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.