Provenzano: The Phantom Of Corleone

Unhappy with the way things have been going here in the United States? Tired of scandal and corruption, and people saying the republic has gone the way of ancient Rome? Well things could be much worse. All you have to do is look at present day Rome, and Italy, where the mafia with its friends in business and government still forms one of the country's biggest enterprises. Prime Minister Romano Prodi has called the mafia "the constant reality."

For well over a century, the mafia has endured by forming relationships with people in power, playing a role in who gets elected, and developing a web of protection that reaches into the highest levels of the Italian government. And as correspondent Steve Kroft reports, there is no better example than the "Phantom of Corleone."

Mafia Snitch Gets Snitched Out Of Gambling Racket

(AP) JERSEY CITY, N.J. Like Michael Corleone in "The Godfather," he tried to get out, but they just kept pulling back him.

Mob snitch Peter Caporino faces prison time for continuing to run a gambling racket while informing for the government.

The 70-year-old Caporino, nicknamed "Petey Cap," will serve a seven-year prison term, most of it in isolation.

While running a Hoboken members-only social club, Caporino helped inform on numerous members of the Genovese crime family, though authorities say he was never a ranking member.

His information led to the convictions of 16 Genovese members and associates.

'Vinny Gorgeous' Convicted In 2001 Mob Killing

NEW YORK -- A former beauty salon owner known in Mafia circles as Vinny Gorgeous was convicted on Tuesday in a 2001 hit on one of his gangland rivals.

Federal prosecutors in Brooklyn had accused Vincent Basciano of using a 12-guage shotgun to rub out mobster Frank Santoro because he believed Santoro wanted to kidnap one of his sons.

Basciano's attorney said prosecutors built the case on untruthful testimony from mob turncoats, but a jury deliberated for one day before finding him guilty of murder, racketeering and other charges.

Goldfinger held for Mafia empire

CRIME baron John “Goldfinger” Palmer was being held by anti-Mafia cops last night probing his £400million empire.

The timeshare king was arrested in Tenerife.

Palmer, 57, was seized by armed officers as he stepped off a private jet from the UK.

Spanish police accuse him of masterminding a criminal empire on Tenerife involving fraud, drug trafficking, money laundering, gun running and falsifying passports and credit cards.

60 arrested in anti-mafia swoop

ROME – Police in southern Italy arrested 60 people on Tuesday in a swoop on the local mafia known as the 'Ndrangheta, suspecting them of crimes ranging from smuggling drugs and illegal immigrants to national insurance fraud.

The 'Ndrangheta, based in Calabria south of Naples, has outgrown its more famous Sicilian counterpart, the Cosa Nostra, thanks to clan loyalties ensured by blood relationships and arranged marriages.

A police spokesman said the 'Ndrangheta clan targeted by the police operation were also believed to have backed candidates for regional and provincial councils, showing how deeply they influenced local politics and business.

"According to the estimate we have come up with, six million euros would have shortly been taken from the national insurance funds," the spokesman said.

Anti-mafia prosecutors were also investigating those held for crimes including extortion, loan-sharking, illegal transport and possession of weapons and explosives.

Five charged after pub drugs raid

Five men have been charged with supplying cocaine following a drugs raid at an east London pub.

Police searched two bars at Bar Bed in Leman Street - ending a 20-month inquiry codenamed Operation Telon.

The men, aged 37 to 54, from east London, are due to appear at Westminster Magistrates Court.

Four women, aged 31 to 60, arrested in the raid have been bailed to return to a police station in September while inquiries continue.

Sixteen people were initially held as a result of the operation on 7 July.

Five of those were cautioned for possession of drugs.

One man was cautioned for possession of an offensive weapon while another man received a caution for obstruction.

24,860 gangsters nabbed

GUANGZHOU -- Police from south China's Guangdong Province, Hong Kong and Macao have jointly broken up 1,400 gangs, cracked 10,942 criminal cases and nabbed 24,860 suspects in a sweeping crackdown on organized crime which ended the week before the 10th anniversary of Hong Kong's return to China.

The 50-day-long "Thunderbolt 07" operation, launched from early May to June 24, focused on closing down online gambling, loan sharking, cross-border prostitution and drug dealing, as well as other types of crimes, said a spokesman with the Guangdong Provincial Department of Public Security on Wednesday.

Twelve of those arrested were wanted by police in Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan. Another is a member of Hong Kong's notorious 14K Triad. Six others are from other countries, the spokesman said.

Police confiscated 159 guns, 580 rounds of ammunition, 30 kg of heroin, 400 kg of crystal methamphetamine commonly known as "ice", 300 kg of ketamine commonly known as "K" and more than 9,000 motor vehicles, he said.

Triad-Style Attacks On Tycoon's Interests Roil Hong Kong

HONG KONG -

Every now and then, Hong Kong residents are reminded of the existence of a parallel society usually seen only in the crime movies the former British colony is so adept at producing.

A series of unusual gangland-style attacks have been made over the last few days on properties of New World Group, the business empire of billionaire Cheng Yu-tung, a patriotic tycoon with connections to top leadership in Beijing whose fortune is estimated at $6.5 billion by Forbes.

Bruno upset mafia, club owners

Editor's note: In the months leading up to his death in November 2003, mobster Adolfo "Big Al" Bruno's control of organized crime in Western Massachusetts was falling apart. With the pressure on him and monitoring by members of the New York-based Genovese crime family who traveled to Springfield, Bruno faced a coup by an up-and-comer in his organization. This is the first of a two-part series tracing what unfolded in Bruno's final months.

SPRINGFIELD - During the spring of 2002, Adolfo "Big Al" Bruno inflamed local mafia wiseguys and club owners by muscling them for increased "rent" to revive illicit revenues choked by a law enforcement crackdown on organized crime in Western Massachusetts, police reports show.

In the end, Bruno could well have been a victim of his own tough tactics. A gunman in the parking lot of a South End social club fatally ambushed the longtime mob boss 18 months later. The shooting occurred on the night before Bruno's 58th birthday.

Boston mafia leader, 88, to be freed from prison

BOSTON— “I’ll be back before my pork chops get cold!” Boston Mafia leader Gennaro “Jerry” Angiulo boasted when FBI agents hauled him off in handcuffs from Francesco’s Restaurant in the North End in 1983.

Twenty-four years later, Francesco’s is long gone from the North End, but Angiulo, 88, may soon be back for the first time since that night after being granted parole.

The U.S. Parole Commission granted Angiulo’s parole request two weeks ago and ordered his release from a federal prison hospital in Devens, where he’s serving a 45-year prison term for racketeering, The Boston Globe reported. He’ll be freed on Sept. 18.

Bookie testifies at Chicago mafia trial

CHICAGO: A convicted bookie who went to jail rather than testify against reputed mafia boss Frank Calabrese Sr. relented Monday and told jurors he paid thousands in "street tax" to the mob and once got a loan from Calabrese.

Calabrese and four other defendants are facing Chicago's biggest mob trial in years. They are charged with taking part in a racketeering conspiracy that included 18 murders, gambling, loan sharking and extortion.

Among the killings are the death and dumping of Tony "The Ant" Spilotro, once the Chicago mob's man in Las Vegas, whose case was an inspiration for Joe Pesci's character in the 1995 Martin Scorsese film "Casino."

Joel Glickman, looking haggard after spending a week behind bars for contempt because of his earlier refusal to testify, said he paid as much as $400,000 in "street tax" over 25 years of working as a bookmaker.

Couple Told To Pay Up In 'Mafia' Case

NEW PORT RICHEY - For a decade, Michael Leotis paid hundreds of thousands of dollars toward gambling debts while under threats from mobsters in New York.

Now, after the FBI got involved, it may be Leotis' turn to collect.

Pasco Circuit Judge W. Lowell Bray Jr. has ordered a New York couple identified in court papers as associates of the Columbo crime family to repay Leotis more than $280,000.

The order came after the defendants in a lawsuit, Orlando and Barbara Sergi, ignored court rulings and failed to defend themselves.

Hong Kong's Triad Police Probe Attacks on New World

July 6 (Bloomberg) -- Hong Kong's anti-organized crime police are investigating attacks on properties of billionaire Cheng Yu-tung's New World Development Co. and its affiliates, including the ramming of a car into the group's headquarters.

Those behind the attacks ``are challenging the government as well as the police,'' Ambrose Lee, the city's secretary for security, said late yesterday. The police organized crime and triad bureau is investigating.

``The triads want to challenge the police openly,'' Cheng, New World's chairman, said in an interview on Hong Kong's Cable Television news channel today. ``I haven't offended anyone and no one ever blackmailed me.'' His company is Hong Kong's sixth- largest developer by market value, and also invests in public works, transport and telecommunication.

Witness says he got inside Chicago mob

CHICAGO - Straining to hear and with his right hand shaking badly, a career criminal who has been in and out of prisons for decades admitted Wednesday to passing worthless stock, pandering to pornography fans and even blowing up a house as a late-joining member of the Chicago mob.

Alva Johnson Rodgers, 78, a lanky, drawling Texan, was both the most improbable and most colorful witness to testify so far at the government's Operation Family Secrets trial of five alleged members of the Chicago mob.

Mexico denies official complicity in drug suspect's cash hoard

MEXICO CITY: The Mexican government vigorously denied this week the accusations of a Chinese-Mexican businessman who is wanted on drug charges here but who asserts that $150 million found hidden in his mansion came from members of President Felipe Calderón's party, including the secretary of labor.

Zhenli Ye Gon, a naturalized Mexican citizen who owns a pharmaceutical company, rocked the political world here recently by suggesting, through his lawyer in New York, that the labor secretary, Javier Lozano Alarcón, had threatened to kill him last year unless he agreed to hide duffel bags stuffed with tens of millions of dollars in his house.

On Tuesday, Lozano Alarcón issued a statement calling the charges "false, absurd, untrue, crooked and perverse." A spokesman for Calderón, speaking on the condition of anonymity because the president had yet to make an official statement, said Zhenli appeared to be making false charges as part of a strategy to broker a deal with prosecutors here.

BI bans strip-searches to find Yakuza tattoos

Philippine immigration officers have been ordered to stop forcing some Japanese visitors to disrobe as they try to flush out suspected members of Yakuza crime syndicates through their distinctive tattoos, the immigration chief said Thursday.

Marcelino Libanan ordered the new "no-touch" policy following complaints that many Japanese visitors sporting tattoos were being harassed by immigration personnel at the airport, a statement from the immigration department said.

Mafia making millions from brutal horse races

The Mafia is making more than £500 million a year from racing horses illegally through the streets of Sicily, according to a jockey.The races, in which the horses are frequently injured, are run over the hard asphalt or slippery cobbles of cities including Palermo, Catania and Siracuse.

The police seized a hippodrome full of horses, and 10,000 crates of performance-enhancing drugs, last year but managed to stop only seven out of an estimated 300 races.

Experts said the number of races this year would be far higher. Horse racing has long been a tradition in Sicily, but only recently has the Mafia seized control of the sport.

Death penalty for yakuza stands

The Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld lower court decisions to hang a former yakuza for killing two other gangsters in 1997.

"The crime was systematic and pre-arranged, and brought about the gravest consequence. . . . A death sentence is inevitable," the presiding judge, Toyozo Ueda, said in handing down the ruling to Sumio Nakahara, 60.

2 million yen phone fraudster nabbed

Police arrested a yakuza who headed a telephone fraud ring Monday on suspicion of bilking an elderly woman out of 2 million yen last year.

The ring headed by Satoshi Nagasawa, 24, of no fixed address, allegedly telephoned the home of a 75-year-old woman in the city of Kagoshima last June and told her that her daughter, an elementary school teacher, injured one of her students through corporal punishment.

The hidden hell of yakuza families

04 July 2007 06:00

It is only when Shoko Tendo removes her tracksuit top that you appreciate why, even on a hot day, she prefers to remain covered up in public. Outwardly she is much like any thirty-something you would encounter on a Tokyo street. Her hair is of the dark-brown hue favoured by many Japanese women her age, her greeting is accompanied by a bow, and her voice seems to be pitched a little on the high side, a common affectation in the company of strangers. But her protective layer comes off to reveal stick-thin arms covered, from the wrists up, with a tattoo that winds its way to her chest and across her back, culminating, on her left shoulder, in the face of a Muromachi-era courtesan with breast exposed and a knife clenched between her teeth. It is an appropriately defiant image for Tendo and the most obvious sign that, as the daughter of a yakuza (mafia) boss, she hails from a section of Japanese society that most of her compatriots would rather did not exist. Her story, Yakuza Moon: Memoirs of a Gangster's Daughter, became a surprise bestseller in Japan in 2004, shining a light into a dark and little-understood corner of modern Japan.

In a Very Cold Case Finally at Trial, a Subtext of Russian Mobsters

In the Eastern European immigrant neighborhoods of South Brooklyn, where the notorious heroin smuggler Boris Nayfeld was running the Brighton Beach waterfront, the collapsing Soviet bloc had opened new routes for money laundering. The crime syndicates of the early 1990s began to expand their ambitions beyond extortion and racketeering toward increasingly complex financial fraud.

Among the strivers and the hustlers, the thieves and the aspiring gangsters, were four Ukrainian men, none much older than 21, who roamed the billiard halls and the boardwalks as a crew seeking to impress Mr. Nayfeld, prosecutors have said.

One of the men, Boris Roitman, 21, did not survive the summer of 1992. He was killed by two shotgun blasts delivered in an alley beside a tennis court. The first slug obliterated his heart. His killing went unsolved for more than a decade.

Chicago mob trial pits son vs. father

CHICAGO, July 4 (UPI) -- A Chicago organized crime trial has pitted testimony by the son of a reputed mobster against his father, accused of homicide and running a protection racket.

Frank Calabrese Jr., 47, spent 45 minutes Tuesday describing how he began collecting protection money for his father while he was in high school, and worked his way up to doing the books, The Chicago Tribune reported Wednesday.

Judge asks that prosecutor face hearing

BOSTON — The chief judge of the federal court in Boston has asked the Massachusetts Board of Bar Overseers to conduct disciplinary proceedings against a federal prosecutor who withheld key evidence in a New England Mafia trial.

Uganda: Nigerian Mafia Lure Citizens Into Drug Deals

THE 10 Ugandans held on charges of drug trafficking in China were lured into the illicit business by a squad of Nigerian mafia operating in Kampala, the government has said.

"There is a network of Nigerian drug mafia operating in the suburbs of Kampala," State Minister for Youth James Kinobe said yesterday. "After these people were arrested and interrogated, they revealed details and operations of their [Nigerian] masters in Kampala. They even pleaded for mercy."

Mr Kinobe, who has just returned from official duty in China, said he carried home a detailed file containing classified testimonies of the 10 Ugandans, who include three women, describing the bases and nature of the Nigerian drug mafia in Kampala.

Naples Mafia drives priest out of city

The local Mafia in Naples has forced a priest who preached against crime to quit the city.

The Camorra, which masterminds a significant part of Europe's cocaine trade, threatened to kill Father Luigi Merola if he did not leave.

The final warning came in the form of a photograph of the priest with a bullet entering his mouth. Father Merola was in charge of the parish of Forcella, a violent neighbourhood in the heart of the city which is controlled by the crime gang. He has had a police escort for the past three years and last week, a 30-year-old man was shot just outside the priest's church.

Although he was popular in the area for his fight against organised crime, the local curia finally decided that it was too dangerous for Father Merola to remain.

He has been given a job at the Italian Bishops' Conference in Rome.

In his final Mass a few weeks ago, Father Merola told worshippers that criminals could not stop "spring" from arriving in Naples and it would be "a season of peace".

Father Merola said he was not being forced out by fear. He said he reached the decision with Cardinal Sepe, the Archbishop of Naples.

"One phase is closed, a new one begins," he said. "But I will continue to fight against crime." Meanwhile, in Palermo, four shopkeepers won a battle against two Mafia dons demanding protection money.