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Russian mafia taking over French Riviera

Mafia kingpins from the former Soviet Union have moved into the French Riviera and are taking over with “quasi-military” precision. 

Their grip on the region is now so tight that Riviera detectives expect an eastern connection to almost every crime.

“Everything from burglary and money laundering to vice is controlled by the Mob from former Communist countries,” said one police officer, who was involved in the arrest of 69 members of a Georgian syndicate in March. 

 Full Story (Telegraph)

Mexico nabs U.S.-born drug lord 'La Barbie'

Mexican authorities captured a legendary Texan on Monday who is accused of a bloody climb to the top echelon of one of the hemisphere's most powerful drug cartels.

Edgar Valdez Villarreal, known as "La Barbie" for his looks, faces a slew of charges in Mexico, but also is wanted in the United States, where he has been indicted for smuggling thousands of pounds of cocaine into this country.

The U.S. government has offered a reward of up to $2 million for his capture.

In an interview with the Houston Chronicle late Monday, a Houston lawyer representing Valdez, 37, said he fears his client will be tortured or worse before he can be returned to the United States for trial.

Full Story

In Mexico, drug war deaths mount

MEXICO CITY, Aug. 29 (UPI) -- Human rights groups say the war on drugs in Mexico has gone badly awry with soldiers covering up atrocities that have included civilian deaths.

The defense ministry says it still looking into the case of the Almanza family, in which eight adults and five children were driving to the beach on April 3, a drive that ended with soldiers opening fire on the vehicle, leaving two small children dead, The Arizona Republic reported Sunday.

Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have demanded the case be turned over to civilian authorities. Mexico's National Human Rights Commission has already issued a scathing 1,400-page report accusing soldiers of "manipulations to misdirect the investigations," to avoid blame in the affair.

The new killing fields as cartels tighten grip in drugs war

A car explodes outside a police station, another outside a television station.

A drug gang is suspected of massacring 72 migrants and a prosecutor investigating those deaths suddenly disappears. Mexico’s drug cartels seem to be adopting the tactics of war zones half a world away.

The violence has contributed to fewer migrants crossing the border into America, officials say, because they have to traverse some of Mexico’s most dangerous territory to get to Texas. Mexican officials, meanwhile, warn there will likely be more bloodshed in the coming months.

“Violence will persist and even intensify,” said President Felipe Calderon at a forum on security, where he promised he would not back down.

The two car explosions happened early on Friday, less than 45 minutes apart, in Ciudad Victoria, the capital of the northern state of Tamaulipas, near where the slaughtered migrants were found.

The first happened in front of the offices of the Televisa network and the second in front of transit police offices. The network described the explosion as a car bomb, but the state attorney general’s office could not confirm that.

If the explosions were car bombs, it would mean a total of four so far this year in Mexico – a new and frightening tactic that officials say the cartels are using in the escalating drug war.

Reputed Montreal Mafia figure in court

MONTREAL - Tony Mucci, 55, of Boucherville, reputed to be an influential figure in the Montreal Mafia, appeared before Judge Jean-Paul Braun Friday afternoon. He faces 10 charges in all, including two for allegedly being in possession of a weapon designed to repell bears.

He is also charged with being in possession of a prohibited weapon while he was inside a vehicle on Thursday.

Read more: http://www.montrealgazette.com/business/money/Reputed+Montreal+Mafia+figure+court/3451077/story.html#ixzz0y2mOrsQG

'Ndrangheta Mafia Explodes Bomb at Top Prosecutor's Home in Calabria

The ’Ndrangheta mafia of Calabria planted a bomb in the doorway of the building where the region’s top prosecutor lives, the second bomb attack aimed at prosecutors there this year.

In January, a woman wearing high heels drove a scooter and helped a man plant an explosive at the courthouse entrance, according to a surveillance video. Salvatore Di Landro, the prosecutor targed by today’s bomb, blamed organized crime for the attack.

“They evidently want to make me pay for the fact that I’ve always, in every circumstance, done my duty as magistrate,” Di Landro said, according to la Repubblica newspaper’s website.

Krejcir scoffs at 'Mafia boss' claims

Johannesburg - Fugitive Czech billionaire Radovan Krejcir scoffs at suggestions that he is “some big Mafia boss from the Eastern Bloc” and says he has “absolutely nothing to hide”.

Breaking his silence ahead of a renewed bid by the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) to have him extradited to the Czech Republic, Krejcir told Rapport he was the victim of “fabricated stories” and a “dirty plan” concocted to “get me deported from this country, either legally or illegally”