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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. A real-life Mafia widow says she's the real "Carmela Soprano" and wants to be paid for it.
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.
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.
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.
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.
An Aberdeen businessman with alleged mafia links has launched an appeal against extradition to Italy. 
Antonio La Torre is appealing against extradition
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.
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.
