'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.