Moscow Court Acquits Russian Mafia Boss Ivankov

Moscow City Court has acquitted Vyacheslav Ivankov, a notorious Russian mafia boss charged with the murder of two Turkish citizens.

On Monday, the court of jury found Ivankov not guilty of the murder. Prosecutors have said they will appeal the verdict in Russia’s Supreme Court. The acting Moscow prosecutor, Vladimir Bakun, said on Tuesday the jurors were biased because seven of them either had previous convictions, or had relatives who were taken to court.

According to the investigators, Ivankov and another notorious criminal known by the nickname of Sliva (Plum) killed the Turkish citizens in a Moscow restaurant in 1992. One of them died at the scene and the other later at a hospital.

In 2000, Moscow prosecutors charged Ivankov with the murders in his absence; he was in the United States at the time. On July 15, 2004, soon after his deportation from the United States, he was charged with the murders again.

Ivankov also known as Yaponchik (Little Japanese) had already become notorious for creating the Solntsevskaya criminal organization in Russia in 1980. In 1982 he was imprisoned on robbery charges. After arriving in the United States he ran the Russian mafia throughout the country and reportedly became the highest-ranking Russian criminal in the United States.

He was arrested in New York in 1995 on charges of organizing a sham marriage and supervising the extortion of several million dollars from an investment firm. The courts indicted him after a two-year investigation and sentenced him to nine years and seven months in prison. He was going to be released early for good behavior, but his sentence was extended after a fight with another inmate thought to be a deliberate provocation.

Ivankov was extradited to Russia on July 11, 2004.

'Mafia cops' are due out of jail

The "Mafia Cops" are going home.

Two ex-NYPD detectives accused of being hitman for the mob could walk out of jail as early as tomorrow after federal prosecutors in Brooklyn decided not to appeal a decision which gave them bail.

Louis Eppolito, 56, and Stephen Caracappa, 63, are scheduled to be in Brooklyn federal court Thursday at noon to have relatives sign various documents securing their bail bonds.

Both men were ordered released from pretrial detention earlier this month by Judge Jack B. Weinstein who set bail for each at $ 5 million. The bail is being secured by property they and relatives are posting.

Federal prosecutors filed a letter with the court late Tuesday saying they wouldn't appeal Weinstein's ruling, said a spokesman for the Brooklyn U.S. Attorneys Office.

Calls to mafia don traced to phone of Bollywood heartthrob Khan

MUMBAI (AFP) - Calls to mafia don Abu Salem were traced in 2001 to the home phone of Bollywood heartthrob Salman Khan, the western Indian Maharashtra state government said.

Mob informant says Taccetta innocent of golf-club murder scheme

TOMS RIVER, N.J. - A mobster-turned-informant has filed court papers saying his cousin, a reputed Lucchese crime boss, was not involved in a scheme leading to a notorious 1984 Mafia hit.

A lawyer for Thomas Ricciardi, who is in hiding through the federal Witness Protection Program, filed an affidavit in Superior Court on Thursday claiming Martin Taccetta was not involved in the death of Vincent J. Craparotta, who was beaten to death with a golf club in 1984.

In 1993, Taccetta was acquitted of that murder but convicted of extortion along with Ricciardi. Prosecutors successfully argued the men conspired to kill Craparotta, a Jersey Shore contractor, to intimidate his nephews into sharing proceeds from their gambling business.

US authorities accuse dock workers union of being under mafia's influence

NEW YORK (AFP) - US authorities filed a racketeering lawsuit against a dock workers union accused of being under the influence of the New York mafia.

The Gambino and Genovese mafia clans have controled ports in New York, New Jersey and Miami since the 1950s, the Justice Department said in a statement.

The suit was filed against the International Longshoremen's Association, AFL-CIO, some top ILA officials, including longtime president John Bowers, and several organized crime members, the department said.

"For decades the waterfront has been the setting for corruption and violence stemming from organized crime's influence over labor unions operating there, including the ILA and its affiliated Locals, as well as port-related businesses," it said in a statement.

"Since the late 1950's, two organized crime families -- the Gambino family and the Genovese family -- have shared control of various ports, with the Gambino family primarily exercising its influence at commercial shipping terminals in Brooklyn and Staten Island, and the Genovese family primarily controlling those in Manhattan, New Jersey and the Port of Miami," it added.

The civil complaint asks that a court-appointed trustee be named to oversee the ILA and its benefits fund. It also wants an order barring union officials and organized crime members from the union, its benefits fund and the waterfront.

Judge orders "Mafia cops" freed on bail, says case is weak

Two former police detectives accused of leading double lives as Mafia hitmen were ordered freed on bail Thursday after a federal judge said the government's case against them was weak.

U.S. District Judge Jack Weinstein said the statute of limitations may have run out years ago on nearly all the charges against Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa. Both are accused of participating in eight murders on behalf of organized crime in the 1980s and early 1990s.

Federal prosecutors charged the former detectives with engaging in the killings as part of a racketeering conspiracy, which has a five-year statute of limitations. The last killing occurred in 1991.

The judge said the charges seem to me to be relatively stale

Gangs back to prey on motorbike taxi drivers

It's business as usual for gangsters who extort money from motorcycle taxi drivers in several areas in the city.

After a short break at the beginning of the high-profile war against mafia, the gangsters have returned _ this time with new tactics.

Instead of demanding protection money from drivers, they are taking advantage of the motorcycle taxi registration process, which allows taxi drivers to wear an orange vest with the district name and a registration number.

The gangsters apply for the registration and illegally rent the vests to drivers who are charged between 2,000-20,000 baht as an upfront payment and 300-1,500 baht a month. Many vests with the same number are not unusual.

Unloading Business At Fulton Fish Market May Draw Mafia's Attention

A former Giuliani official reportedly says a city plan to open up bidding on unloading licenses at the new Fulton Fish Market could be a boon for the mafia.

According to a report in Monday’s edition of the New York Post, the city is allowing operators of the market to bid on licenses to unload fish for the first time since 1995. That move is drawing criticism from former Deputy Mayor Rudy Washington, who was in charge of the market's cleanup under former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani.

Washington tells the paper he disagrees with taking open bids. He says most of the mafia's control of the market was conducted in the unloading process.

A single Long Island company has been in charge of unloading fish for the past 10 years. However, the Post says officials who back the new policy insist all potential bidders have been checked out, and that the mafia will not return to prominence.

The Fulton Fish Market moves from Lower Manhattan to Hunts Point in the Bronx later this month.

Mafia 'godmother' turns collaborator to give her children a future

Giuseppina Vitale was a hard woman of the Mafia, one of the new breed of "bosses in skirts" to which the Sicilian mob has grudgingly grown accustomed.

So many bosses are in jail that often the only person available to keep the funds flowing and the mobsters in line is little sister.

Giusy (pronounced "Juicy") Vitale played her part with conviction. The Mafia was her family's life. Her brothers, Leonardo and Vito, were rising stars of the Palermo underworld, spoken of in hushed tones as the likely heirs to capo di capi Bernardo "The Tractor" Provenzano, who has been on the run for more than 40 years.

But Vitale, 33, is now a collaborator with justice and has been telling a Rome court what it is like to grow up in such a family.

Elderly Drug Dealer Pleads for Leniency

NEW HAVEN, Conn. - An elderly used car salesman accused of being a member of the Gambino crime family was sentenced Wednesday to 13 years in prison for selling cocaine to a police informant.Victor Riccitelli, 71, was convicted of the drug charges in March. He pleaded with a federal judge not to throw him in prison for the rest of his life, saying he has "only got a few more years left."

"Godfather" script fetches 313,000 dollars at Brando auction

NEW YORK (AFP) - A script of "The Godfather" annotated by Marlon Brando sold for more than 310,000 dollars at an auction of the late screen legend's personal effects at Christie's in New York.The script of the 1972 classic, which won Brando a second best actor Oscar for his portrayal of mafia kingpin Don Corleone, was the highlight of the sale, and attracted heavy bidding from the outset.

Mafia-style crime plagues Colombia's war refugees

BARRANQUILLA, Colombia (Reuters) - Hundreds of Colombians arrive every week in cities along the Caribbean coast like Barranquilla, pushed north by this country's cocaine-fueled guerrilla war.Left vulnerable by a government too weak to protect them, displaced families are greeted by poverty and growing exploitation that the United Nations says is compounding the world's worst ongoing humanitarian crisis outside Africa.

Illegal paramilitary militias, formed in the 1980s by landowners trying to protect their property from Marxist rebels, have discovered how easy it is to earn 20 percent on one-month loans to the growing number of displaced people desperate to get back on their feet.

"It's expensive, but what else can I do," a 39-year-old women living in Soledad, a dusty Barranquilla suburb, told Reuters, asking not to be named.

Credit card fraud hits small online merchants hard

Online merchants, especially small ones, are getting stung by the burgeoning black market for stolen credit cards.

And a rash of recent security breaches at Visa USA, MasterCard International, American Express and others this year could worsen the problem, says trade association National Retail Federation. Merchants routinely are stuck with exorbitant bank charges when items are purchased fraudulently.

49 dead from lethal black-market alcohol

NAIROBI, Kenya -- A black-market alcoholic brew laced with poisonous methanol has caused the deaths of 49 people in Kenya, medical workers said yesterday, while police searched for a woman suspected of distributing the drink to local bars.

Tech cos to fight piracy, black market in Brazil

SAO PAULO, Brazil (Reuters) - Seven of the world's major electronics and computer goods companies including Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq:MSFT - news) and Intel Corp. (Nasdaq:INTC - news) joined forces on Tuesday to fight Brazil's vast black market and piracy, which they say cost the country more than $40 billion a year in lost taxes.

File-Share Services Can Be Held Liable For Illegal Copying

In the biggest legal fight between Hollywood and the tech industry in 21 years, the entertainment moguls have delivered a knockdown punch to the nerds.

A unanimous Supreme Court decision Monday opened the way for music and movie companies to sue providers of peer-to-peer file-sharing software, which is used to download music and movies onto computers.

DRUG BUST TRAPS BIG DEALERS

DRUGS squad chiefs have dealt a stark warning to Perth’s big-time pushers: “You’re not the untouchables”.

The message comes days after Tayside Police Chief Constable John Vine praised the efforts of his force in his annual report after a year-long operation secured convictions of 13 individuals in Scotland – totalling 37 years of jail time – and smashed a major racket in the process.

The Big County crackdown on drug dealers was the main focus of Operation Flogger.

Home explosion leads to charges

Police in southeastern New Brunswick have arrested a man in connection with an explosion in a home they believe was being used to produce illegal drugs. Denis Richard has been charged with possession of marijuana for the purpose of trafficking, production of marijuana and obstruction of justice. His home in Saint-Gabriel-de-Kent blew up in May. No one was there at the time. When they combed through the ashes of the building, police say they found what appeared to be the remnants of a drug lab. Richard will appear in court on July 5 to answer to the charges.

Six arrested in drug bust

LEMON SPRINGS - Six men were arrested and $28,000 in illegal drugs were seized in a raid by the Sanford-Lee County Drug Unit Thursday in Lemon Springs.

After law enforcement agents searched a home at 240 Stanley Road, they seized six pounds of marijuana and 0.3 grams of cocaine and arrested James Roderick Baldwin, 25, of 1219 Neville Road, Chapel Hill; Eric Ricardo Miranda, 24, of 619 York Street, Sanford; Andre Fabian Moore, 24, of 937 N. Ashe Street, Southern Pines; Derick Stephen Tyson, 27, of 427 Rosser Road, Bear Creek, and Micquis Anton Levar Lett, 24, and Sedric Lynn Womack, both of 240 Stanley Road, Lemon Springs.

Cops seize over $614,000 of illegal drugs

Lucknow Sentinel — Over $614,657 worth of illegal drugs destined for Bruce, Grey, Huron and Perth Counties were seized, thanks to area police officers from surrounding counties.
Last Thursday, about 76 police officers of the Drug Enforcement Section of the Ontario Provincial Police, as well as South Bruce OPP, Bruce Peninsula OPP, Grey County OPP, Huron OPP and Perth County OPP have seized over $614,657 worth of illegal drugs.