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”

Feds Say Mafia Controlled Union Local

MANHATTAN (CN) - Federal prosecutors say two brothers extorted school bus companies for thousands of dollars with the help of the Mafia. The FBI Department of Labor arrested Nick and Paul Maddalone on suspicion of extorting Local 1181 of the Amalgamated Transit Workers Union. According to the indictment, the Genovese family "influenced and asserted control over Local 1181."
Prosecutors say that the Local 1181 represents about 15,000 bus drivers who work for companies that contract with the Department of Education to provide school bus transportation in New York City.
From the 1980s through 2006, the Maddalones worked with Mafia contacts to intimidate bus company owners and operators out of tens of thousands of dollars, prosecutors say.
For example, Salvatore Battaglia aka "Hotdogs," a Mafia soldier who was sentenced 57 years in prison after pleading guilty to racketeering in 2008, served as local chapter president from 2002 to 2006, prosecutors say.
Julius Bernstein aka "Spike," another "made" mafioso who died shortly after pleading guilty to similar charges, once served as the chapter's Secretary Treasurer.
And the local chapter's Director of Pension and Welfare Anne Chiarovano pleaded guilty in January 2007 to obstructing an FBI investigation.
If convicted, the Maddalones face up to 20 years in prison on each of two extortion counts. They face two additional counts under the Taft-Hartley Act - conspiracy to receive labor payments and unlawful labor payments.
Prosecutors seek a forfeiture of money of at least $1 million.

Outcry as 'sad' Mafia boss freed

An Italian senator has demanded the government intervene after a convicted Mafia boss was freed from jail because he was suffering from depression.

Anti-Mafia Commission member Carlo Vizzini called the release of Giacomo Ieni into house arrest "scandalous".

Ieni had been sentenced to eight years for racketeering, but broke down in tears in front of his parole board, saying he could not take jail any more.

The board ruled that detaining him in hospital would endanger his health.

Being with his family was "indispensable" to Ieni's well-being, it said, adding that it hoped "the affection of his family will help him recover".

'Insult'

The ruling by the tribunal in Catania, in eastern Sicily, infuriated prosecutors and politicians alike, who said Ieni was a danger to society.


I wonder at this point what therapy is available to the relatives of those murdered by Mafia bosses whose hands are dripping with blood?
Senator Carlo Vizzini

"A Mafia boss in a high-security regime gets depressed and is first moved to an infirmary and then sent home in the belief that his family will help get over it," said Senator Vizzini, a member of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's People of Freedom (PdL) party.

"I wonder at this point what therapy is available to the relatives of those murdered by Mafia bosses whose hands are dripping with blood?" he asked.

Another Senator, Gianpaolo Vallardi, said it was an insult and likely to demoralise those risking their lives to fight the Mafia, known as the Cosa Nostra in Sicily. He called on the justice minister to intervene.

But Ieni's lawyer, Giuseppe Lipera, said it was wrong that his client had been in prison since being arrested three years ago.

Ieni was constantly reduced to tears and had lost (25kg) 55lbs in weight, he said.

Janitors, Mafia and Back Pay: All in a Day's Work at the Federal Circuit

The Sicilian Mafia and janitorial services might seem an unusual pairing, but it's at the root of nine years of litigation ruled on Friday by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.

The case began in 1999 after a U.S. Naval contracting officer awarded a $28 million maintenance case to Joint Venture Conserv. at the Navy's Sigonella Air Base near Catania, Italy. The janitorial services company was owned by Carmelo La Mastra, who had been indicted by Italian prosecutors in 1997 for his alleged role in a mafia scheme to win construction contracts on the base. A losing bidder, Impresa Construzioni, filed a protest over both the price and ethical questions surrounding the winner.

57 wanted in mafia sweep across Italy

ROME (AP) — Local politicians, bankers and businessmen were among 57 people wanted Wednesday in connection with a mafia sweep across Italy targeting drug trafficking and extortion rackets, police and news reports said.

A local mayor and a tourism official from the southern region of Calabria were among those detained in early morning raids, the ANSA and Apcom news agencies reported.

The raids were focused on the southern region of Calabria — home of the 'ndrangheta organized crime syndicate — and Umbria, in central Italy, the carabinieri paramilitary police said.

The investigation, code-named Naos, uncovered an association between the 'ndrangheta and the Naples-based Camorra mob, with members working outside their traditional territories and alongside local criminal groups, a police statement said.

The ring focused on drug trafficking and extortion rackets, with money reinvested in construction projects, particularly hydroelectric utilities and tourism buildings in Calabria, reports said.

Mafia boss dies in jail aged 83

A former Mafia godfather, known by the nickname "the Pope", died in prison where he was serving multiple life sentences.

Michele Greco, 83, who had been ill for several weeks, was a contemporary of top gangsters Toto "The Beast" Riina and his successor as 'boss of bosses', Bernardo Provenzano.

Arrested in 1986 after several years on the run, Greco had been a member of the 'cupola', the Mafia's board of directors. He earned his nickname by being a conciliatory voice between rival Mafia factions.

The Italian state claims to have made great steps in recent years in cleaning up the Mafia, the crime organisation based in the island of Sicily.

Italian and US police arrested 77 suspected members last week after a three-year probe into drug trafficking and money laundering. The latest boss of bosses, Salvatore Lo Piccolo, was arrested in November after nearly a quarter century on the run.

On Wednesday Italian police arrested 60 people suspected of involvement with the 'Ndrangheta and Camorra crime gangs - the equivalent of the Mafia based on the southern Italian mainland.

The police said they were breaking up a drugs and money laundering "joint venture" between the two gangs.

4 arrested in killings of federal agents

MONTERREY, Mexico — Four suspects were arrested Friday in the kidnapping and killing of two federal agents investigating drug trafficking in Northern Mexico, authorities said.

The arrests came just hours after the bodies of Rene Lorenzo Lopez and Roberto Krhisna Raul Martinez, both agents of the Federal Agency of Investigation, Mexico's equivalent of the FBI, were found in a river in the city of Santa Catarina, in the northern state of Nuevo Leon, the federal Public Safety Department said in a news release.

The agents were naked, their limbs and heads bound with what appeared to be duct tape, state and federal police said.

Their names and cause of death weren't immediately released.

If linked to organized crime, the slayings bring to 29 the number of law enforcers believed killed by drug gangs this year in the Monterrey area, according to a media tally.

A mafia family feud spills over

The killing of six Italians in the German city of Duisburg has thrust into the spotlight the shadowy world of the 'Ndrangheta, whose tentacles have spread far beyond their rural origins in Calabria, in southern Italy.

The six men, one of whom was reported to be only 16 years old, were sprayed with machine gun bullets moments after they left a pizzeria in the western German city.

Based on the strong blood ties between interlinked families, membership of the 'Ndrangheta - which means "Honoured Society" - is believed to number in the tens of thousands.

"It is disturbing - firstly because of the sheer number of dead," the acting director of Italy's National Anti-Mafia bureau, Carmelo Petralia, told the BBC news website.

Bulgaria Linked to Most Powerful Italian Mafia 'Ndrangheta

The Italian 'Ndrangheta crime circle works in cooperation with Bulgarian organized crime groups, a report of the Italian anti-mafia directorate states, as cited by Giornale di Calabria newspaper.

The report warns of the 'Ndrangheta's constantly growing power and its links with Bulgarian crime bosses, who are backed by the even more powerful Russian mafia.

The report comes just two days after six Italians were shot dead near a train station in Duisburg, western Germany. All of them are believed to be members of the 'Ndrangheta crime group based in Calbabria. Police believe the motive for the killings is the result of a feud stemming from the Italian town of San Luca.

Ever more often Italian mafia bosses go to court together with Bulgarians and this is just one of the many examples that prove the links between Bulgaria and the Calabrian mafia, the report says.

Six Italians killed in mafia vendetta in Germany

DUISBURG, Germany (AFP) - Six Italian men were shot dead here on Wednesday as a powerful mafia clan exported a bloody vendetta to Germany.


Italy's Interior Minister Giuliano Amato said the victims, who ranged from 16 to 38 years old and included two brothers, were caught up in a feud between mafia families in the Calabria region of southern Italy.

A police patrol alerted by a passerby discovered four of the victims in a Volkswagen Golf hire car and two in an Opel delivery van, which were parked near the central rail station of the industrial western city of Duisburg early Wednesday.

Heinz Sprenger, the officer leading the German police investigation, said all six victims had "multiple gunshot wounds".

"These men were shot at indiscriminately," he told a press conference.

Sprenger said some of the victims showed signs of life when they were found by police, but although one survived longer than the others, doctors were unable to resuscitate him.

Police said the men had been celebrating the 18th birthday of one of the victims in a pizza restaurant near the scene of the shooting where some of the men worked.

Assassination exposes Japan's underworld

(07-29) 04:00 PDT Nagasaki , Japan -- For all the trouble he had caused, Nagasaki gangster Tetsuya Shiroo had atoned by cutting off half a little finger and the tips of two others.

And things were not looking up.

The code of the yakuza, or organized crime syndicate, calls for troublesome members to perform the joint-by-joint amputations when they upset the bosses. Shiroo was an old-style gangster, a man who believed in the rituals.

But yakuza life was hard and getting harder for Shiroo. Everyone knew he had money troubles. His bosses expected him to kick about $3,000 a month their way in homage, and it was tough coming up with the cash in a city where business had been so bad for so long. Even worse, the once- lucrative option of skimming money from public-works projects was dying now that the Japanese government had turned off the geyser of public money.

Anti-Mafia police uncover arms-to-Iraq plot

US loss of control over the flood of weapons into Iraq was highlighted again yesterday when it emerged that Italian anti-Mafia investigators had uncovered an alleged shipment of 105,000 rifles of which the American high command was unaware.

The Italian team, in an investigation codenamed Operation Parabellum, stopped the £20m sale and have made four arrests.

The consignment appears to have been ordered by the Iraqi interior ministry. The US high command in Baghdad admitted that it had no knowledge of any such order, even though the ministry is supposed to inform the Americans before making any arms purchases.

Italian police arrest 14 people with U.S. mafia links

Italian police have arrested 14 people in Palermo in an anti-mafia operation, local media reported Friday.

The operation uncovered close ties between local Cosa Nostra families and the Mafia in the United States.

The 14 included businessmen, extortionists and municipal employees, most of them face charges of criminal conspiracy, extortion and public contract rigging, the report said.

Mafia man serves up warning

With organised crime syndicates believed to be behind the betting scams that have repeatedly tarnished the reputation of tennis, the ATP have employed the services of a convicted member of the American mafia to warn their leading players of the inherent dangers of allowing themselves to be lured into a web of corruption.

In the light of investigations into unusual betting patterns surrounding last week’s defeat of world No 3 Nikolay Davydenko by the 87th-ranked Argentinian Martin Vassallo Arguello in the Orange Prokom Open in Sopot, Poland, the ruling body of men’s professional tennis has intensified its desire to banish the potential for players to be coerced into throwing matches.

Reputed Mafia boss arrested in Italy

A reputed Mafia man considered one of Italy's most dangerous criminals was arrested by police.

The fugitive, Franco Franzese, 43, was arrested in the Sicilian city of Palermo, police said. He is believed to be an aide to Salvatore Lo Piccolo, considered with Matteo Messina Denaro to be the new head of the Mafia.

"This is an important demonstration of the efficiency of the police and the state's ability to oppose the evil plant of criminality with force," Justice Minister Clemente Mastella said in a statement.

Three people were arrested with Franzese and could face charges of aiding and abetting, police said.

Franzese was on an Interior Ministry list of Italy's most dangerous criminals and has been condemned to life in prison.

Ansa news agency said Franzese was being sought for Mafia association.

Recent homicides in Sicily point to Mafia turf war

ROME — The hit was classic mob. There were shots to the face and to the abdomen. The killers used a Lupara, a sawn-off shotgun that is the traditional weapon of choice for Mafia executions. The target was Giuseppe Lo Baido, 36. He was gunned down on July 13, near his house outside Palermo, Sicily.

The Italian police are not treating the Lo Baido case as just another mess to be scraped off the street in the heartland of the Cosa Nostra, the name for the Mafia's Sicilian branch. His was one of four recent killings. All of the victims were thought to be members of the Corleone family.

Some of Italy's Mafia prosecutors think the killings could be the start of a new internecine war. "The homicides of recent weeks may be a sign of a potential war between the families," said Maurizio De Lucia, the Palermo state prosecutor.

Italian Organized Crime Called `Dangerous, Pervasive'

Aug. 1 (Bloomberg) -- Organized-crime groups in Italy are a ``dangerous and pervasive'' priority of the security services, as Mafia-type groups from eastern Europe infiltrate the country's economy, the Italian spy agency said.

``Organized crime still represents a major threat,'' said a report published today in Rome by Cesis, the country's central spy agency. ``The web of corruption, intimidation, public mismanagement, violence and `omerta' -- which in all likelihood is behind the recent `garbage emergency' in Naples -- is but a part of a more threatening criminal globalization.'' Omerta is a code of silence.

Local officials in Naples and its suburbs are struggling to cope with months of uncollected garbage on the streets. Yesterday, the Sicilian Mafia burned to the ground a hardware and paint store that refused to pay extortion in the city of Palermo, and there have been a spate of murders in Sicily tied to an internal power struggle after Mafia boss Bernardo Provenzano was captured last year.

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.

CIA tried to get mafia to kill Castro-documents

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A treasure trove of CIA documents released on Tuesday shed light on the spy agency's efforts to assassinate Cuban President Fidel Castro in the 1960s by getting the mafia to kill him in a "gangster-type action."

The CIA declassified hundreds of pages of long-secret records that detail some of the agency's worst illegal abuses during about 25 years of overseas assassination attempts, domestic spying and kidnapping.

The documents are known in the CIA as the "Family Jewels," and some describe the agency's efforts to persuade Johnny Roselli, believed to be a mobster, to help plot the assassination of Castro.

A CIA official at the time, Richard Bissell, in August 1960 approached Col. Sheffield Edwards of the Office of Security to determine if Edwards "had assets that may assist in a sensitive mission requiring gangster-type action," according to the documents.

"The mission target was Fidel Castro," one memo said.

Suspected Mafia Members Arrested

Police said they arrested several people who they suspect are Mexican Mafia members.

Police said they received a tip that high-ranking mafia members were meeting at Club Movida on East Mitchell Street.

Officers raided the club and arrested the suspected mafia members.

Among the arrested were James Jimenez, 39, and Christina Oviedo, 32, who are being held on charges of cocaine possession.

Officers also arrested Carlos Ybarra, 31, on accusations of possessing a weapon.

Police said the arrests send a strong message to the mafia.

"Several arrests were made," Sgt. Gabe Trevino said. "We found some weapons and we were able to gain a lot of intelligence about who's involved in some of these gangs.

Trevino said gathering the intelligence may help lead to more arrests.

Russian police begin large-scale effort to exterminate notorious mafia

The complete liquidation of organized criminal groups has begun in Russia, according to the Russian Interior Ministry. “There are 450 large organized criminal groups operating in Russia these days. These groups exert a considerable influence on a socioeconomic and criminogenic situation in the regions,” said Russia’s Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev, in an interview to Rossiyskaya Gazeta.

Mobster May Have Seduced Brooklyn Investigator Assigned to Protect Him

An investigator for the Brooklyn District Attorney's office has resigned amid allegations she got "too close" to a mafia associate she was assigned to protect, WNBC.com has confirmed. The mob-linked con artist allegedly tried to seduce the investigator during the time she was assigned to guard him while he was holed up at a hotel for questioning as a cooperating witness.

The Mafia's shadow men

In their quest to assemble fragments of the past into a coherent explanation for why things happened as they did, historians tend to take one of two paths. Some stick to the deeds of kings, presidents and famous military commanders, agreeing with Thomas Carlyle that "the history of the world is but the biography of great men." Others contend that the engines of history are really to be found in the anonymous multitudes, whose collective needs and capabilities determine the overarching economic, technological and social realities that shape the world and its future. And then there is a third notion, usually discredited but always seductive, that history is the product of a different breed of great men: the kind who plot their schemes in dark shadows and keep their identities secret. Such a man was Sidney Korshak.

20 Suspects Detained in Stock Market Manipulation Operation

Istanbul’s financial police broke up an organized crime gang accused of money laundering and market manipulation, the Turkish channel NTV reported.

Turkish Capital Market Committee experts, acting on tips that there were manipulation attempts at the Istanbul Stock Exchange market, detected irregularities in the shares of five companies.

Having been informed about the irregularities, financial police teams detained 20 suspects in simultaneous operations.

The investigation into the issue in still underway.

N.Y. man is accused of doing crime family’s South Florida ‘dirty work’

Before Clement Santoro put a gun to a man's head, broke his fingers and bloodied his nose, the accused mob associate had dinner with other members of the Genovese organized crime syndicate at a West Palm Beach restaurant called -- fittingly -- Soprano's, a prosecutor said Monday.

According to state records, the restaurant, named after the HBO television drama about a New Jersey crime family, is owned by Renaldi Ruggiero of Palm Beach Gardens, the man prosecutors say ran South Florida operations for the Genovese family.

Drug mafia's infiltration of military grows clearer

The killing of 10 Colombian policemen by army soldiers illustrates the depths to which the drug mafia may have penetrated the military.

BOGOTA - It was a set of killings like few others in Colombia's long and violent history.

Many of the 11 dead were members of an elite police unit raiding a drug lord's lair. The shooters were army soldiers allegedly on the payroll of the accused trafficker, Diego Montoya, who is next to Osama Bin Laden on the FBI's most wanted list.

The military called it a ''friendly fire'' incident. But the attorney general said it was a ''massacre,'' and when a military tribunal tried to handle the case, his office took over the case in a rare show of legal muscle.

Indeed, the scandal surrounding the death of 10 members of the judicial police -- known as DIJIN, its Spanish acronym -- and an informant in early June has not just damaged the reputation of the army and the government, but raised questions over traffickers' infiltration of the government at a time when Colombia is seeking continued U.S. aid for the fight against illicit drugs.

Appeals court upholds Detroit Mafia figure's sentence

DETROIT A federal appeals court upheld the 71-month prison sentence given to a man described by the government as the Detroit Mafia's one-time underboss.

Seventy-eight-year-old Anthony Zerilli contends that U-S District Judge Lawrence Zatkoff failed to properly consider his advanced age and poor health when sentencing him in an extortion case.

Judge overturns convictions of NY "Mafia cops"

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A federal judge on Friday overturned the racketeering convictions of two former New York police detectives accused of murdering for the Mafia, citing the statute of limitations.

The judge denounced retired detectives Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa as "heinous criminals" but said federal prosecutors failed to show their conspiracy continued up until five years before the charges were brought.

The men were each sentenced to life in prison following their three-week trial in March for committing eight murders for the Luchese crime family from 1986 to 1990.

Their lawyers appealed their convictions after U.S. District Judge Jack Weinstein expressed concern throughout the case about the "thin connection" between earlier and later crimes contained within their racketeering conspiracy charges.

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.

'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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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.