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.