Anti-mafia priest sent pig's head in Godfather-style warning

An Italian priest who campaigns against the mafia was sent a severed pig's head, in a scene straight out of The Godfather.

The pig's mouth was stuffed with a wad of cloth in what was interpreted as a clear warning to the clergyman by the 'Ndrangheta mafia.

The bloody head was left outside Father Ennio Stamile's home in the town of Cetraro in Calabria, the 'Ndrangheta's stronghold.

The macabre gesture had chilling echoes of a famous scene in The Godfather in which a Hollywood producer who refuses to do business with Don Vito Corleone, played by Marlon Brando in the 1972 film of the same name, wakes up to find the severed head of his favourite racehorse at the end of his bed.

It was the second threat received by the priest in five days – last week his car was vandalised.

Fr Stamile has been prominent in speaking out against organised crime in Cetraro, which gained notoriety for its high rate of mob-related murders.

Full Story (Telegraph)

Former New York mobster who turned on mafia gets less prison

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A former New York mobster who turned against the mafia and helped convict Vincent "Vinny Gorgeous" Basciano, then acting boss of the Bonanno crime family, was sentenced to 10 years in prison on Monday despite being involved in multiple murders.

Prosecutors said Dominick Cicale, 44, was convicted of racketeering and involvement in two murders and assaults in aid of racketeering. He avoided a maximum life sentence by agreeing to turn against his former crime-world associates, according to a motion filed in court on Monday by the U.S. Attorney's office for the Eastern District of New York.

He was sentenced to 10 years prison and was given credit for about seven years already served.

Prosecutors said that Cicale, who grew up in the Bronx in New York City, ascended the ranks of the Bonanno family from 1999 until his arrest in January 2005, during which time he took part in two "brutal" murders and other violence on the crime family's behalf.


Full Story (Chicago Tribune)

Four Bonanno Mobsters Busted in NYC: Feds

DEA and FBI agents arrested four members of the Bonanno organized crime family early Friday for alleged crimes that include racketeering, gambling and drug sales.  The father of a "Mob Wives" reality show star was also charged in the federal case.

Vincent Badalamenti, identified as a member of the Bonanno crime family administration, Nicholas Santora, a Bonanno family capo, Vito Balsamo, an acting captain, and Anthony Calabrese, a soldier, were arrested today and are are charged with racketeering, extortion, illegal gambling, and conspiracy to distribute marijuana, a law enforcement official said.

Anthony Graziano -- a Bonanno family captain whose daughter Renee Graziano stars on the reality show  "Mob Wives" -- was also charged.  Graziano was already in custody on a prior conviction.

Also arrested was James Laforte, an associate of the Gambino crime family, the official said.

Full Story

More than 1,000 Kyrgyz prisoners sew mouths shut, authorities blame organized crime

BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan — More than 1,000 prisoners in Kyrgyzstan have sewn their lips together, a grotesque act inmates describe as a protest of their dismal conditions, but which authorities blame on organized criminal gangs who resent attempts to break the power they wield in prisons.

Kyrgyzstan, a poor ex-Soviet nation of 5.3 million, holds around 7,600 inmates in its detention centers. The buildings are notoriously crowded and disease-ridden, and they have not escaped the reach of powerful criminal syndicates who also threaten the stability of the country, which hosts a key U.S. air base.

Full Story

EXCLUSIVE: Gang bust gives rare glimpse of Mexican Mafia's grip on North County

A federal indictment of 119 San Diego County gang members, including a Mexican Mafia boss arrested in a pre-dawn raid of his San Marcos home, portrays a sprawling, well-organized criminal network that ran drug dealing on the streets of North County and even extended inside the Vista jail.

Rudy Espudo, 39, controlled Latino gangs in North County and demanded "taxes" from drug dealers and gang members as tribute to "La Eme" ---- Spanish for "The M" and a nickname for the Mexican Mafia, according to the indictment.

Authorities also said that gang members smuggled drugs into the county-run Vista Detention Center and sold them for the Mexican Mafia, punished opponents and relayed orders with ease to and from the outside.

The indictment, which contains prosecutors' reasons for arresting and charging 51 North County gang members, describes the money-driven politics and inner workings of several local Latino gangs.

Read more: http://www.nctimes.com/news/local/sdcounty/exclusive-gang-bust-gives-rare-glimpse-of-mexican-mafia-s/article_cedea095-3c04-58ef-9479-83271b971789.html#ixzz1ktxppAG9

Fired Weatherman's 'Hangover' Helps Expose Rising Russian Mafia

It's a story that has been dubbed the real-life "Hangover," but it has helped expose the underground criminal workings of a newly powerful mafia taking hold in South Florida.

What began as a leisure trip to Miami Beach, Fla., for Philadelphia weatherman John Bolaris ended with him allegedly being drugged and swindled out of more than $43,700, losing his job at a local TV station and having to make multiple court appearances.

Revealed: How Robert Kennedy feared Mafia would blind his children in acid attack

Robert F Kennedy feared his children would be blinded by the mafia in an acid attack as revenge attack for investigating them, his widow has revealed.

Speaking out for the first time in 30 years, Ethel Kennedy said that her late husband was anxious they would be targeted as retaliation for his probe into mafia racketeering.

He saw a report about an American journalist who had been blinded in an acid attack by the mob and feared they would do the same to him.

The disclosure will add to conspiracy theories that the mafia may have been responsible for Kennedy’s death.

He was shot dead by Sirhan Sirhan in 1968 but speculation has raged that his crusade against the mob whilst serving as U.S. Attorney General may have be the root of his demise.

Mrs Kennedy opened up to promote ‘Ethel’, a new film about her life directed by her daughter Rory, the youngest of her eleven children.

Mafia Reportedly Trading in Counterfeit Olive Oil and Cheese

Olive oil might not be the only pantry staple falsely claiming its Italian origins; a new Italian parliamentary report finds that revenue from agriculture and food businesses make up 5.6 percent of Italy's organized crime business.

Criminal groups, the report says, are underpaying producers, trading in Italian counterfeit food products, and overcharging consumers.

Specifically, the president of Italy's largest farmers' group claims that the mafia is passing off olive oil and cheese as "made in Italy," when the product actually comes from cheaper, imported raw materials. It's almost as scandalous as the crazy truffle market.

Organized crime controls Italy’s food industry

MILAN – Organized crime in Italy controls agricultural and food businesses worth 12.5-billion euros (US$16-billion) a year, or 5.6% of all criminal operations in the country, according to a parliamentary investigation presented on Thursday.

Organized crime has spread its involvement through the entire food chain from acquisition of farmland to production, from transport to supermarkets, Italy’s biggest farmers group, Coldiretti, said in a statement.

“Italians find an additional invitee at their table: criminal organizations that eat up what Italians should have eaten,” Coldiretti quoted Italy’s chief anti-mafia prosecutor Pietro Grasso as saying on the sidelines of the presentation.

Mafia-like criminal groups often dictate producer and consumer prices in their own favour by undercutting prices paid to farmers for their products and inflating prices paid by consumers in food stores, Coldiretti said. Its findings were used in the investigation by a parliamentary commission.

Italy’s total agricultural and food processing industry is estimated at 300-billion euros per year, not including farmland sales, transport or retail parts of the food trade.

The Italian agriculture and food industry also suffer from the manufacture and sale each year of an estimated 60-billion euros worth of poor quality foreign food that masquerades as top-quality Italian brands ranging from cheese to ham to wine, Coldiretti said.

Guatemala's president calls on troops to 'neutralize' organized crime

Guatemala's new president has called on the military to help "neutralize" organized crime in the Central American nation.

A day after he took office, President Otto Perez Molina appeared to be making good on his campaign promises to fight rising crime and violence with an "iron fist."

"Today, publicly, I want to lay out for the army an important goal of collaborating, coordinating and cooperating with other security institutions, and that is to put an end to the external threats and contribute to neutralizing illegal armed groups by means of military power," he said Sunday.

Mafia Takes Over Publicly Traded Company

As Occupy Wall Street protestors chant about the criminals in the boardroom, actual thieves -- including men associated with the mafia -- have spent years quietly runningFirstPlus Financial Group(FPFX), a Texas-based company and a one-time subprime lender that boasted former Vice President Dan Quayle as a board member, and used NFL Hall of Famer Dan Marino in its ads.

On Tuesday, Nicodermo S. Scarfo, a made man within the Lucchese organized crime family, was arrested at his home. He's one of13 men chargedwith the illegal takeover of the publicly traded company, among other racketeering charges. "The defendants gave new meaning to 'corporate takeover,' " said U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman.

"Criminal activities have evolved from the back alleys to the board rooms," said Michael B. Ward, special agent in charge of the FBI's Newark Field Office. Still, the tactics remain the same, he says: "physical threats and intimidation to gain leverage and loot lucrative businesses."

Scarfo is not the only one of the 13 with ties to organized crime. Salvatore Pelullo, an associate of the Lucchese and Philadephia La Cosa Nostra families is also charged, as are Nicodermo D. Scarfo (Scarfo Sr.), the imprisoned former boss of the Philadelphia family of La Cosa Nostra, and Vittorio Amuso, the imprisoned boss of the Lucchese family. Others charged include an accountant and five lawyers.

According to an indictment unsealed on Tuesday, the men used both physical and finance threats to take control of FirstPlus in order to plunder the company for their own financial gain. Scarfo, Pelullo and their partners replaced the company's board of directors with their own cronies, and then named their accomplice, lawyer William Maxwell, as special counsel to FirstPlus so that Maxwell could use that position's authority to funnel millions back to the mobsters.

See full article from DailyFinance:http://srph.it/taiDdD

Murder-for-hire plot nets Steele 50-year term

Professing his innocence and blaming a vast government conspiracy, self-described “attorney for the damned” Edgar Steele was sentenced Wednesday to 50 years in federal prison for a foiled murder-for-hire plot that targeted his wife and mother-in-law with a car bomb.

In an hour-and-a-half rant before U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill in Coeur d’Alene, Steele called the case a conspiracy by the federal government, anti-hate groups and the Russian mafia to silence him for his political views and legal work.

“I, too, am a victim. My entire family is a victim. In fact, all of American society is a victim in this case,” said Steele, 66, who defended Aryan Nations founder Richard Butler in the 2000 landmark civil case that bankrupted the racist group. He also authored a book, “Defensive Racism,” and wrote essays on a website, ConspiracyPenPal.com, from his home near Shepherd Lake, southeast of Sandpoint.

“I am not delusional. I am a well-educated professional with a long track record of honesty,” Steele said, wearing a gray sweatshirt and orange jail pants. He vowed to continue fighting to prove his innocence.

Italy entrepreneur defies mafia with tuna and ice cream

(Reuters) - Sometimes Filippo Callipo, one of southern Italy's most successful businessmen, wonders why he is still alive.

Callipo's refusal to play ball with the mob in an area where organised crime forces many businesses to pay extortion money and even dictates which suppliers companies must use has made him somewhat of a local legend.

But it also means he makes the sign of the cross when he leaves home. It is a silent prayer that he will return each day from overseeing four businesses that provide 350 jobs in a region that has one of Italy's highest unemployment rates.

"Sure I'm afraid. Only an imbecile wouldn't be," said Callipo, who drives his own car and has no bodyguards. "But I am a fatalist. If they want to get you they will. It would be so easy in my case," he said in the offices of Callipo Tuna.

The company, which had revenues of about 40 million euros in 2010, sells high-quality tuna to supermarkets and up-market, gourmet specialty shops the world over.

Criminal gang leaders executed in central China

Xinhua

CHANGSHA, Sept. 28 (Xinhua) -- A court in central China's Hunan Province sentenced two leaders of a local organized crime group to death with two year reprieve on Tuesday, according to local authorities.

The Xiangxi Tujia and Miao Autonomous Prefecture Intermediate People's Court handed down the sentences to Liu Wanliang and Yang Zhengliang for their crimes, which included commandeering a private owned manganese mine, organizing and leading a criminal gang, murder, racketeering, sheltering criminals and pandering.

The court also sentenced four of the gang's members to life imprisonment and 23 other gang members to jail terms from two to 20 years.

According to the court, Liu and his gang reaped significant profits from a privately-owned mine that they seized in 2006. Over the following year, Liu illegally purchased two firearms, bringing his personal collection to eight weapons, the court said. Liu used his firearms to kill one person and injure five others, according to the court.

Spanish police arrest suspected Chinese mafia members

CNN

Madrid (CNN) -- Police in Barcelona have arrested 39 members of a suspected Chinese mafia and freed 30 young Chinese women whom they allegedly forced into prostitution, a senior officer of the Catalan regional police told CNN Wednesday. 

The arrests occurred earlier this week after a long investigation. It was the biggest strike to date against Chinese-run mafias involved in forced prostitution in the northeast region of Catalonia, whose capital is Barcelona, said the senior officer, Xavier Cortes, head of the Catalan police unit that fights human trafficking. 

In recent years, the Chinese crime syndicate had crowded out others from the prostitution market in the fashionable Eixample district of Barcelona by using forced prostitution and charging below-market rates, Cortes said. 

The women were forced to work in unsanitary conditions and in marathon sessions, seeing eight clients in a row for an hour each, he said. 

After initial arraignments, a judge ordered 33 of the suspects to remain in prison. Six others were released but remain under investigation, and must check in regularly with authorities, Cortes said.

24 face charges after investigation into organized crime ring

WKYT News

  A Franklin County grand jury has handed down indictments against 24 people following an investigation into organized crime.

  The Franklin County Sheriff's Office says "Operation Maverick," which was launched in March, targeted the importation and trafficking of prescription medication in the county.

The sheriff's office says the investigation revealed many people traveled to Florida to obtain Percocet and other controlled drugs.

Investigators say those suspects were financed by others, and large amounts of drugs were transported from Florida to Franklin County, where the drugs were then sold illegally.

"If you're going to deal drugs here, we are going to arrest you," Franklin County Sheriff Pat Melton said. "That is the bottom line of this operation, and that's the story here. We have tens of thousands of pills coming into our community from Florida by people going down there to the doctor and paying cash."

Did Federal Judge in Immigration Case Benefit from Organized Crime?

Opednews

  A federal judge who last week upheld most of Alabama's immigration law benefited from organized crime in the state's domestic-relations courts, according to a lawsuit filed four years ago.

U.S. District Judge Sharon Lovelace Blackburn held that key provisions in the Alabama immigration law are constitutional, making it the strictest such measure in the nation. But a 2007 federal lawsuit alleges that Blackburn was the beneficiary of unconstitutional actions by certain judges and lawyers in an Alabama divorce court. Specifically, the lawsuit alleges that a hunting club in central Alabama was the focal point of an organized crime ring that fixed divorce cases in order to benefit Blackburn and other favored parties--and their lawyers.

A specially appointed federal judge from Georgia dismissed the lawsuit on technical grounds in March 2008. But U.S. District Judge B. Avant Edenfield found that a key argument in the lawsuit "obviously was not frivolous." And for the purposes of his ruling, Edenfield states, the court was required to find many of the alleged facts as true.

Mexican Mafia racketeers sentenced

From the Houston Chronicle

Five members of the Texas Mexican Mafia gang were sentenced this week in Del Rio to prison terms for racketeering-related crimes, U.S. Attorney Robert Pitmanannounced Friday.

They pleaded guilty to conspiracy to violate theRacketeering Influenced Corruption Organization Act. Investigators blamed the gang for two killings.

The Texas Mexican Mafia was formed in the early 1980s by inmates in the state's prison system, and has branched into criminal activity outside prison, including extortion, narcotics trafficking and violent crime to enforce a 10 percent drug street tax.

The case is the first investigation to target the gang's operations along the Texas–Mexico border area, in Eagle Pass, Del Rio, Crystal City, Carrizo Springs, Uvalde, Sabinal and Hondo.

Pope condemns 'Ndrangheta mafia in their Calabrian lair

From the Guardian

Pope Benedict XVI has condemned Italy's "ferocious" 'Ndrangheta mafiaduring a visit to the group's heartland in Calabria, days after police seized a suspected mob shipment of more than half a tonne of cocaine at a local port.

Addressing 40,000 people at a disused industrial site in Lamezia Terme, the pope said the crime families in Calabria, in the toe of Italy, were "tearing at the social fabric" in a region "which seems to be in a constant state of emergency".

In a region noted for chronic unemployment, poor healthcare and corruption, the 'Ndrangheta has used its drug connections with Colombia and its quiet stranglehold on many businesses in northern Italy to overtake Sicily's Cosa Nostra and rack up revenue of €44bn (£37bn) a year, according to a 2008 study.

The pope's denouncement was welcomed by Father Giacomo Panizza, a Roman Catholic priest who works with the disabled in Calabria and has been forced to travel with a police escort after he clashed with local crime bosses.

Mafia boss' mansion fails to sell

MONTREAL - Jailed mafia kingpin Vito Rizzuto's $1.9 million luxury home has "spacious living areas and an elegant garden and patio," but no buyers after three months on the market.

Sotheby's International Realty is overseeing the sale of the 29-year-old stone-faced mansion, which is steps away from the home where family patriarch Nick Rizzuto, Vito's father, was shot and killed as he cooked dinner last November.

A sniper fired the fatal shots from the same adjacent "immense wooded area" mentioned in the listing for Vito's home, which is touted as being "perfect for both raising a family and entertaining."

The mansion is registered in the name of Giovanna Cammalleri, Vito's wife. The pair are to be reunited next year when the 65-year-old mob boss wraps up a prison term for a 1981 mob hit in Brooklyn.

Realtor Liza Kaufman refused to discuss her client's reputed crime connections in an interview with QMI Agency. She said her client recommended a list price that's twice the municipal valuation of $1,000,100.