Growth of 'new American mafia' follows migrant flows

WASHINGTON -- The violent MS-13 -- or Mara Salvatrucha -- street gang is following the migratory routes of illegal aliens across the country, FBI officials say, calling the Salvadoran gang the new American mafia.

MS-13, which has a significant presence in the Washington area, and other gangs are spreading into small towns and suburbs by following illegal aliens seeking work in places such as Providence, R.I., and the Carolinas, FBI task force director Robert Clifford said.

"The migrant moves and the gang follows," said Mr. Clifford, director of the agency's MS-13 National Gang Task Force. "If you follow the construction trade, this is where a lot of these immigrants go."

Immigrants in search of construction and meat-packing jobs often provide housing for younger relatives who may be involved in a gang, Mr. Clifford said.

"That's why you find them in places like North Carolina," he said.

The FBI is operating a national anti-gang campaign out of its new National Gang Intelligence Center. The federal government last summer appropriated $10 million to set up the center at FBI headquarters.

Mr. Clifford's position was created when the Gang Intelligence Center opened in December, and MS-13 is No. 1 on the FBI's hit list.

"One of the first [gangs] to be targeted is MS-13, a violent gang that originated in Los Angeles and has spread across the country," FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III told the House Appropriations Committee during a March 8 hearing.

Four MS-13 members are on trial in U.S. District Court in Alexandria on charges of killing a pregnant 17-year-old. The gang's leader is accused of ordering the slaying from his jail cell because he suspected the girl of informing the police.

Three MS-13 gang members pleaded guilty to attacking a teenager in Alexandria, VA with a machete last May. The teenager lost four fingers. Authorities are investigating a similar machete attack on a Fairfax, VA man in January.

Sinatra nearly got caught with Mafia money: new book

NEW YORK (AFP) - Frank Sinatra had close links to the Mafia and once nearly got caught carrying 3.5 million dollars in mob cash, according to a new book excerpted by Vanity Fair magazine.

Entertainer Jerry Lewis told the authors of a new biography "Sinatra: The Life", due to be published on May 16, how the legendary performer, who died in 1998, volunteered to be a Mafia "messenger".

"He almost got caught once ... in New York," Lewis was quoted as saying in the excerpt from the book by Anthony Summers and Robbyn Swan.

Lewis told how Sinatra was going through customs with a briefcase that contained "three and a half million in fifties". But there were so many people crowding around the singer and actor that they aborted the search.

"We would never have heard of him again" if the money had been discovered, Lewis said.

According to the new book, Sinatra's grandfather came from the same Sicily town, Lercara Friddi, as mobster Lucky Luciano.

The authors said Sinatra always claimed his family was from Catania or Agrigento and that Sinatra may have deliberately caused confusion because of his family's involvement with bootlegging during Sinatra's childhood.

But Summers and Swan also said Sinatra had a longtime, intimate relationship with Luciano, according to Vanity Fair.

The book says the authors found christening and marriage records which indicated the Luciano and Sinatra families lived on the same street in Lercara Friddi.

The book quotes Sinatra's valet, George Jacobs, as saying Sinatra and Luciano clearly knew each other well and that he remembered them meeting at a Rome hotel where the gang leader rose from his chair and kissed Sinatra.

Summers and Swan wrote that Hollywood studio head Harry Cohn was pressured by the Mafia into giving Sinatra the part of Private Angelo Maggio in the movie "From Here to Eternity".

The book, which is published by Alfred A. Knopf, said that by 1961, when Sinatra was a friend of President John F. Kennedy, the singer had sought to distance himself from his Mafia associate.

Chicago mafia 'takes major hit'

Joey 'the Clown' and Frank 'the German' have not been found

Fourteen alleged mobsters have been charged with crimes including 18 murders, in one of Chicago's biggest ever anti-mafia crackdowns.

One of the suspects was found dead on Monday, while two others were said to have escaped arrest.

Two of those indicted were retired policemen, accused of exposing police informers to other mafia members.

"Today the Outfit takes a hit," said US Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, referring to the branch once run by Al Capone.

All 14 suspects are charged with racketeering, which carries a maximum 20-year prison term.

Eleven are charged with conspiracy to murder, and other counts include extortion, illegal gambling, threats, violence, bribery, intimidation and controlling unions, dating back to 1969.

Film 'mistake'

Two of the murders in question were dramatised in Martin Scorsese's film Casino.

Anthony "the Ant" Spilotro and his brother Michael were killed in Chicago and then buried in a cornfield in the state of Indiana in 1986, Mr Fitzgerald said.

In Mob Sweep, Feds Hope to Send Up the Clown

The names read like a who's who from some faded blotter left behind at the Chicago Police Department's old State Street headquarters: Joseph (the Clown) Lombardo, Frank (the German) Schweihs, Frank (Gumba) Saladino, and on and on.

But on Monday, 14 men, including several who have for years been reputed to be in the city's top level of organized crime leaders, were being rounded up in connection with 18 murders that stretch back over four decades and had gone unsolved and, in some cases, been nearly forgotten.

Several of the accused are in their mid-70's now, and one, though only 59, was found dead, apparently of natural causes, when the authorities arrived on Monday to arrest him in the hotel room where he lived. A few of the others accused, meanwhile, had moved away to places like Florida and Arizona, better known for retirement.

Describing the 9-count, 41-page racketeering conspiracy indictment as putting a "hit on the mob," Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the United States attorney here, said in a written statement, "After so many years, it lifts the veil of secrecy and exposes the violent underworld of organized crime."

While arrests of organized crime figures are hardly unique in a city where Al Capone once worked, rarely have so many of its reputed high-level leaders been charged all at once. Nor, federal authorities said, has the entire "Chicago Outfit" before been deemed a criminal enterprise under federal racketeering laws.

"This really lays out the whole continuing criminal enterprise that is still going on," said Thomas Kirkpatrick, president of the Chicago Crime Commission, an anticrime group created in 1919 by Chicago business leaders who were increasingly worried that it could become too dangerous to conduct legitimate commerce in this town.

"People tend to forget what these guys are about," Mr. Kirkpatrick said. "They watch 'The Sopranos' or some of these movies about the mob, and they think it's just some colorful characters. The thing is, they're still doing this. These characters are still doing this."

Among the most notorious murders the authorities say they have solved with Monday's announcement: the 1986 death of Tony (the Ant) Spilotro, the organization's chief enforcer in Las Vegas, and his brother, Michael, who were buried in an Indiana cornfield. (Joe Pesci portrayed a character based on Tony Spilotro in the 1995 movie "Casino.")

The authorities here say the indictment, which was returned by a federal grand jury on Thursday and unsealed on Monday, was years in the making. The Federal Bureau of Investigation dubbed their probe "Operation Family Secrets," and agents from the F.B.I. and the Internal Revenue Service began arresting the accused in Illinois, Florida and Arizona on Monday morning.

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U.S. Forces To Boost Afghan Anti-Drug Role

4 Indicted in Italian Financier's Death

ROME - Four people were ordered Monday to stand trial in the death of an Italian financier with close ties to the Vatican, who was found hanging 23 years ago from a London bridge, his pockets stuffed with rocks and bank notes.

AP Photo

Roberto Calvi, who had been the president of Banco Ambrosiano, had been dubbed "God's banker" because of his ties with the Vatican's bank and its former top official, the American Archbishop Paul C. Marcinkus.

Calvi's body was found under London's Blackfriars Bridge on June 18, 1982, his suit pockets stuffed with 11 pounds of rocks and bricks, along with a falsified passport and thousands of dollars worth of various currencies.

His death came amid Banco Ambrosiano's collapse following the disappearance of $1.3 billion in Italy's biggest postwar banking scandal. The Vatican held a significant stake in the bank.

Indicted Monday were businessman Flavio Carboni; his ex-girlfriend Manuela Kleinszig; a man with alleged ties to the Mafia, Giuseppe "Pippo" Calo; and businessman Ernesto Diotallevi.

Carboni's lawyer, Renato Borzone, rejected the allegations against his client.

"They allege that Carboni went to London with Calvi to deliver him to the people who murdered him, and that Kleinszig accompanied Carboni to London," Borzone said.

Prosecutors say Calvi was laundering money for the Mafia, and that Calo ordered his murder because Mafia bosses were afraid Calvi would talk, Borzone said. Prosecutors were not immediately available for comment.

Italian Mafia Suspect Arrested In Brooklyn
An alleged mobster wanted in connection with a 1992 bombing that killed a top anti-Mafia prosecutor in Italy has been captured in New York, prosecutors said Friday.

Giuseppe Baldinucci was awaiting arraignment in federal court in Brooklyn on charges alleging he illegally entered the United States as a convicted felon after jumping bail in the Italian case in 1996.

FBI Searches New Melones Reservoir in Russian Mafia Case

FBI investigators are at New Melones Reservoir supervising divers as they search for evidence in a three-year-old case with possible connections to Russian organized crime. According to a statement issued by the FBI, the divers are searching the chilly waters for evidence relating to the kidnap and murder of five Los Angeles residents whose bodies were recovered from the reservoir in March 2002. A spokesperson for the agency said the search would take several days. However, the bureau would neither confirm nor deny divers were looking for more bodies and gave no indication what else they might be searching for. Four men were indicted in March 2002 in connection with the crimes. The indictment alleges Iouri Mikhel and Jurijus Kadamovas were involved in the kidnappings. Petro Krylov and Ainar Altmanis are accused of aiding and abetting the crimes. Prosecutors announced last year they are seeking the death penalty against Mikhel, Kadamovas, and Krylov. Prosecutors said they had uncovered evidence that Mikhel and Kadamovas had committed similar murders in Turkey and Cyprus. Two other defendants in the case, Aleksejus Markovskis and Natalya Solovyeva, will not face the death penalty but could be sentenced to life prison if convicted.

Mafia 'godmother' turns supergrass on own family

A Mafia "godmother" who heads one of Sicily's most powerful crime families has scandalised the Cosa Nostra after becoming the first female boss in its history to turn supergrass.

Giuseppina "Giusy" Vitale, whose nickname is pronounced "Juicy", has confessed to ordering a string of murders as one of the island's new breed of female crime queens.

	Vito Vitale arrest led to 'Giusy's' elevation to 'godmother' status

Evidence from the mother of two, which was revealed to state prosecutors after she entered a witness protection programme, threatens to expose a web of collusion between senior Mafioso and politicians.

Yet the fury in Mafia circles lies not just in her decision to break the "omerta," or code of silence. Ms Vitale, 33, has petitioned for divorce and violated another of the Cosa Nostra's strict rules, which forbids adultery.

To make matters even worse, the new man in her life is himself a "pentiti", or collaborator. Alfio Garozzo, 36, who was formerly head of the Cursotti clan, is said to have met Ms Vitale in prison and the pair are expected to marry.

Lest any members of the outraged Vitale family felt tempted to dismiss the jailhouse romance as a wicked rumour put about by police, Garozzo himself confirmed it. Anybody who doubted their love, he pointed out, could read the police wiretaps of their romantic conversations.

"Giusy Vitale has decided to collaborate with the law solely for reasons of love," he wrote in an open letter to the Italian media. "That is the love she has for me. And I, by the same token, am in love with her."

Ms Vitale is one of a number of women to assume prominent roles in Sicilian Mafia families after a decade of police crackdowns that have seen key male figures jailed.

Traditionally expected to do nothing more than cook for their husbands and keep quiet, the "bosses in skirts and high heels", as they are known, have become feared forces in their own right. "Juicy's" brothers, Leonardo and Vito Vitale, were part of Palermo's criminal aristocracy.

They are said to have been chosen in the 1990s as the eventual heirs to Bernardo Provenzano, the godfather of Sicily, who has been on the run for 42 years. By 1998, however, both were in jail, forcing Ms Vitale to run the organisation herself.

TheMafiaBoss.com "So Real, it Should be Illegal"

TheMafiaBoss.com is an internet online game based on the Real Mafia Life so called "La Cosa Nostra". This game is for those who want to be real Mafia Dons like Al Capone, John Gotti and have all the little Mafiosos "Kiss Their Ring...or Die".

(PRWEB) April 16, 2005 -- TheMafiaBoss.com, the free Online Massively Multiplayer Game, has just been launched, early this April, and is getting really popular! The game shows several aspects of what the real Mafia life would entail in a fiction role-playing scenario. It offers viewers a chance to participate and interact with other people who want to experience what it is like to have power, luxury, and be above the law.

In The Mafia Boss World, the goal is to become a notorious Boss of a Crime Family composed of Consiglieres, Underbosses, Capos and Soldiers. Mafiosos have the choice to collect money from their casinos, whorehouses, loan sharks and gambling dens. Like in the daily Mafia Life, they will produce drugs, liquor and fake money. When necessary, Mafiosos will use bribes, and minor crimes during daily routine. Mafia players will get on family wars against other families for control. They have the choice to join a Crime Family with a well structured hierarchy or even create their own Crime Family. The options are endless under the use of logic with extra scope for illegal businesses and use your legal businesses to clear out the money.

Jury finds bar fight an organized crime

DALLAS - A man accused of severely beating another man during a bar fight was found guilty Monday of engaging in organized criminal activity.

A jury of seven men and five women deliberated nearly three hours in the trial that could send Jesse Chaddock, 28, to prison for five to 99 years in the beating of David Cunniff, a contractor.

Emotional outbursts could be heard in the courtroom from several women, who identified themselves as friends of Chaddock, after the verdict was read.

The punishment phase began after the verdict was read and will continue today.

During the trial, several witnesses testified that on July 26, Chaddock knocked Cunniff to the ground and slammed his head several times against the concrete floor of the Gypsy Tea Room in the Deep Ellum area of downtown Dallas. The attack occurred during a performance of the Old 97's band.

Cunniff, 45, has testified that he couldn't move his limbs for several weeks after the beating, but regained his ability to walk through an experimental treatment involving robotics at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas. Cunniff said he is unable to continue his career as a building contractor.

The case focused heavily on Chaddock's ties with a neo-Nazi skinhead group, the Confederate Hammerskins. It also focussed on Chaddock's criminal history that included the 1996 stabbing of a black security guard.

Andy Beach, a Dallas County assistant district attorney, said Chaddock was the aggressor and boasted about being a member of the Confederate Hammerskins. Beach said Cunniff didn't know that he was getting into a confrontation with a member of a skinhead group at the club.

Feds bust Gambino thug, tie 3 docs to sex-Rx case

The Gambino crime family has been stockpiling Viagra and a pharmacy full of other prescription drugs allegedly supplied by three prominent Westchester doctors, the Daily News has learned.

Drs. Stephen Klass, Arlen Fleisher and George Shapiro have been caught on FBI tapes providing the drugs to gangster Gregory DePalma, according to law enforcement sources.

DePalma - a veteran capo in the Gambino family - and his crew took bagfuls of drugs from the doctors in 2003 and 2004, according to a longrunning FBI investigation.

The FBI observed or monitored numerous meetings and conversations between the doctors and DePalma, and recorded DePalma and his associates constantly asking for more drugs - especially Viagra and other erectile dysfunction drugs.

The agents discovered DePalma then sold the drugs or gave them away to friends and family.

Judge throws out mob boss' sentence

BOSTON, Massachusetts (AP) -- A federal judge has thrown out the prison sentence imposed on a Mafia captain after concluding that in order to force a confession, prosecutors withheld key evidence that would have helped exonerate him of a killing.

Vincent "The Animal" Ferrara pleaded guilty to racketeering and other charges in 1992 and admitted ordering a 1985 murder.

However, U.S. District Judge Mark L. Wolf said Ferrara probably didn't order the murder and a prosecutor failed to disclose a police detective's memo saying a witness to the shooting had admitted he lied about it.

Ferrara, 55, a Boston College-educated mob capo or captain, could be freed from his 22-year term as soon as next month, rather than his scheduled release date of January 2009. Wolf scheduled a May 3 re-sentencing hearing.

Wolf has frequently been critical of government misconduct in mob prosecutions.

Four Million Dollar Drug Bust Thanks to New Drug Unit

Over a hundred pounds of cocaine is now in the hands of law enforcement. The four million dollar bust landed Sergio Montesreal, David Rodriguez, and Raymundo Dealmonte in the slammer with no bond. The people of Marion County have "HIDTA", the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area unit to thank.

HIDTA started in April of 2003. A group of nine undercover investigators from local, state, and federal agencies work together to keep the big boys of the drug world off the streets.

"The major drug traffic organizations are not the people seen in neighborhood selling drugs on the street corner, they're the people who supply those people," says Captain Eddie Wright of the Marion County Sheriff's Office.

Man charged with drug trafficking: 130 grams of meth found

Police charged an Illinois man with drug trafficking after they located nearly 130 grams of crystal methamphetamine Saturday afternoon.

Terry Lee Smock, 53, of Paxton, Ill., was charged with two counts of first-degree trafficking in a controlled substance after officers discovered 11 grams of the drug in a car Smock was driving and then 118 grams of the drug in a friend's house, according to police. Officers stopped the red 1998 Saab convertible in the 600 block of West Fourth Street after they observed what they believed to be a drug transaction on Orchard Street by Kendall Perkins Park about 3:30 p.m. Saturday.

Four sentenced in drug bust

FRENCH VALLEY ---- Four men arrested in 2003 on suspicion of drug trafficking pleaded guilty Monday at the Southwest Justice Center and were sentenced to serve 17 years in state prison.

Jose Mendoza, 29, of Orange, and Andres Bernal, 34, Francisco Castillo, 27, and Sergio Ruiz, 27, all of Los Angeles, were arrested Nov. 7, 2003, after an informant told officers a truck loaded with cocaine was being driven through Lake Elsinore.

Officers found the truck, with about 244 kilograms of cocaine inside valued at about $24 million, parked in a ride-share parking lot on Dexter Avenue, where they arrested the men, authorities said.

The men pleaded guilty Monday and Riverside County Superior Court Judge Michael Hider then sentenced each of them to 17 years in prison.