the head of the Naples mafia in the fashionable resort town of Sitges on Monday.

Carmine Rispoli, 38, widely considered to be the top figure in the Mafia-like Di Lauro clan, is one of the most powerful factions within the Camorra organized crime group from the Naples area.

Police said Rispoli had been sought for four years by Italian authorities, who in April issued a Europe-wide arrest order for him for various activities connected with organized crime, including drug trafficking.

He was taken into custody in the northeastern town of Sitges.

Mafia Cop Trial Defense Was 'Excellent,' Judge Says

Bruce Cutler, one of two high-profile lawyers who were accused by their former clients of putting on a shoddy defense, was let off the hook today by a Brooklyn judge, who praised the lawyer for the "highly professional" job he did in defending former New York Police Department detective Louis Eppolito.

Italy: 45 Arrested to Thwart Mafia War

The police arrested at least 45 people in what they said was a operation aimed at thwarting an all-out Mafia war of succession after the capture of Bernardo Provenzano, the boss of all bosses of the Sicilian Mafia, in April. They said that the suspects, including the heads of 13 Mafia families in Sicily, made up the support network that had allowed Mr. Provenzano to remain on the run for 43 years and that the sweep came after wiretaps pointed to a possible Mafia war of succession.

Top Mafia boss to be extradited from Czech Republic

A top boss from the Sicilian Mafia arrested in the Czech Republic last year will be extradited to Italy, an official said Wednesday.

Justice Minister Pavel Nemec decided Wednesday that Luigi Putrone will be extradited to Italy, spokesman Petr Dimun said.

Putrone, 44, was arrested in December as he was leaving a bakery in the Czech town of Usti nad Labem, near the German border.

Son of Italy's last king held over Mafia and prostitution claims

The son of Italy's last king, Prince Victor Emmanuel, has been arrested in the north Italian town of Lecco as part of an investigation into charges he was involved with the Sicilian Mafia and a prostitution racket.

36 People Charged In Mexican-Mafia Probe

A long-term probe targeting Latino street gangs with ties to the Mexican Mafia resulted in 36 people being charged in five federal indictments, which were unsealed Friday.

In one indictment, 22 individuals were charged with participating in a Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organization, or RICO, conspiracy.

According to that indictment, the defendants engaged in multiple racketeering acts in furtherance of the Mexican Mafia criminal enterprise, including murder, conspiracy to commit murder, attempted murder, robbery, extortion and conspiracy to import drugs into the United States.

Boy clinging to life after Mafia father used him as human shield

A SIX-YEAR-OLD boy was fighting for his life last night after his mobster father tried to use him as a human shield as he was shot dead by rivals in a Mafia hit.

Alessio Salvia was wounded four times in the stomach and back as the car he and his father Giuseppe Salvia, 29, were in was ambushed and riddled with bullets by gangsters with machine guns.

Students spark mafia boycott in Palermo

PALERMO, Italy (AFP) - A small group of determined students in Palermo has succeeded where many have failed in the past by persuading local business people in this Mafia stronghold to make a public stand against extortion.A campaign launched nearly two years ago by students fed up with the unwillingness of their elders to speak out against the mob has finally borne fruit in recent months, as one by one local business people agreed to oppose the mafia extortion, known as "pizzo".

Mexican Mafia members could have death penalty

June 15, 2006 — Prosecutors are expected to announce whether they will seek the death penalty against three reputed Mexican Mafia gang members at hearing later this month.

A special grand jury this week upgraded charges to capital murder against three of the 10 alleged gang members accused in the 2003 killing of Jo Ann Chavez of Harlingen.

During a status hearing Wednesday in the 197th District Court, Judge Migdalia Lopez said she will hold a pre-trial conference June 27 in Raymondville.

No positives so far in World Cup drug testing

BERLIN, Germany -- FIFA's chief medical official expects the World Cup to be drug free.

Soccer's governing body conducted more than 125 tests in 24 international friendlies and all 32 training camps before the tournament started last Friday, and tested two players from each team in the opening matches.

So far there have been no positives, Dr. Jiri Dvorak said Sunday, confirming that some of the sport's biggest stars had been tested.

Vatican assails sex industry at World Cup

VATICAN CITY - A Holy See representative denounced on Friday the prostitution industry that looms in the background of the World Cup soccer competition in Germany. The World Cup opened Friday midnight Manila time.

Archbishop Agostino Marchetto, secretary of the Pontifical Council for Migrants and Travelers, told Vatican Radio that behind the phenomenon of prostitution is the trafficking in human beings.

The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe has warned that 30,000 to 60,000 women and girls will fall victim to forced prostitution and abuse during the World Cup.

Prostitution was legalized in Germany in 2002. The sex industry has prepared for the expected influx of three million soccer fans by constructing mega-brothels and “sex shacks,” with private parking, showers and the promise to maintain clients’ privacy.

Son of Sicilian mayor arrested as Mafia fortune is tracked down

Prosecutors in Palermo claim to have tracked down a legendary Mafia fortune with the arrest this week of Massimo Ciancimino, the son of a notoriously corrupt Palermo mayor.

Mr Ciancimino, 43, appears in court in Palermo on Tuesday charged with money laundering and other offences. His lawyer, Giorgio Ghiron, has also been arrested. Prosecutors believe the fortune accumulated by the son and heir of "Don" Vito Ciancimino could be about €60m (£33m).

Russian mafia blamed for sex, drug charges

IT'S A CASE with all the ingredients of a John le Carre novel -- allegations of a drug-soaked liaison between a high-placed diplomat and a pair of young men that leads to his dispatch back to Moscow, a slew of criminal charges and claims of "dirty tricks" from the Russian mafia.

Connecticut prosecutors say Mafia ran trash industry

NEW HAVEN, Conn. -- Each week, tens of thousands of southern Connecticut residents put their garbage out by the curb. And each week, prosecutors said, the Mafia decided who came by and picked it up.

'Mafia Cops:' Our Lawyer Botched Case

(AP) NEW YORK Wearing sharply tailored suits and sharing "Godfather"-style kisses in the courtroom, defense attorneys Bruce Cutler and Edward Hayes appeared a formidable defense team for two ex-NYPD detectives accused of eight slayings while on working for the mob.

Prosecution to ask for Mexican Mafia change of venue

RAYMONDVILLE — Prosecutors will ask a special grand jury to upgrade charges to capital murder against reputed members of the Mexican Mafia prison gang, officials said Thursday.

The Cameron County District Attorney’s Office on Monday will seek to re-indict reputed gang members in the 2003 killing of Jo Ann Chavez, 33, of Harlingen, Assistant District Attorney Rebecca Rubane said at a hearing Thursday.

State District Judge Migdalia Lopez later issued a gag order to prohibit attorneys from releasing information on the case to the news media.

Defense attorney Alfredo Padilla argued that the news media could publish attorneys’ information that could taint the jury pool.

“I’m going to instruct you not to be talking to the press,” Lopez told attorneys. “This case is not going to be tried before the press. It’s going to be tried before a jury.”

Fifth Organized Crime Network in 7 Months

Debates over organized crime networks in Turkey that include army, police and mafia members continue.

The organizations accused of several crimes, from blackmail to murders by unknown perpetrators, are preparing to drag the country into chaos, bringing the issue to a new dimension.

Police authorities say there are several cell-type crime organizations in addition to the five organizations already demolished.

The country is face to face with a new version of the "state-within-state" structure which preoccupied the agenda for awhile after the Susurluk accident.

US judge promises life sentence for mafia cops

NEW YORK (AFP) - A New York judge has vowed to sentence two New York City police detectives convicted of moonlighting as mafia hitmen to life imprisonment for their "heinous" crimes.US District Court Justice Jack Weinstein told the two defendants that he would delay formal sentencing until nextth month, allowing them the opportunity to argue that their lawyer was incompetent.

Mafia cops face life in prison at sentencing

NEW YORK (AP) - Michal Greenwald Weinstein grew up pretending her father died of cancer, or maybe in a freak accident. Either was easier to accept than the truth, which remained a secret to her shattered family for nearly two decades.

Israel Greenwald, an unassuming diamond dealer, went to work on Feb. 10, 1986, and never came home. It wasn't until this April that his killers were finally brought to justice: one-time NYPD detectives Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa.

The pair was also convicted of seven other murders, all at the behest of a vicious mob underboss, in one of most sensational corruption cases in New York City police history. On Monday, the ex-partners turned crime partners return to U.S. District Court in Brooklyn to face sentences of life behind bars on their racketeering convictions.

Mobfather no help to whacked Postie - rat

The mob's main man at the New York Post was marked for murder - even though his father-in-law was a top gangster, a Mafia turncoat testified yesterday.

Former Bonanno underboss Salvatore Vitale said Post delivery foreman Robert Perrino was whacked to keep him from blabbing about the crime family's lucrative rackets at the tabloid.

Perrino was shot in 1992 shortly after gangsters learned that Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau had secretly planted a bug in his office at the newspaper's South St. plant.

Vitale said the Bonanno bosses feared Perrino was "weak and might spill the beans" about the crime family's corrupt activities at the Post.

"If Bobby got indicted, they might put pressure on him and ...Bobby would cooperate," Vitale said in Brooklyn Federal Court at the trial of reputed soldier Baldassare (Baldo) Amato, 54, and associate Anthony Basile, 36, who are charged with Perrino's murder.

BIS has no information on ties between PM, govt, mafia - Paroubek

Prague- The counter-intelligence service (BIS) has no information proving that the prime minister or other members of the government are linked to organised crime, PM Jiri Paroubek (Social Democrats, CSSD) has said on TV Prima, citing a report that BIS released today.

Paroubek's opponent in a discussion on TV Prima, opposition Civic Democrat (ODS) leader Mirek Topolanek, said that there exists another BIS report that says something different.

According to Paroubek, the report Topolanek was referring to is the BIS press report connected with the BIS annual report for 2004.

'It's going to be a little bit harder to get your cocaine in Vernon'

VERNON -- Four men have been charged with first-degree murder in the death of a man who disappeared in August 2004.

They are part of a group of eight men and two women who police say make up "The Greeks," which police allege is an organized crime network based in Vernon.

The group has also been charged with drug offences, including trafficking cocaine and marijuana.

"I would very strongly suspect that it's going to be a little bit harder to get your cocaine in Vernon over the next few months," said RCMP Cpl. Henry Proce.

FBI isn't giving up Hoffa investigation

MILFORD TOWNSHIP, Mich. (AP) — The FBI isn't giving up its search for the people responsible for the disappearance of Teamsters leader Jimmy Hoffa, even though its latest effort produced little more than buried trash.

"The FBI does not give up and will pursue all logical investigations, no matter how much time has passed," FBI agent Judy Chilen said Tuesday in announcing the end of a two-week dig at a horse farm outside Detroit.

Stabbed in prison, felon back in S.A.

A San Antonio man who testified against the Texas Mexican Mafia last year has been charged with a gun crime and is back in custody in Texas after an attempt on his life in Colorado.

Court records said Joe Rene Tamayo Sr., 40, was stabbed with a "shank" in the federal prison in Florence, Colo., for testifying against leaders of his former gang at a federal trial in San Antonio in April 2005.

Sicily elects governor linked with Mafia

Sicily has confirmed its dubious reputation by enabling Salvatore Cuffaro, a Christian Democrat on trial for complicity with the Mafia, to trounce the sister of a murdered anti-Mafia judge and win a second term as governor of the island.

Mr Cuffaro, nicknamed "Vasa Vasa" [Kiss Kiss] for his tendency to kiss all and sundry - he claims that he has kissed a quarter of all the people on the island - went on trial in Palermo last year. He was accused of tipping off a friend that his phone was being tapped by anti-Mafia investigators tracing links between Sicilian politicians, civil servants and the Mob. He refused to resign when sent for trial, saying he would only do so if convicted.

25% of Afghan drugs pass through Central Asia - Uzbek report

TASHKENT, May 29 (RIA Novosti) - About 25% of the narcotics produced in Afghanistan are transported through Central Asia and most of them end up on European and Russian streets, a regional anti-drugs agency said Monday.

According to a report published by Uzbekistan's National Analytical Center for drug control, about 150 metric tons of heroin and 30 metric tons of raw opium are smuggled every year through the "northern route" from Afghanistan.

Only 25% of the drugs are sold in transit countries and the remaining 75% are sold in Russia and western Europe, the report said.

Organized crime in Calgary paying for terrorism

A Calgary M.P. is not surprised organized crime in our city is funding a terrorist group in the Middle East.

Police say organized criminals are using debit and credit card fraud to finance terrorism.

Calgary Northeast M.P. Art Hanger says not enough is being done to stop the problem.

Hanger is the chair of the government's All-Party Justice Committee.

He says fraud and identity theft have been on the radar for years and it's time governments and law enforcement from around the world start working together.

Hanger says the Harper Government is also planning to give police more resources to track and catch the criminals.

From mob boss to devastating informant

NEW YORK - The killers put the dead canary in the freezer. Later, their work finished, they placed the bird inside the mouth of the equally deceased Bruno Facciola.

The August 1990 mob hit followed a tip from two corrupt NYPD detectives that the Luchese family capo had turned government informant. Facciola was stabbed, shot through both eyes and shot again in the head. Then came the bird. Message: Speak no evil.

The slaying was orchestrated by a diminutive thug known to fellow Mafiosi as "Little Al." Few embraced the mob ethos more fervently than Alphonse D'Arco, a hard case from the cradle.

"I was a man when I was born," Little Al once bragged. He committed every crime except pimping and pornography, which he deemed beneath his dignity. Murders? He committed eight while rising through the Luchese ranks.

Yakuza: Former gangster details Yamaguchi-gumi

TOKYO - Shinji Ishihara's story, as he tells it, starts with a murder.

It was the summer of 1970. Though the Yamaguchi-gumi was easily the biggest gangster syndicate in Japan, with tens of thousands of members, it was still trying to crack the huge Tokyo market for vice, which was tightly controlled by smaller but deeply entrenched gangs.

Ishihara was one of the first Yamaguchi-gumi bosses to try to break their monopoly. With several underlings, he rented a small apartment near a popular red-light district and started a series of scams aimed at cheating the competition out of its profits.

"We'd target other gangs," he recalled, "mainly because they had money and they weren't going to run off and complain to the police."

Often, he would deliberately arrange a violent confrontation with a local gang that would lead to a negotiated truce, and then an alliance. If that didn't work, he had an array of other options that usually had a common result — money in his pocket.

Three provinces to join forces to bust organized crime

Ontario Attorney General Michael Bryant says Ontario, Quebec and Manitoba are working out a deal that will make it easier for the three provinces to crack down on organized crime. Bryant said the three provinces will share information at all levels, and in a wide variety of ways. That includes resources, expert witnesses, and if need be, training, all with the aim of improving the prosecution of organized crime cases. He said the deal will also improve co-operation among investigations in the three provinces. Bryant said the deal would be useful "not only to determine whether or not we should be joining forces on a particular matter, but also sharing best practices on a particular case."

FBI ties security chief to organized crime

Aloha Stadium security chief Herbert Naone occupies a "prominent position in Hawai'i's organized crime and narcotics trafficking underworld" and used connections in government and local law enforcement to help himself and others evade arrest and prosecution, according to sworn FBI affidavits filed in federal court.

The affidavits, unsealed last month, were originally filed in 2004 to justify telephone wiretaps in a two-year FBI investigation of drug trafficking, gambling and government corruption in Hawai'i. The investigation produced indictments last month of some three dozen individuals, including an FBI secretary, several Honolulu police officers and a Honolulu Liquor Commission supervisor.

Hoffa search continuing through weekend

MILFORD TOWNSHIP, Mich. - The search for the remains of labor leader Jimmy Hoffa would continue through the Memorial Day weekend after nothing was found in the 11th day of digging at a horse farm, the FBI said Saturday. For several hours, agents used a backhoe to dig where a barn had been demolished a few days earlier at the Hidden Dreams Farm about 30 miles northwest of Detroit, said FBI spokeswoman Dawn Clenney.

Blasts, gunshots at Fukuoka yakuza offices in apparent infighting

(Kyodo) _ Explosions and gunshots occurred Sunday night in Kurume, Fukuoka Prefecture, involving the Dojin-kai crime syndicate and infighting is suspected, police officials said Monday.

The police said that the ruckus, suspected to be infighting over the Dojin-kai leadership, took place at the headquarters and four offices of the crime organization.

The police collected dozens of empty cartridges apparently from a machine gun at the group's headquarters, and said they believe explosives were used at three of the four offices and a gun at the remaining office.

The police received calls from people who heard explosions and gunshots around the sites at about 11 p.m. Sunday. Nobody was injured.

Enryakuji temple leaders resign over yakuza service

OTSU--Under fire for allowing a yakuza memorial rite at Enryakuji--the head temple of the Tendai sect of Buddhism--the temple's entire leadership has stepped down.

Chief representative and priest Gyoun Imadegawa and his six deputies all resigned Thursday to take responsibility for permitting a Yamaguchi-gumi memorial service to be held April 21 at the temple's Amidado Hall on Mount Hieizan.

About 90 people associated with the nation's largest crime syndicate attended, many of them bosses of its direct affiliates.

Enryakuji had rejected the Shiga prefectural police's request a day earlier to call off the event, saying it was too big to cancel on such short notice.

Mexican Mafia suspect caught

The last man sought by authorities in connection with Mexican Mafia organized crime in Kerr County was arrested Wednesday in Boerne.

Moses Hernandez, 27, skipped town after being indicted by the 198th Judicial District grand jury for engaging in organized criminal activity and robbery. He also was wanted by U.S. Marshals for violation of parole on aggravated assault charges.

Hernandez was spotted in the Taco Cabana in Boerne by Jose Barreto, a former narcotics officer based in Kerr County, who now works in Kendall County.

“He’s been running since he got indicted,” Barreto said Thursday. “We tried to arrest him a couple of times, but he went on the run.”

Barreto was one of the officers involved in investigating Mexican Mafia activities in Kerrville. The probe has resulted in four men being convicted and sentenced to the Texas Department of Corrections on sentences ranging from 15 to 50 years.

“I stopped to get my morning tacos and Mr. Moses was in front of me,” Barreto said. “I forgot about the tacos, got an orange juice and went back to my car.”

Barreto said he called out a marked patrol car, and when it arrived, he and that officer parked their vehicles in the way of Hernandez’ car. The wanted man was inside his vehicle eating, Barreto said.

Alleged Mafia Cop Speaks Out

(CBS) Over the years, 60 Minutes has done its share of stories about police corruption, but none more outrageous than the one you’re about to hear: it’s the story of two New York City police officers who stand accused of being hired killers for the mafia.

Stephen Caraccappa and Louis Eppolito – two highly decorated former detectives – are set to go on trial next month, charged with the murders of 10 people, murders committed on the orders of a vicious mob boss.

For the first time, one of those detectives, Stephen Caracappa, who is free on bail, talks to correspondent Ed Bradley and answers the allegations that he betrayed his badge and became a mafia hitman.

Yakuza on the rise again in Japan

ELEANOR HALL: The power of Japan's mafia, the Yakuza is on the rise again, as the criminal gangs cash in on a rebounding economy.

After a decade and a half in the economic doldrums, Japan's property market is showing signs of movement.

But as the prices have risen so have acts of extortion and even murder.

And while police have arrested one Yakuza leader this month over a suspicious property deal, there are accusations that authorities are not doing enough to control the criminal gangs.

From Tokyo, Correspondent Shane McLeod reports.

SHANE MCLEOD: After 15 years in the economic doldrums, things may be finally looking up for Japan.

There's been sustained economic growth, and the corrosive deflation of property prices may finally be at an end.

But the optimistic outlook doesn't just apply to the economy.

For Japan's organised crime gangs, the Yakuza, the return of good times applies to them as well.

Raisuke Miyawaki is a former head of the National Police Agency's organised crime division.

RAISUKE MIYAWAKI: The Yakuza have always had a strong connection to the Japanese real estate business in performing with Jiage - obtaining separately owned properties through coercion, and joining with them into a single developed property.

SHANE MCLEOD: Mr Miyawaki is known as the man who labelled Japan's economic downturn as the 'yakuza recession'.

He pointed out that the bad times had been more prolonged than they might have otherwise been, because of Yakuza links to many of the bad debts being carried by Japan's banks.

Now, with the dark years apparently in the past, things are looking up, and looking like a Yakuza recovery.

RAISUKE MIYAWAKI: Everything the Yakuza do is so they can make money. And the real estate industry picks up. The Yakuza have more opportunity to provide services and to make more money. It's really quite simple. The Yakuza want money, and they can easily make it in the real estate world.

SHANE MCLEOD: There are already signs of the Yakuza's growing confidence in the property market.

Earlier this month police detained 10 men, including the head of a Yakuza gang, in an investigation of a suspicious property transaction in Tokyo.

Companies linked to the gang had taken control of the ownership of a 12-story building, around the same time as a real estate agent, whose company part owned the building, had been stabbed to death.

And it's not just Japanese companies that suffer harassment.

With foreign investors driving much of the boom in Japanese property, Mr Miyawaki gives the example of an American investment company that's been harassed by Yakuza-linked groups.

RAISUKE MIYAWAKI: If a Japanese company was investing in New York City and was being harassed by the Mafia, the US Government would put a stop to the harassment immediately. In Japan, however, nothing is done to control Yakuza extortion.

SHANE MCLEOD: Mr Miyawaki says part of the problem is a lack of will by Japan's politicians, some of whom rely on the same Yakuza groups to maintain political support.

The Mafia's Shadow Kingdom

The recent violence in Sao Paulo may just be the tip of the iceberg: In many parts of Brazil and indeed across Latin America, governments have capitulated to gangsters, and the rise of organized crime could end the recent leftward shift across Latin America.

A protest against crime in Caracas, Venzuela: Organized criminals are taking advantage of the government's weakness.
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REUTERS
A protest against crime in Caracas, Venzuela: Organized criminals are taking advantage of the government's weakness.
Garbage containers block the road into the slum district Vigario Geral, one of the most dangerous favelas in Rio de Janeiro. A visitor approaches the barricade, and two youths appear from the shadow of a nearby building. They're carrying machine guns, and handguns are tucked into their pants. "You want to go to church, right?" the older of the two asks the stranger politely. "We'll take you there -- we're registered."

A boy rolls the containers aside. The youths deposit their Kalashnikov rifles on the backseat of a taxi and direct the driver through the labyrinthine streets. Father Marco Freitas receives his guest in front of the congregation room of Assembleia de Deus, a Protestant sect. The priest knows the two youths: "They respect me; they often come to the service. It's only during police raids that things get dangerous."

Mafia heir alleged to have lied about going legit

NEW YORK — A federal indictment on Monday charged John “Junior” Gotti with continuing to commit mob-related crimes even as he claimed that he quit organized crime years ago.

The new accusations come as prosecutors prepare for the July 5 start of Gotti’s third trial on racketeering charges. Juries deadlocked at two previous trials in the last year.

The new indictment alleges that Gotti tampered with a witness last year and used money earned illegally through the Gambino crime family to create and operate holding companies used to buy real estate and collect rents.

Gotti’s lawyer, Charles Carnesi, did not immediately respond to calls seeking comment.

Since the end of Gotti’s last trial, prosecutors have issued grand jury subpoenas to Gotti’s relatives and suspected Gambino crime family members and associates.

The indictment said Gotti used money made through racketeering to help establish and operate a brokerage company that received rent proceeds from businesses.

It said Gotti participated in a conspiracy last summer to persuade a witness to testify falsely at a trial involving members of another organized crime family.

The new indictment challenges the defense legal theory at Gotti’s last trial that their client had quit the mob by 1999, when he pleaded guilty in another racketeering case.

Mafia: Rise, Fall and Resurgence

Selwyn Raab recently met with Gotham Gazette's Reading NYC Book Club to discuss his book Five Families: The Rise, Fall and Resurgence of America's Most Powerful Mafia Empires, a history of the Mafia from its origins in Sicily to the present day. The following is an edited transcript of the event.

GOTHAM GAZETTE: Mr. Raab, your book focuses largely on the fall of the New York crime families, but the title includes the phrase "resurgence." What's going on with the Mafia in New York City right now?

SELWYN RAAB: Up until 9/11, there had been a 20-year long, concentrated attack against the Mafia, based on the Racketeer Influence Corruptions Act, popularly known as RICO. What was important about RICO was that for the first time it gave prosecutors an effective tool to go after the big shots in organized crime. At the attack's peak, there were 200 people working full time on just investigating the five Mafia families in New York -- the Gambino, the Bonano, the Colombo, the Lucchese, and the Genovese. The FBI had a specific squad following each family, and were able to bust John Gotti, Vincente "The Chin" Gigante, and other bosses, even though they didn't pull a trigger or shake anyone down themselves.

Cuban Mafia boss pleads guilty in federal trial

MIAMI - The man known as the godfather of the Cuban-American Mafia has pleaded guilty to charges in his federal racketeering trial because of declining health.

Jose Miguel Battle Sr., 76, could be sentenced as early as late summer for serving as the boss of "The Corporation," a crime ring that operated in New York, Florida and Latin America over four decades.

But Battle suffers from kidney and liver failure, diabetes and cardiac problems, and his lawyer says he's very sick. Battle faces from 20 years to life in prison after pleading guilty April 27 to racketeering conspiracy.

"This way, he can die at home rather than in jail," said Jack Blumenfeld, Battle's attorney.

Battle, his son and four other defendants were accused of five murders, four arson attacks resulting in eight deaths, and more than $1.5-billion collected from drug trafficking, bookmaking and numbers rackets.

Mafia boss wanted in Spain arrested in Dubai

MADRID — The boss of a Russian mafia gang wanted in Spain in connection with a multi-million euro money laundering scam has been arrested in Dubai.

Zuhar Knuyazevich Kalashov was arrested as he left a party held by other Russian mafia leaders in the Gulf city.

Kalashov, whose gang is based in Barcelona, is facing extradition to Spain in connection with allegations of laundering millions through Spanish property interests.

In June last year, Spanish police arrested 30 people, most of them Russian or Eastern European gang members, in an operation codenamed Wasp.

The operation to arrest Kalashov was led by Spanish police working with Interpol and the Emirates
authorities.

Rome exhibition gives brutal insight into Mafia murders

Rome - A photo exhibition in Rome has shocked visitors with its brutal records of Mafia killings, blowing away the romanticised and sanitised image of Cosa Nostra.

The pictures were taken in the Sicilian capital Palermo from the start of the 1980s by a team of photographers working for the photo department of a local daily newspaper.

"There were four or five of us," said Letizia Battaglia, now 71.

"We were tuned into police radio frequencies and we spent our days waiting for 'it' to happen.

"Then we raced off on our Vespas to be first on the scene," said Battaglia, an anti-Mafia campaigner who became a local politician in Palermo and then a regional Sicilian assembly member,

Some of her pictures from those days are included in the Rome exhibition, which ends on May 14, with others taken by her former companion Franco Zecchin.

"You could have five murders in the same day," said Battaglia.

"The work was exhausting but you couldn't stand by with your arms folded, with our little Mafia on our little island.

"We had to bear witness to this violence and the world had to know."

Fourth Mexican Mafia member convicted

The fourth defendant in an organized crime case involving the Mexican Mafia in Kerrville has pleaded guilty.

Robert Chacon Menchaca, 44, of Center Point was sentenced to three 15-year terms in the Texas Department of Corrections on Friday by 198th Judicial District Judge E. Karl Prohl. Menchaca pleaded guilty to one charge of involvement in an organized criminal street gang, the Mexican Mafia, and two robbery charges.

Menchaca admitted he was part of a group of men who took a 1995 Pontiac Firebird from alleged Kerrville drug dealer Frankie Alvarado, and a 2000 Yamaha motorcycle from alleged drug dealer Hector Cantu during two incidents in June 2005. Alvarado and Cantu both testified to the Mexican Mafia members’ actions during the trial of Menchaca’s co-defendant Jesus “Jesse” Jimenez at the beginning of April.

Menchaca also pleaded guilty Friday to violating the terms of his deferred adjudication probation on a previous 216th Judicial District case. Prohl sentenced Menchaca to a separate five-year term for that offense. All four sentences will run concurrently.

Earlier this week, Robert Menchaca’s brother, Sammy Chacon Menchaca, received two 20-year sentences after pleading guilty to the same organized crime and one robbery offense. Robert Perez received an 18-year sentence for organized crime. Jimenez, the only one of the four to go through a jury trial, was sentenced to 50 years.

Mafia's brutal new leader

THE recently arrested head of the Mafia has appointed as his successor a trigger-happy playboy who has been on the run for 13 years.

The promotion of Matteo "Diabolik" Messina Denaro, 43, was revealed in a letter written by Bernardo Provenzano, the 73-year-old former "boss of all bosses", who was seized by police two weeks ago at a farmhouse near Corleone, in Sicily.

"Matteo, the head of the Mafia will be you," Provenzano wrote a week before he was discovered.

It is not certain that the instructions were received.

Denaro, who once boasted that "I filled a cemetery all by myself", was born in western Sicily and by 14 had learned to use a gun. He later sealed a reputation for brutality by murdering a rival gang leader and strangling his pregnant girlfriend.

His nickname "Diabolik" comes from a comic book, and he is an icon for the younger Mafiosi.

Bible studies may reveal Godfather's secrets

Italian police codebreakers are turning to the Bible in their efforts to get at the many secrets of the mafia's "boss of bosses".

Bernardo Provenzano was arrested this month after 43 years on the run. When an undercover policewoman known as "the Cat" walked into his rural hideout on April 11 she found him surrounded by encoded messages to and from his lieutenants.

Piero Grasso, Italy's chief anti-mafia prosecutor, said they offer investigators a mine of information on the inner workings of the world's most notorious crime syndicate. But the meaning of some remains obscure, and there is a suspicion Cosa Nostra's leader used the Good Book as a key.

Reputed Mafia Boss Provenzano Tight-Lipped

ROME - Reputed Mafia boss Bernardo Provenzano refused to answer prosecutors' questions Thursday, ending his first official interrogation since his arrest after eight minutes, his lawyer said.Three prosecutors and a police official from Palermo, Sicily, questioned Provenzano in the presence of his lawyer, Franco Marasa. Provenzano responded when asked his name and date and place of birth, then clammed up as soon as prosecutors read him his rights, said Marasa.

"He said 'I intend to avail myself of my right not to answer,'" Marasa said by telephone, quoting his client.

The 73-year-old Provenzano was interrogated at the prison in Terni, central Italy, where he is being kept in an isolation cell.

Prosecutors Giuseppe Pignatone, Marzia Sabelli and Michele Prestipino were traveling Thursday afternoon and could not be reached for comment.

Provenzano was captured April 11, more than 40 years after he went into hiding, and is believed to have taken over leadership of the Sicilian Mafia after the 1993 arrest of Salvatore "Toto" Riina.

Riina also did not talk to investigators after he was captured, prosecutors have said.

Fears of Mafia power struggle

THE arrest of Mafia boss Bernardo Provenzano has raised fears about the stability of Sicily's Cosa Nostra, amid fears that the succession in organised crime circles could lead to a return of bloody clan feuding.

The two men tipped as his successor are Matteo "Diabolik" Messina Denaro, 43, from western Sicily and Salvatore Lo Piccolo, 63, from Palermo.

Both men are on the run, accused of Mafia crimes and murder, but their management styles are different. Denaro is a playboy and allegedly the more trigger-happy of the two. Lo Piccolo is said, like Provenzano in later years, to prefer a strategy of peace between clans as the best way to improve profits.

Denaro is viewed by the US FBI as one of the biggest drug dealers in the world and is said to have contacts with Colombian cocaine barons.

The last known picture of Denaro, who gets his nickname Diabolik from a cartoon character, was taken 10 years ago.

He was born near Trapani in western Sicily, where his father Francesco was the Mafia boss. He is said to have learned how to use a gun at 14.

He has reportedly killed at least 50 people and is believed to be behind Mafia bombings in 1993 in Rome, Florence and Milan in which 10 people died. After the bombings he went into hiding and has not been seen since.

Mafia shadow hangs over Corleone

Bernardo Provenzano
Bernardo Provenzano's reign is over, but who waits in the wings?
On a hillside, just a few kilometres from the Mafia heartland of Corleone, four men are hoeing soil around young vines.

The wind whistles around them on a sharp spring day as they push and pull great clods of earth away from the green plants.

They work for a co-operative called Libera Terra - Free Land.

The land it uses has been given to it by the Sicilian authorities - it is land confiscated from the Mafia.

Because one of the things the co-operative makes is pasta, its motto is: "Fighting the Mafia with macaroni". It's not a great joke, but it raises a smile.

For those who detest the Mafia and all its works in Sicily there has been one very good reason to smile this week; the capture, after an astonishing 43 years on the run, of Bernardo Provenzano.

Italian Mafia Boss Caught After 40 Years

PALERMO, Sicily - Italy's reputed No. 1 Mafia boss was arrested Tuesday at a farmhouse in the Sicilian countryside after frustrating investigators' efforts to catch him during more than 40 years on the run, the Interior Ministry said.Bernardo Provenzano, Italy's most wanted man, is believed to have taken over the Sicilian Mafia after the 1993 arrest of former boss Salvatore "Toto" Riina in Palermo.

"Bastard! Murderer!" a crowd shouted as black-hooded policemen took the elderly man out of a sedan and rushed him into the courtyard of a police building in Palermo. The gray-haired Provenzano, wearing a windbreaker and tinted glasses, glanced aside at one point but made no audible comment.

A Palermo police spokesman, Agent Daniele Macaluso, said Provenzano had been arrested in the morning near Corleone, the Sicilian town made famous in the "Godfather" movies. He was then driven to Palermo, 37 miles north of Corleone.

He was being questioned by anti-Mafia prosecutors in police offices, but was saying little, answering only questions about his identity, the Italian news agency ANSA reported from Palermo.

Interior Ministry Undersecretary Alfredo Mantovano described Provenzano as "the most important person from Cosa Nostra" after Riina, the so-called "boss of bosses" who was also arrested after years as a fugitive. He called the arrest "an important step forward ... for the entire nation."

Mexican Mafia cases split up

Four men pled not guilty Monday to charges of involvement in the Mexican Mafia and several 2005 robberies in the Kerrville area. All four were facing trial in the 198th Judicial District Court, however, only the case against Jesus “Jesse” Jiminez of Ingram proceeded Monday.

The attorneys for Sammy Menchaca of Rocksprings, Robert Menchaca of Center Point and Robert Perez of Kerrville successfully sought for their clients cases to be separated out. The three now are scheduled to go on trial in May.

Prosecutor Amos Barton finally gave opening arguments Monday, after procedural issues Thursday forced a delay. The nine-woman, three-man jury was seated, then sent home Thursday following a two-day selection process.

Two other men — Librado Rodriguez and Stephen Flores — also have been indicted on related charges. Flores took the stand Monday afternoon as the prosecution’s first witness. During more than three hours of testimony, he admitted involvement in the Mexican Mafia and his part in three robberies in June 2005.

Deliberations Start In 'Mafia Cops' Trial

(CBS) BROOKLYN A jury has started deliberating the fate of two retired NYPD detectives charged with being paid hit men for the mafia on eight counts of murder, two counts of attemtpted murder and various other racketerring charges.

The pair Louis Eppolito, 57, and Stephan Caracappa, 64, together with their flamboyant defense attorneys transformed the federal courthouse in Brooklyn into what resembled the set of a Hollywood mobster movie.

Authorities allege Eppolito, 57, and Caracappa, 64, were involved in eight killings between 1986 and 1990 while on the payroll both of the NYPD and Luchese underboss Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso. In return, they helped Casso avoid arrest, warned him of impending investigations and committed killings for up to $65,000 a hit, prosecutors said.

Late last month, U.S. District Judge Jack Weinstein ruled that 11th-hour revelations by jailed Mafia underboss Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso would not be cause for a mistrial, as the defense attorneys Bruce Cutler and Edward Hayes had asked for. Both attorneys had informed Weinstein, with the trial nearing an end, that Casso, notoroiusly violent capo of the Luchese crime family, was claiming that their clients were innocent of some of the charges, reversing previous allegations he made against the pair.

Sicily Mafia watches and waits for Italy to vote

PALERMO, Sicily (Reuters) - Years ago, when the Mafia wanted to influence elections in Sicily, it did not think twice about setting off a bomb or leaving a headless goat on a doorstep as a not-so-subtle message about whom to vote for.Now, as Italy approaches April's general election, the Sicilian Mafia has kept a low profile, a wait-and-see attitude aimed at not drawing attention to itself.

"The Mafia is paying attention. It is watching," said Antonio Ingroia, a top anti-Mafia magistrate in Sicily.

"It realizes that this is a delicate moment which could lead to some changes that might affect it," Ingroia said in an interview in Palermo's heavily protected main court building.

Magistrates and other anti-Mafia experts say the Mob is doing just fine these days. It is making money hand over fist without getting its hands bloody.

A new "Pax Mafiosa" has settled over the island.

The Mafia, realizing that the spotlight is not good for business, has stopped killing its enemies -- police officers, magistrates and politicians -- and even its own members.

"The Mafia is continuing in its strategy of keeping a low profile, a truce: weapons are out, business is in," Ingroia said.

The Mafia makes its money from ensuring that companies it controls directly or indirectly get a share of services and construction contracts, especially public works contracts.

Spain busts Romanian mafia ring, 297 arrested

MADRID (Reuters) - Spanish police have arrested a mafia ring of nearly 300 Romanians in one of their biggest operations against foreign criminals.

The network was organised by one leader, known as Iorgu I or Talanu, with several lieutenants, and operated in eight of Spain's 17 regions, the Interior Ministry said on Friday.

"The crimes for which these mafia groups are accused include violent robbery, forgery and fraudulent use of credit cards, drug trafficking, falsifying documents, illegal possession of weapons, prostitution and offences against worker rights," Interior Minister Jose Antonio Alonso told a news conference.

Spanish police arrested 283 people and Romanian authorities detained another 14.

Gotti jury deadlocks in NY Mafia mistrial

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A judge declared a mistrial in the case of suspected Mafia boss John "Junior" Gotti on Friday after deadlocked jurors were unable to reach a verdict for the second time in six months.Prosecutors immediately said they would seek a third trial on racketeering and other charges against Gotti, whose late father was one of New York's most notorious crime bosses.

Judge Shira Scheindlin called the jury's day-and-a-half of deliberations "surprisingly short" but said "the jury has spoken" after it had sent her two notes saying the 12-member panel was hopelessly deadlocked.

A hearing was called for Monday at which a new trial date could be set.

Gotti's defense focused on the claim that he had given up mob life. He hugged his lawyers upon hearing of the mistrial and left the courthouse surrounded by a gaggle of reporters.

"I want to raise my children," he said. "That's all I wanted in life."

A previous trial also resulted in a deadlocked jury, forcing the retrial. The second trial rekindled New York's obsession with the Mafia and Gotti's infamous father, revealing accounts of bloody shootings and secret mob codes.

Gotti, 42, was accused of leading the Gambino crime family, extorting construction companies, loan-sharking and ordering a brutal attack on Curtis Sliwa, the founder of New York's Guardian Angels anti-crime patrol, because of his critical comments about the Gotti family on his radio show.

Sliwa did not believe Gotti had withdrawn from the Mafia, telling reporters, "There's only one way to withdraw from the mob and that's to be at room temperature."

Mills linked to mafia go-between

Fresh doubts about the business affairs of Tessa Jowell's husband emerged yesterday with the discovery that he set up a company whose directors included a man acting as the intermediary between Silvio Berlusconi's political party and the mafia.

David Mills, a corporate lawyer, carried out the appointment of Marcello Dell'Utri as a director on the board of Publitalia International, a London-registered media advertising agency on the day of the company's incorporation in 1985.

Yakuza members arrested

This morning at 3 AM in Japan, four members of Yamaguchi-gumi’s top committee were arrested in relations to events surrounding the Inoki Bom-Ba-Ye 12/31/2003 Kobe Wing Stadium show. The arrests made were in relation to events concerning Mirko Cro Cop’s non-appearance on the event, and also attempts to stop Emelianenko Fedor from working the show.

Yamaguchi-gumi is Japan’s largest crime syndicate.

I-Team: Size, Impact Of N.E. Mafia Dwindling

The late Raymond L.S. Patriarca ran a mafia empire in New England for decades until his death in 1984.

And after his son, Raymond "Junior" Patriarca, was deposed as mob boss, the Patriarca Mafia family still controls the rackets in New England, but the illegal clan's membership is dwindling.

The current boss of the Patriarca family, Louis "Baby Shacks" Mannacchioi, also known as "The Professor," is an old-school Mafiosi, according to state and federal law enforcement sources.

He lives below the radar above a Laundromat on Atwells Avenue in Providence.

"He is the head of the Patriarca crime family, which runs the rackets in New England," said Maj. Steven O’Donnell of the Rhode Island State Police.

Law enforcement intelligence officers are keeping an eye on about a dozen made men remaining in the Patriarca family in Rhode Island. The last to be made, Alfred "Chippy" Scivola, is now in prison for shaking down a strip club operator in Connecticut.

MAFIA DON DIES

Anthony Civella, the head of the mafia in Kansas City, has died. Nicknamed Tony Ripe, the mobster was 75. He became the city crime boss when his father, Carl Civella, was jailed in 1984.

'Godfather' Actor Dies

The 'Godfather' actor Richard Bright has been killed by a bus in New York City. He was 68.Bright played Al Pacino's character Michael Corleone's bodyguard Al Neri in all three of the mafia movies.He was hit by the back wheel of a bus and dragged along the street after the driver failed to notice he had hit him.During a successful career Bright also had roles in 'Marathon Man,' 'Once Upon a Time in America' and guest spots on The Sopranos.

Court acquits policemen in Mafia trial

An Italian court acquitted the head of Italy's secret services and a senior police official on Monday on charges related to the arrest of the Mafia boss of bosses, Salvatore "The Beast" Riina.

Secret service chief Mario Mori and top Carabinieri officer Sergio De Caprio were feted as national heroes for the prominent role they played in capturing Riina, who was seized in 1993 after 23 years on the run.

But the initial euphoria faded when it emerged that the police had failed to search Riina's hideaway until 19 days after his arrest, giving the Mafia enough time to strip the building, clean the floors, paint the walls and remove all fingerprints.

Investigators last year demanded the trial of Mori and De Caprio on charges of aiding and abetting the Mafia - a move that infuriated Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's government which said the two men were victims of the justice system.

GOD'S BANKER MURDERED BY MAFIA HITMEN

A MONEY man dubbed God's banker was the target of a mafia hit for bungling a cash-laundering operation which implicated the Vatican, it was claimed yesterday.

Roberto Calvi fled Italy as his banking empire crashed 25 years ago.

Nine days later, he was found hanging from scaffolding under London's Blackfriar's Bridge in an apparent suicide, with five bricks in his pockets, along with £10,000 in mixed currency.

A court in Rome, sitting in a specially fortified bunker, was told yesterday that Calvi's death in June 1982 was on mafia orders.

Mobster-turned-supergrass Francesco Mannoia told the murder trial Calvi was targeted by Cosa Nostra bosses furious that the cash laundering plot - involving millions of pounds - had gone wrong.

Mafia widow wants money from makers of the Sopranos and a T-V movie

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. A real-life Mafia widow says she's the real "Carmela Soprano" and wants to be paid for it.

Lynda Milito is seeking compensation from H-B-O as well as the screenwriter of a 1998 made-for-TV movie.Her husband, Gambino family associate Louis Milito, disappeared in 1998. She says others are unfairly cashing in on details of her life.H-B-O says "The Sopranos" is an original work. Producers of the T-V movie couldn't be reached for comment.Milito says she's prepared to file suit if need be.

Venezuela arrests Colombian drugs lord

CARACAS, Venezuela (Reuters) - Venezuelan police this week arrested Colombian-born Carlos Ojeda, on wanted lists in Colombia and the United States as one of Latin America's biggest drug lords, the Venezuelan government said.

Ojeda, sought by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation and Drug Enforcement Administration, was arrested on Thursday by agents from the CICPC anti-drug squad in a commercial district in the east of Caracas, the interior and justice ministry said.

Up to seven international arrest warrants had been issued in the past few years for Ojeda, nicknamed "the Engineer" and suspected of coordinating much of the drug trafficking through Venezuela, the head of the country's anti-drug agency said.

There is no warrant out for him in Venezuela, however.

Venezuelan authorities were studying extradition requests for Ojeda, in his early fifties, who was also in Interpol's so-called "red file," Luis Correa, head of the CONACUID anti-drug agency told Reuters by telephone.

Drug Smuggling Air Marshals?

For a law enforcement agency that works hard to be invisible, the Federal Air Marshals have been generating a lot of attention lately. On Thursday, two of the agency's several thousand highly trained traveling armed guards were taken into custody in Houston. Although the US Attorney's office would not comment beyond acknowledging that the Air Marshals were arrested by agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Homeland Security's Inspector General's office, Government sources tell TIME that the two Air Marshals, are allegedly involved with the possession or transportation of cocaine, and may have been paid several thousand dollars to move the drugs.

Report: Charges dropped against two alleged Sicilian Mafia leaders

All charges have been dropped against two alleged Sicilian Mafia leaders accused of bid-rigging and extortion for contracts at Naval Air Station Sigonella, Sicily, according to Italian press reports.

The two alleged leaders, reputed Catania Cosa Nostra boss Nitto Santapaola and Eugenio Galea, who allegedly planned the operation, faced the charges for contracts on base between 1987 and 1993, according to the newspaper La Sicilia.

Under an Italian operation code-named “Saigon,” 47 people were arrested in 1997, including a British civilian working at the base Resident Officer in Charge of Construction (ROICC) office.

The case against Santapaola and Galea, according to La Sicilia, relied on testimony of two mobsters who had been given new identities and immunity against prosecution — similar to the U.S. witness relocation program. However, the evidence wasn’t sufficient to convict either Santapaola or Galea, the paper reported.

The original charges stated that, for a number of years, Mafia-influenced companies had virtually every on-base construction contract. In 1998, a U.S. federal court document showed that those companies merged to form a group that bid, and won, a five-year janitorial contract.

Suspect in mafia associate's slaying discovered dead of apparent suicide

HAZLET, N.J. - A former Newark police officer, described as the "principal suspect" in a a mafia associate's 2002 murder, has apparently committed suicide, according to authorities.

Nicholas Baglione Jr., 48, was found dead Tuesday evening in a Hazlet parking lot, slumped over in the driver's seat of a limousine he drove for a living, according to local police.

Baglione, who was reported missing Friday, died from a single gunshot would to the head. Authorities have ruled the death a suicide, pending results from an autopsy.

'Mafia' man in extradition appeal

Antonio La Torre is appealing against extradition

An Aberdeen businessman with alleged mafia links has launched an appeal against extradition to Italy.

A sheriff ruled in December that Antonio La Torre should be sent back to his native country.

The 49-year-old food importer is wanted in Italy to face charges of robbery, extortion and the production of counterfeit money.

Mr La Torre's lawyer claimed his client's life could be in danger if he was returned to Italy.

Arrest warrant

An Italian anti-mafia department described Mr La Torre as the "undisputed head of a criminal organisation".

He was found guilty of various crimes in Naples at a trial held in his absence in 2004 and was sentenced to 13 years in jail. He is also currently appealing against that conviction.

He has been in custody since March 2005 when he was served with a European arrest warrant for offences allegedly committed between October and December 2001 in Mondragone near Naples.

'MOB COPS' GET WIN

A Brooklyn judge yesterday said the names of jurors deciding the fate of the two reputed mob cops will not be kept a secret and that they have nothing to fear by being part of a Mafia trial.

But, federal Judge Jack Weinstein also ruled that only prosecutors and lawyers for ex-NYPD detectives Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa will know their identities.

"For over half a millennium, jurors have made their decision in public then have gone home," said Weinstein.

Police seize drugs in pub raid

A pub in Leamington was raided on Friday night by police who discovered a quantity of Class A and C drugs.

A 28-year-old man was arrested during the operation at the Pacific Rim pub on Bedford Street. He was later released on bail pending further enquiries.

About £6,000 in cash and other items including four laptop computers, a handheld computer and nine mobile phones were also seized.

Before the raid took place 26 people were asked to leave the pub.

Inspector Bob Musgrove, from Warwickshire Police, said: "We are keen to work with licensees to prevent drug dealing taking place in their premises.

"Where necessary, we are prepared to take strong action including closing licensees' premises while we carry out these operations."

2 charges tossed

The feds have quietly dropped two murder charges against reputed Mafia cops Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa, the Daily News has learned.

Sources familiar with the government's strategy insist the evidence against the ex-NYPD detectives in those gangland killings is solid.

But a decision was made to streamline the indictment after Brooklyn Federal Judge Jack Weinstein warned prosecutors last June that he would not allow them to call 100 witnesses to testify as they had planned.

"Obviously a decision had to be made," one source said.

Deleted from the racketeering indictment is the May 1990 slaying of James Bishop, the former leader of Painters Union Local 37, whose cooperation with the Manhattan district attorney's office allegedly was leaked to the mob by Eppolito and Caracappa. He was found riddled with bullets in his car in Queens.

Also dropped from the case is the 1991 slaying of the late John Gotti's former bodyguard, Bartolomeo (Bobby) Borriello, who was gunned down in front of his Brooklyn home. His address allegedly was given to the mob by the cops.

Cops smash mafia clan

Rome - Italian police have arrested 182 suspected members of the powerful Strisciuglio mafia clan in the southern region of Bari, said public prosecutor Giuseppe De Benedictis on Monday.

About 1 500 civil and military police officers were involved in the massive operation on Sunday night against the Strisciuglio, considered by the Italian courts to be the most powerful and most fearful mafia clan in the entire Bari region.

The suspects were accused of involvement in the mafia, murder, drug and cigarette trafficking, extortion and possession of illegal weapons.

De Benedictis said that in total, 215 members of the Strisciuglio clan were being sought by police or had been jailed.

On January 11, French police arrested an high-level Italian Mafia suspect accused of links to a vast Sicilian drug trafficking network. Italy was expected to seek his extradition.

Mafia love triangle examined for motive

SHE is the former Mafia man's wife who allegedly betrayed him with two of his gangster colleagues - one who was shot dead and the other who lost a leg in a shotgun blast.

Now a coronial inquest in Sydney will ask the question - were Jennifer Jolliffe's affairs motive for murder?

A special investigation by The Daily Telegraph has uncovered allegations of a love triangle involving Jolliffe, now a 49-year-old divorcee living in Melbourne, and Griffith men Antonio Romeo and Rocco Barbaro.

At the time of the affairs she was Jennifer Sergi, married to alleged Calabrian Mafia figure Antonio "Young Tony" Sergi.

Mafia Trial May Show Politicians Aided Fugitive Boss (Update1)

Jan. 16 (Bloomberg) -- Sicilian Mafia boss Bernardo Provenzano has evaded arrest for 43 years with help from the island's police and politicians, one of his former organized crime associates is scheduled to testify today.

Leading Sicilian politicians tipped off Mafia members about police surveillance operations, former mobster Francesco Campanella said in a Sept. 21 deposition. Campanella is the lead witness at the trial of four public officials charged with assisting the Sicilian Mafia.

``The damage to the search for Provenzano caused by these leaks was enormous,'' said Antonino Di Matteo, one of the investigative magistrates on the case, in a Dec. 10 interview in his Palermo office. The leaks ``also reinforced the view that the Mafia is stronger than the state and that the state can't be trusted.''

The Mafia used extortion, usury, fraud and theft to siphon 28 billion euros ($34 billion) from legal businesses in 2004, an increase of 17 percent, according to SOS Impresa, an association that fights corruption. About 357,000 companies were closed from 1999 to 2004 because they were victims of organized crime, the Rome-based group says.

Campanella's testimony may shed light on the life led by Provenzano, Italy's most-wanted criminal, who prosecutors say has strengthened the criminal syndicate since taking over in the 1990s by focusing on business and sparingly resorting to violence. Provenzano has been on the run since 1963, when an eyewitness accused him of being involved in a triple murder.

`Our Thing'

The Sicilian Mafia, also known as the Cosa Nostra (``Our Thing''), has as its goal ``total submersion'' so that its activities are ``always less evident from a criminal point of view, and so fewer homicides,'' Campanella said in an Oct. 21 deposition obtained by Bloomberg News. ``Provenzano's and Cosa Nostra's strategy is to be directly involved in business.''

Campanella, 33, who prosecutors say was a low-ranking member of the Villabate crime family and was the president of the city council, will testify from a guarded courtroom in Florence to protect him from potential mob retaliation.

Campanella is expected by prosecutors to repeat an accusation made during his deposition about Salvatore ``Toto'' Cuffaro, 47, the president of Sicily's regional government. Campanella plans to say Cuffaro told him investigators had photographs and recordings of him with Nicola Mandala, boss of the town of Villabate, Sicily, who was in direct contact with Provenzano.

Mandala is currently on trial in Palermo for murder and organized crime activity.

Russian mafia sets up shop

RUSSIAN gangsters, including ex-KGB agents, have infiltrated Australia, establishing extortion, gun-running and prostitution rackets, Australian Federal Police say.

They are involved in fraud, drugs and blackmail, according to an AFP and Australian Crime Commission report obtained by The Sunday Telegraph.

Renowned for their audacity and efficiency, Russian criminals have established a foothold in Australia, the report reveals.

Some of those involved were once members of the KGB, where they learned skills such as debugging, computer hacking and strategic recruitment.

Their activities in Australia are centred on Sydney, especially Bondi, and the Gold Coast.

'Mafia financier' held by Spain

Pietro Nocera has been on the run from Italian police since 2003

A man alleged to be a financier for the Naples mafia - or Camorra - has been arrested in Spain's Canary Islands.

Pietro Nocera, who has been on the run from the Italian authorities for two years, was detained in Las Palmas on a European arrest warrant.

Spanish police said Mr Nocera, 47, was considered to be "very violent".

An official statement added Mr Nocera worked for the Nuvoleta clan, "one of the most powerful mafia clans in the south of Italy."

Police said that during the past two years, he had allegedly continued to carry out business for the clan, such as finding financial support.

He was first spotted in the Canaries in June 2004, but managed to evade capture until he was discovered again in October and kept under surveillance until his arrest.

Earlier this year, Raffaele Amato, the suspected head of one of the Camorra gangs waging a bloody turf war in Naples, was arrested in Barcelona.