WEB BUZZ MAFIA

'Mafia links' halted Trump plan to build Sydney casino

2017-09-08T12:23:00.001+05:00

Donald Trump's plan to build and operate Sydney's first casino were killed off due to police concerns over his consortium's 'mafia connections', according to documents made public after 30 years

The now US president was in the running for the contract in 1987 with joint venture partner the Kern Corporation, but Australian police were so concerned they recommended it be excluded.

At the time, Trump operated two casinos in Atlantic City -- Trump Plaza and Trump's Castle, and was close to owning a third.

"Atlantic City would be a dubious model for Sydney and in our judgement, the Trump Mafia connections should exclude the Kern/Trump consortium," the New South Wales Police Board said in report dated April 3, 1987.

A summary of the board's position was contained in cabinet minutes from the then-NSW Labor government on May 4 that year, released Thursday after being declassified and confirming revelations in The Australian newspaper last month.

No further details on the alleged mafia links were provided.

The documents said the consortium's plans were "rich and attractive" and it had the capacity to operate a casino, but warned that its revenue estimates were "not soundly based".

Of the four tenderers for the project, the police board cautioned against three of them, including the Hong Kong Macau Sydney consortium due to its "Chinese Triad association".

The project was later abandoned.

In its report before the documents were declassified, The Australian recounted how Trump boasted about his plans to the newspaper.

"If our design is chosen, it will not only be the largest, but one of the most magnificent, one of the most beautiful hotels anywhere in the world," he said in February 1987.

The newspaper cited a retired businessman involved in the Trump bid as saying he was unaware of the police board recommendation.

"All of us had to undergo police investigation; we were told that everyone had to be cleared from a police perspective," he said, declining to be named.

"The plan was for the Kern Corporation to build the casino, and for Trump to run it because he had the licence and experience in Atlantic City.

"I was not aware of the police report; it is the first I've heard of any mafia connections."

A Mafia Boss Has Been Arrested in Uruguay After 23 Years on the Run

2017-09-08T12:20:00.000+05:00

Police in Uruguay have arrested one of Italy's most wanted fugitives — the so-called "cocaine king of Milan"— who had been hiding out in the South American country for more than a decade.

Rocco Morabito, a boss of the Calabria-based Ndrangheta crime group, which controls much of the world's cocaine trade, had been on the run for 23 years in total, the Guardian reports. He is subject to a 30-year prison sentence in Italy after attempting to smuggle almost a tonne of cocaine into the country from Brazil in the 1990s.

Morabito's arrest at a luxury Montevideo hotel on Monday follows a six-month investigation by Uruguayan police, who were reportedly alerted to his presence when he registered his daughter at a local school using his real name instead of an alias.

Italian and Uruguayan authorities cited by the Guardian said that Morabito, 50, had long been living in Uruguay's southern coastal resort of Punta del Esta under an assumed identity. He is thought to have arrived in Uruguay in 2002.

Morabito was one of the Italian interior ministry’s top five most wanted organized crime bosses on a list that also includes Sicilian mafia boss Matteo Messina Denaro. His lawyer reportedly told Italian media that the mafia boss had quit crime since arriving in Uruguay and been leading “a normal life.”

Cheating mafia: UP Board to summon random copies from sensitive districts to control copying

2017-04-25T19:03:00.003+05:00

The evaluation process of the UP Board — one of biggest examination bodies of the world in terms of examinees — is set to kick off at 253 evaluation centres from April 27.

The Uttar Pradesh Board of Secondary Education has decided to randomly summon answer sheets from districts infamous for mass copying and get it checked by experts in Allahabad.

The step will help in the assessment of students of these districts and also detect foul play by copying mafia. It will also help the Board officials to get a benchmark of average marks for certain districts and minimize the possibility of over marking or biased evaluation by examiners.

After deciding to get the copies of students scoring over 90 per cent in Board examinations re-evaluated by senior examiners, this is another attempt by the Board to rein in copying mafia.

Many schools also try to illegally secure higher marks for some of its students to ensure their names on the merit list as the overall good result attract more students for admission.

The evaluation process of the UP Board — one of biggest examination bodies of the world in terms of examines — is set to kick off at 253 evaluation centers from April 27.

The board is likely to complete the task within 15 days and initiate the process of compilation of results.

During the evaluation process, the Board will summon unchecked answer sheets from sensitive districts and get it evaluated by specially-appointed examiners at the Government Inter College, Allahabad.

The Board will specially focus on Barabanki district which has been producing toppers for the last few years. Other districts like Kaushambi and Ghazipur will also be under the scanner as copying mafia is active here.

Secretary, UP Board, Shail Yadav, said: “We have decided to get copies selected randomly from some districts and get then evaluated by our examiners. This is a part of our efforts to ensure fair examination and evaluation of answer sheets.”

Muslim properties being grabbed by land mafia at Akali Dal-BJP leaders' behest: Mann

2012-12-28T23:24:00.000+05:00

ROPAR: Akali Dal (Amritsar) president Simranjit Singh Mann today alleged that the Muslim properties in the state were being grabbed by the land mafia and builders at the behest of Akali Dal and BJP leaders.

While talking to media persons after visiting the graveyard of Muslim community at village Kotla Nihang near Ropar to see the ‘encroachment’ made on it,Mann alleged that Waqf Board was hand in glove with land mafia in allowing grabbing of its properties.

Mann said that he had come to Kotla Nihang to assure his support to the members of Muslim community ,who were fighting against grabbing of their graveyard by the land mafia and builders.

He asked the members of Muslim community to give an application to him so that their grievance could be sent to National Human Rights Commission and Minorities Commission.

Mann also criticised the state government over ‘deteriorating’ law and order situation in the state and alleged that Police in the state was working for their political bosses in the ruling alliance adding that the force was not as efficient as it used to be during his times.

He also demanded a CBI enquiry in to the case regarding the attack on AIG of Police SS Mand at ‘Hub’ night club in Ludhiana.

Mann said everyone knew that AIG Mand worked for Akali Dal during the last assembly elections in Punjab and he was transferred by the Election Commission from his post at that time.

He said it required thorough probe as to why Mand was visiting ‘Hub’ nightclub and what were women doing there. CBI was the only agency which could conduct an impartial enquiry in to the matter.

Diplomat lambasted 'Mafia culture'

2012-12-28T23:12:00.000+05:00

THE Argentines were regarded by a senior Irish diplomat as "morbidly estranged from reality" and a people governed by a Mafia class.

In a withering dissection of "Latin psyche", the embassy in Buenos Aires sent a 17-page advisory to Dublin: a character assassination teed up with an assertion that the locals are psychologically dangerous.

The cable, titled "Understanding Argentina" and dated November 24, 1982, was sent to the secretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs, Iveagh House, Dublin. It was contained in a file marked "travel costs".

It was intended to be an overview of Argentine affairs following a year of turmoil and the country's defeat over the Falklands.

Thirty years later, it reads like an offensive catalogue of stereotypes. The cable states: "As a nation – if they are a nation, and that is part of the pathology – they are morbidly estranged from reality.

"To attempt an exhaustive catalogue of the exotic zoology of serious emotional disorders from which the Argentines collectively suffer would require ample recourse to the early Viennese texts.

"Behavioural aberrations of which they display advanced and frequently simultaneous symptoms include: paranoia, narcissism, aggression, delusions inter alia of grandeur, infantilism, hysteria, exhibitionism, extreme inferiority/ superiority complexes, extravagant self-fantasies, selective amnesia, habitual projection of internal failures on to external agents. Among the few psychological disorders from which the Argentines as a people remain resolutely immune, one may number scrupulosity and compulsive guilt."

On the state itself, the writer said there was some substance to the idea that Argentina's moral shortcomings span from the huge influx of immigrants from southern Italy.

"The mores of Naples and Palermo have certainly infected Argentina," the diplomat wrote.
But here lies the twist, the papers reveal: the underground, criminal counter-culture of the Mafia was not present in Argentina at the time.

"There is no role in Buenos Aires for such heterodox criminality. Here the Mafia is the official culture, the conventional society, the quintessential state," it read.

Italy’s confused election gets another twist with anti-Mafia prosecutor joining Democrats

2012-12-28T22:58:00.000+05:00

ROME — Italy’s confused election campaign took another twist Friday with the country’s respected national anti-Mafia prosecutor joining ranks with the center-left Democratic Party, a big-name boost for a party that is already leading in the polls ahead of the February vote.

A day earlier, Premier Mario Monti got an even bigger endorsement for his potential candidacy from the Vatican newspaper after winning a not-so-subtle thumbs up from the pope himself on Christmas Day.
Almost left behind in the jockeying was Italy’s most colorful politician, Silvio Berlusconi, who was on the front pages of Italy’s leading daily Friday for an entirely other reason. Corriere della Sera revealed details of his divorce settlement with his second wife Veronica Lario, showing that he must pay her €3 million ($4 million) a month. He gets to keep the house, however.

Italians vote Feb. 24-25 in general elections after a yearlong experiment with Monti’s technocratic government, appointed to help steer Italy through the eurozone’s debt crisis. Monti took the place of Berlusconi, who was forced to resign in November 2011 after international markets lost faith in his ability to enact necessary reforms.

Monti has hedged his political intentions, saying he won’t run but would be open to leading a new government if like-minded politicians who backed his 25-page political platform asked him. He met Friday with centrist leaders who are his main supporters but who are only expected to win a small chunk of the popular vote.

Leading in the projections with some 30 percent of the vote is the Democratic Party, which proudly presented prosecutor Pietro Grasso at party headquarters in Rome for his political debut. Grasso choked up as he recounted how his hand trembled a few days ago when he wrote the letter to Italy’s order of magistrates seeking to end his 43-year career fighting the mob.

He explained his “radical” decision to run for an as yet unidentified office as wanting to leave a better country for his grandson. Sounding more like a potential justice minister than mere parliamentary candidate, Grasso said he had a vision of Italy to “be at the service of a country that has reached the maximum of confusion.”

Pier Luigi Bersani, the Democratic Party’s candidate for premier, looked pleased at having brought into his party a figure who is respected on both the left and right. Grasso didn’t say exactly what he was running for, only that he had asked not to run in his native Sicily, where he said his investigations against the Cosa Nostra had “left their mark.”

Bersani has said he wants to bring morality back to Italy and Italian politics — a clear reference to the sex scandals and legal woes that helped bring down Berlusconi.

He was asked about the Vatican newspaper’s endorsement of Monti, a practicing Catholic who has enjoyed the esteem of Pope Benedict XVI. Praising Monti, L’Osservatore Romano said the economist clearly wanted to “recover the highest and most noble sense of politics” for the common good.
Bersani said he had long considered politics to be noble.

Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco, the head of Italy’s bishops conference, on Friday said Monti was recognized both at home and abroad for his “honesty and capability.”

Support from the Vatican and the Italian Catholic Church, both influential in the country’s society, is considered crucial for any Italian government.

The Vatican made clear by the end of Berlusconi’s last term that it was tired of his scandalous lifestyle. His wife said she was divorcing him because of his fondness for younger women. Separately, the media mogul is on trial in Milan for allegedly paying for sex with an underage woman and trying to use his office while premier to cover it up, charges he has denied.

Berlusconi, 76, is currently dating a woman nearly 50 years his junior. After waffling for months, he seems very much in campaign mode, though his center-right People of Freedom party trails in the polls.

Sicilian judges freeze Mafia money in Valletta-based company

2012-12-17T22:55:00.000+05:00

Wind energy company held in Valletta fiduciary company targeted by Palermo investigators hunting Mafia boss of bosses.

Matteo Massimo Denaro identikit.

Sicilian anti-mafia judges have issued a freezing order on assets and money registered under a Valletta-based company which investigations have revealed to be connected to one of the world's most wanted mafia bosses, Matteo Messina Denaro.

Known to be the current 'boss of bosses' to Sicily's notorious 'Cosa Nostra', Denaro was always considered to be the Mafia's most prolific financial brain, who invested and laundered billions of drug and extortion money all over the world, including Malta on various occasions.

On the run for the past 25 years, Denaro has this week hit the headlines in Italy for his connections to the highly lucrative sector of renewable energy.

Months of investigations in Palermo have yielded Denaro's links to Sicily's wind farm energy, through a series of companies which generate governmental contracts, and money which is then funnelled through an elaborate scheme of financial transactions, and eventually end up in a company registered to an address in Archbishop Street, in Valletta.

Investigators from Sicily's anti-mafia pool of magistrates have identified Eryngium as the Maltese company which was allegedly the recipient of such financial transactions, and ordered an immediate freeze of an estimated €1.3 million in assets.

According to the investigators, the company was created by a "mastermind" in financial and economic affairs, identified as Messina University head of the faculty of economics, Professor. Melo Martella, who has been served with a warrant for his arrest.

Others said to be connected to Eryngium and its mother-company Eryngium Holdings Limited - also registered in Malta - is Nino Scimemi from the town of Salemi, and Vito Nicastri from Alcamo, who earned himself the nickname as 'king of the wind' for his involvement in a number of wind farms around the Italian peninsula, and who is at the centre of a number of investigations by police for his role in illicit business.

Investigators have identified Notabile Consulting Group Limited in Archbishop Street, Valletta, as the fiduciary which holds the company's interests in Malta.

Notabile's managing director Simon Vella refused to comment when contacted, adding that as a fiduciary, he was obliged to keep mum. The companies have meanwhile been declared to be in dissolution.
This was not the first time that Messina Denaro set his eyes on Malta.

During the 1990s, he masterminded a financial operation which, through a number of bogus Italian construction and leisure companies, planned to submit a multi-billion offer to the Maltese government which was about to launch an internation bid for the lease of Manoel Island.

An emissary for Messina Denaro had met up in a hotel in Rome with Victor Balzan, a Maltese national - known for his links with former Labour works minister Lorry Sant - who was to pave the way for the mafia to take over the contract and convert Manoel Island into a casino haven.

Alerted by Italian authorities, the Maltese government suspended the bid and re-opened the call a few years later.

Earlier investigations had placed Victor Balzan at the heart of a multi-million drug bust by the American Drugs Enforcement Agency and Italy's anti-mafia police.

Code named 'Operation Green Ice' and 'Sole 1' and 'Sole 2' US and Italian forces raided a flotilla of Sicilian fishing boats all registered in Messina Denaro's fishing village Mazzara del Vallo, which were used to traffic tonnes of cocaine, hashish and heroin from North Africa, via Malta to Sicily and then to the United States.

The operation was the prelude to Giovanni Falcone's renowned success in uncovering the so called 'Pizza Connection' which revealed the Sicilian mafia's illicit exports to the United States.

What tip Italian Mafia gave before dying

2012-12-17T22:40:00.001+05:00

An old Italian Mafia Don is dying and he called his grandson to his bed and said, "Grandson I wanta you to listen to me. I wanta you to take mya 45 automatic pistol, so you will always remember me." Grandson replied, "But grandpa I really don't like guns, how about you leaving me your Rolex watch instead."

The old man replied: "You lisina to me, some day you goina run da bussiness, you goina have a beautiful wife, lotsa money, a biga home and maybe a couple of bambino, some day you goina come home and maybe finda you wife in bed with another man. Whata you gonna do then? Pointa to you watch and say, "Times Up"?

Death, money and the mafia in modern Russia

2012-12-17T22:36:00.000+05:00

A file picture taken 14 September 2004 shows Russian ex-spy and fierce Kremlin critic Alexander Litvinenko, after a press conference in London. The British government has evidence that the Russian state was involved in the radioactive poisoning of Litvinenko, a hearing into his death was told yesterday.

Russia’s thousand-year history is littered with conspiracies and conspiracy theories. Claims by Alexander Litvinenko’s supporters that he was a Russian spy and, last week, by his widow’s lawyers that he was an important agent for MI6, belong in all probability among the latter. Litvinenko was actually a middle-ranking KGB (and later, FSB) enforcer who fell out with the Kremlin and with his former colleagues. He threw in his lot with the Kremlin’s public enemy number one, Boris Berezovsky, and when Berezovsky fled to England in 2000, he fled with him.

From the imagined safety of London, Litvinenko poured out his bile on Vladimir Putin, hurling ever more improbable accusations at the man he once spoke of as his own role model. He directed bitter polemics at his former colleagues in the FSB; he became involved in murky business dealings, with dark suggestions of blackmail plots; and in the end someone’s patience snapped. Litvinenko was poisoned in 2006 by two ex-FSB friends who flew from Moscow and poured radioactive polonium into his tea. No one except those involved can say exactly what their motives were, or who gave them their orders, but Litvinenko had angered many people in many ways.

There were vocal allegations — not least from the dying Litvinenko himself — that the murderers were personally dispatched by Putin. In the course of researching my book on the case, I was not able to verify those allegations. However, the fact that the Crown Prosecution Service said publicly last week that the Russian state had a case to answer suggests that Britain is confident there is a solid link. Far more significant than one man’s death, however tragic, though, is the impression the case has created that Russia is run by a regime that sanctions murder, corruption and organised criminality — as the WikiLeaks document resoundingly put it, that “Russia is a mafia state”.

It is undoubtedly true that the mafia is very powerful in Russia. It always has been. In Communist times, organised crime had close links with the apparat, the Communist bureaucracy that ran the country from the highest levels to the lowliest village council. And after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the arrangement was simply transferred to the new officials in power — easily done, as in many cases the former Communist functionaries remained in their posts. With the old state structures disintegrating in the 1990s, Russia was gripped by a decade of unbridled criminality and mafia power. Business feuds were settled by bullets and bombs, often with the connivance of the police and legal authorities. The co-owner of the building that housed my own office — during the 1980s and much of the 1990s, I was the BBC’s Moscow correspondent — was an enterprising American by the name of Paul Tatum. He was in partnership with some Russian businessmen, whom I often noticed in the foyer.

In the mid 1990s, they told Paul they wanted to buy him out. Paul refused and on the evening of November 3, 1996, a man with a Kalashnikov shot him dead. I saw the ambulance take his body away. No one was ever arrested or convicted and the widely accepted view was that the murderers had bought the protection of the authorities. After the arrival of Putin as President in 2000, things seemed to calm down. There was less overt violence on the streets; criminality became more discreet and — some would say — more carefully controlled by those in power. However, corruption, protection rackets and the intimidation of businessmen continued.

I do not agree with the new Cold Warriors in Britain and the US who see the hand of Putin behind every negative phenomenon in Russian society. That would be just as absurd as the Kremlin’s own contention that all Russia’s afflictions — from demonstrations on the streets to the controversy over Pussy Riot — are orchestrated by the evil hand of the CIA. However, what is undoubtedly true is that Putin has given the security services much greater power and freedom of action than they have enjoyed since the days of Leonid Brezhnev. As a former KGB official himself, and a former head of FSB, Putin celebrated his ascent to power by telling colleagues in the Lubyanka: “Congratulations, comrades. Our forces have succeeded in infiltrating the corridors of power.”

It was only partly a joke. In the past decade, the FSB has become a law unto itself and its agents act with almost total impunity. The security services seem to have been given the go-ahead to enrich themselves by a compliant Kremlin. Since tsarist times, Russia has had a tradition known as kormlenie — literally “feeding”. Instead of the state paying its officials adequate salaries, it has encouraged them to enrich themselves out of the domains they administer. Russians have learned to live with it, but the abuses foster resentment and a distinct lack of consent on the part of the people. At the lowest level, kormlenie means badly paid traffic cops are allowed to make their living by demanding bribes from motorists.

At the highest levels, today’s masters of the Kremlin reward their cronies with the chairmanship of national industries. They do not own the industry per se, but they control its revenues and the tales of bulging Swiss bank accounts are legion. Putin allies have been appointed to run all the key sectors of the economy. Igor Sechin heads oil giant Rosneft; Sergei Ivanov, the country’s biggest arms manufacturer; Dmitry Patrushev, son of the FSB director, controlled the state export bank; Vladimir Yakunin, the railways; and Dmitry Medvedev was previously the chairman of the state gas monopoly, Gazprom. The finances of all these enterprises remain distinctly opaque and, as billions of dollars flow through their books every day, the opportunity for personal enrichment is ever-present.

If the 1990s were the decade of corrupt oligarchs, enriched with the connivance of Boris Yeltsin’s financially and morally bankrupt regime, the oligarchs of the 2000s are inside the Kremlin. With such high stakes in play, it is only natural that the politicians should expect protection from their security forces. While researching my history of Russia’s oil wars, I was shown documents in which a former FSB operative coolly described how his colleagues would commission professional criminals to eliminate political and business opponents, handing out weapons and payments of tens of thousands of dollars.

“Our goals and objectives were to implement unconventional methods in order to resolve the problems of the President of the Russian Federation,” he concludes. The author of the document was Alexander Litvinenko and it is possible that not all the details of his account are accurate. Yet, Litvinenko was personally involved in FSB enforcement operations and the fact that criminal relations between the FSB and the mafia are reported in such a deadpan, matter-of-fact way reflects the deep, long-established links between the two.

Whether or not the Kremlin directly ordered Andrei Lugovoy and Dmitry Kovtun to murder Litvinenko, the two former FSB men have been fiercely protected by the Russian authorities, who have refused extradition requests from Britain and even granted Lugovoy parliamentary immunity. It is a modus operandi that benefits both sides.

The Telegraph Group Limited, 2012. Martin Sixsmith is the author of Russia: A 1,000 Year Chronicle of the Wild East, published by BBC Books.

Mexican Mafia member's daughter allegedly did his bidding

2012-12-10T23:28:00.000+05:00

Vianna Roman is charged, along with 28 others, with a variety of crimes related to activities of the Harpys street gang in South L.A., reputedly run by her father from prison.

When her father was convicted of the murder of a rival gang member and sentenced to life in prison without parole almost three decades ago, Vianna Roman was a 9-year-old girl.

In the years since, Danny Roman, federal authorities say, has become a feared member of the Mexican Mafia prison gang. He allegedly controlled a 30-square-mile expanse of gang territory in South L.A. from behind bars in Pelican Bay State Prison. Doing his bidding from 700 miles away — passing down his orders of violence, collecting "taxes" from businesses and other gang members at his behest — was his daughter, federal prosecutors alleged Thursday.

Vianna, now 37, a mother and operator of a meat market and water store, was among 18 arrested as part of a sweeping federal take-down of members of the Harpys gang, which authorities said controlled an area just north of USC, engaging in drug and gun sales, extortion, robberies and at least one murder. Vianna and her husband, Aaron Soto, 40, were accused of being among leaders of the gang in a federal racketeering indictment, along with the alleged "shot-caller," 36-year-old Manuel Valencia of Walnut.

The indictment was a result of a 2 1/2-year investigation dubbed Operation Roman Empire by the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Los Angeles Police Department. It named 29 defendants, some of whom were already in state custody. Still others are fugitives, according to a news release from the U.S. attorney's office.
"This is uprooting the leadership of the Harpys gang," said Assistant U.S. Atty. Benjamin Barron. "The Harpys controlled the activities of Danny Roman's gangs on his behalf — extortion of businesses and gangs, drug trafficking, gun trafficking, enforcement of their orders through violence including murder."

Among the crimes allegedly committed by the gang were a May 2012 murder of a man who owed a $230 drug debt; an August 2011 plot to murder a witness who had testified against a gang member; and a December 2011 armed robbery of three USC students. Prosecutors wrote in court papers that through its activities, the gang maintained a "climate of fear" in the neighborhood.

All of the newly arrested defendants made their initial court appearances Thursday except Vianna Roman, who was taken to the hospital complaining of chest pains, prosecutors said.

The 110-page indictment described Vianna traveling to and from Pelican Bay to pass messages about the gang's business to and from her father. In January, prison officials banned her and her husband from visits for one year because of suspected gang activity, according to the filing.

Vianna allegedly took part in collecting taxes from other South L.A. gangs controlled by her father, complaining at one point that the gangs weren't coughing up enough money in relation to the quantity of drugs they were selling. Roman had under his power at least 12 other criminal gangs in an expansive territory that stretched as far south as Imperial Highway, according to prosecutors.

Vianna, prosecutors alleged in the indictment, also oversaw extortion of vendors at the Alameda Swap Meet and ordered a gang member beaten for failing to deliver "taxes" collected there. She is also accused of being involved in drug sales, and at one point arbitrating a dispute by ordering an 18th Street gang member to turn over two cars in lieu of an unpaid drug debt.

She could not be reached for comment and has not entered a plea in court. Attorneys representing her husband and Valencia, the alleged shot-caller, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Sand mafia attacks shocks Kerala administration

2012-12-10T23:17:00.000+05:00

Kozhikode district collector and convoy targeted by sand miners on two occasions

Thiruvananthapuram: The sheer audacity with which some illegal river sand miners dared the Kozhikode district administration early on Saturday morning, challenging a team led by the district collector, has shocked the state and called for stringent action to crack down against violators of the law.

Congress leader V.M. Sudheeran brought the matter into the political limelight on Sunday, citing how different mafia gangs were tightening their grip on the state. Sudheeran said it was unfortunate that a situation prevailed where the land mafia, sand mafia and liquor mafia were had exercised a tight grip on the state.

Sudheeran said the administrative mechanisms to control such mafia appeared to be failing and that the attack of the sand mafia against the Kozhikode district collector was an example of the dire situation.

Kozhikode district collector K.V. Mohankumar was targeted by sand miners on two occasions on Saturday morning at 3.30am and 4.30am when he was leading a squad of police and revenue officials to check sand smuggling at Feroke in the city outskirts.

In the first incident, the miners trapped the collector in a narrow lane near Kandikulam with their tipper lorry and dumped the smuggled sand in front of the collector’s car, blocking his path.

Lorry detained

In the second incident, which happened an hour later, a motorbike blocked the collector’s convoy while they were chasing a lorry. The number plate of the bike was faded and the bike sped away. The district officials felt the gang could have been armed. In follow-up action by the police, one lorry has been detained and investigation is on.

The surprise raid at night by a team led by the collector was undertaken following complaints that the sand mafia had been mining and smuggling sand from the Kadalundi river in collusion with some government officials.

Home minister Thiruvanchoor Radhakrishnan said stringent action will be taken against the culprits.

Kerala’s construction sector has boomed over the past decade, making river sand a virtual treasure for construction. This, in turn, has attracted armed gangs into illegal mining of sand from river frontages.

Mafia encroaches green belt

2012-12-10T23:10:00.000+05:00

NOIDA: Even though Noida Authority on Thursday cleared nearly 90 acres of encroached land from three major sectors in Noida, they have failed to take action against land mafia who have encroached upon at least 100 acres of green belt at a prime location near Sector 74 where thousands of housing units are being developed. Authority officials had claimed that they would soon raze the encroachments, but so far no action has been taken.

The Noida Authority on Thursday had flattened nearly 90 acres of encroached government land valued at about Rs 10,000 crore from three major sectors in Noida, but it appears officials are less bothered about the green belt in the city. A TOI team had recently visited Sector 74 and found that the green belt was heavily encroached on. Even construction work was being undertaken on some of the plots. When the issue was raised before the Noida Authority OSD Manoj Rai, he had said that a team would be sent to conduct a probe and demolish illegal construction, but to no avail.

Nearly five years back, residential plots were allotted in various areas, including Sectors 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 112, 113, 114, 115, 116, 117, 118 and 119 to various developers. Thousands of housing units are being constructed in these sectors now. With the development of this region, the cost of land in this area has gone up. Taking into consideration the realty market, land mafias encroached on the green belt and started trapping innocent people by selling them illegal plots at nominal costs.

The illegal colonizers have been taking advantage of the land row that has been going on in Greater Noida for quite some time. The land mafia has been selling land at Rs 15,000 per square yard after illegally cutting plots on green belts. "The government should take immediate action on such encroachment, otherwise the areas will turn into illegal slums. There should be a separate department to look upon such acts," said Amit Gupta, Assocham member.

"The Authority comes into action only after innocent people are cheated. We suspect that some local leaders are also involved in the encroachment. The role of government agencies and the police must be put under the scanner," alleged a farmer.

When TOI tried to get talk to Noida Authority CEO Sanjeev Saran and OSD Manoj Rai, they refused to comment on the issue.

More bloodshed likely to come after another Montreal Mafia death

2012-12-10T22:57:00.000+05:00

Vito Rizzuto, right, reputed head of the Montreal Mafia, speaks with his lawyer following a 2004 court hearing in Montreal.

MONTREAL — The weekend killing of a man with alleged ties to the Mafia is the latest manifestation of the power struggle being waged in Montreal’s underworld, experts said. And there’s likely more bloodshed to come.

"Montreal is like a powder keg right now. And there is a sense that the violence is no longer one-sided," Mafia expert Antonio Nicaso said in an interview on Sunday." Unfortunately, I don’t think this is the end of it."

Montreal homicide detectives did not release the name of the victim, whose body was found riddled with bullets and slumped in a white Range Rover SUV about 9:30 a.m. on Saturday. But he was identified in numerous reports as Emilio Cordileone, 50. Cordileone had no criminal record. However, his name came up numerous times during Operation Colisée, the RCMP probe into organized crime.

"The main thing our investigators are looking at is this is connected to Italian organized crime," Constable Dany Richer said.

Police are interviewing neighbours and witnesses but have no suspects for the moment, he said.

Experts who study Mob activity in Montreal said it comes as no surprise that gangland attacks continue.
"Tension remains extraordinarily high among gangsters of all stripes, across Quebec and Ontario," said Adrian Humphreys, author of The Sixth Family, a biography of the Rizzuto family and organized crime reporter for the National Post.

"The power struggle is far from settled, and Vito Rizzuto’s place in the underworld since his release from prison is very much an unanswered question.

"More people will die before that’s decided — and likely more before the new year."

Rizzuto, the reputed godfather of the Canadian Mafia, spent five years in jail after he was arrested in 2004 and extradited to the United States, where he was convicted on charges of racketeering and conspiracy for his role in the 1981 murder of three Bonanno crime family members in New York. He was released in October and deported to Canada. After flying to Toronto, he is reported to be back in Montreal.

Cordileone and several of his relatives have had significant ties to the Mafia in Montreal. According to Humphreys, court documents indicate that, at least 10 years ago, Cordileone was connected enough in business and in the Mob to be the intermediary between Rizzuto and his associates. Nicaso, who has written a book on the Rizzuto family, said that Cordileone’s relatives are named in 1991 RCMP reports on organized crime as having close links with Frank Cotroni, whose family ruled the drug trade in Montreal until they were supplanted by the Rizzutos.

In 2005, Cordileone’s father was abducted for a week and then set free. And, according to a report in La Presse, the victim’s nephew, Mark Cordileone, is the owner of a bar on Belanger St. in St. Leonard, called QVS. It was also the site of a double shooting last August in which one man was seriously hurt and another killed. That shooting was believed to have been linked to the drug trade.

Cordileone’s brother, too, has allegedly been in business with the Mob. Dino Cordileone’s role in a plot to bomb a factory owned by a biker gang netted him a 23-month jail sentence in 1994.

The fatal shooting is only the latest in a string of recent murders of Montrealers with reputed Mob ties. Only a month ago, Joseph Di Maulo, 70, was found face-down in the driveway outside his home in Blainville. He was a Mafia veteran and a one-time confidant of Rizzuto who is believed to have begun trying to consolidate power in Montreal in Rizzuto’s absence.

Not long afterward, Mohamed Awada was murdered in front of his house in Montreal North. Awada had faced multiple charges during the past two decades, including drug offences, weapons and assault. In 2008, he was one of the people charged, but later acquitted, in the kidnapping of a low-level member of the Rizzuto clan.

Nicaso said the latest spate of violence seems to indicate that the Rizzuto clan is ready to strike back to reclaim power now that the head of the family has returned from exile. While Rizzuto was behind bars, his father Nicolo and his son Nick Rizzuto Jr. were killed. His brother-in-law, Paolo Renda, was kidnapped in 2010 and hasn’t been seen since.

"For a long time, the violence seemed one-sided, meant to challenge the Rizzuto family’s power," Nicaso said. "But now there is a sense that the Rizzuto family is capable of striking back."

Nicaso said that if this is the case, then Rizzuto has his work cut out for him.

"He has been challenged on the street, and his political and financial connections have been exposed during testimony before the Charbonneau Commission," Nicaso said. "He came back from jail to a new criminal landscape with new players trying to take over his turf.

"There doesn’t seem to be anyone in place who is recognized as being in charge. There are symptoms of a power vacuum. It is even difficult to describe who is on one side and who is on the other."

‘Gas Mafia’ further burdens common consumers

2012-12-05T21:47:00.000+05:00

Tuesday, December 04, 2012 - Mandi Bahauddin—“Gas mafia” has again increased price of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) by up to Rs 15 per kg which would further put huge burden on domestic consumers. In Mandi Bahauddin, domestic cylinder is already sold for Rs 1,700 and now its price would shoot up to more than Rs 2000. It may be mentioned that domestic LPG cylinders are purchased by those who could not get CNG connections due to lack of contact with local PPP leaders.

The CNG consumers use gas over a month and their bills do not exceed Rs 1000 whereas consumers using LPG have to purchase three to four gas cylinders a month to prepare meals. This disparity is felt seriously by LPG consumers. Besides, cylinder has less than 12 kilograms LPG and the LPG sellers refuse to weigh the cylinder when requested by customers. Complaints made to authorities concerned in this regard bear no fruit.

£10 million of Tuscan wine poured away in 'Mafia-style' attack

2012-12-05T21:44:00.000+05:00

Skulduggery amid the gently sloping vineyards of Tuscany sent an estimated £10 million worth of one of Italy’s most celebrated red wines gurgling down the drain A Tuscan vineyard between Castellina and Poggibonsi in Italy

Saboteurs broke into the cellars of the Case Basse winery in the middle of the night, turned on the taps of the giant wooden casks in which the wine was maturing, and let more than 62,000 litres of prized Brunello di Montalcino drain onto the ground.

The resulting virtual lake of wine represented 80,000 bottles, each of which can sell for 170 euros or more — a total estimated value of more than 13 million euros.

The nocturnal raiders did no other damage to the estate’s “cantina”, nor did they steal anything, deepening the mystery and suggesting that it was less a random episode of vandalism and more a deliberate act of spite.

The raid wiped out the last six vintages of the 6.5 hectare vineyard in the hills of southern Tuscany, from 2007 to 2012.

The wine, produced from Sangiovese grapes, has to be matured in barrels for at least four years before it can be sold under the Brunello di Montalcino name, so the vineyard will have nothing to sell until 2016 at the earliest.

Estate owner Gianfranco Soldera, who worked as an insurance broker in Milan before buying the vineyard in 1972, said he had no idea who might have been behind the raid in the early hours of Monday.

His family described it as “a mafia-style act” but did not identify possible culprits, whether crime organisations or individuals.

“We cannot come to terms with what happened,” Mauro Soldera, his son, told Corriere della Sera newspaper.

“We’ve never been involved in controversy and we’ve never received threats. We’ve suffered a serious blow, not just in economic terms, but we will not give up. The estate will survive, we have the strength and the courage not to quit.”

Making wine among the cypress trees and winding lanes of Tuscany may seem a genteel affair, but the world of Brunello di Montalcino has been marred by scandal in recent years after it was found that some producers were “cutting” their wine with other grape varieties, such as Merlot.

In 2008 investigators confiscated more than half a million bottles from one prominent vintner, alleging that he could not possibly have made that much wine purely from Sangiovese grapes, and the government set up a panel of experts to monitor standards of purity.

The Solderas have said they could quadruple their production if they were less rigorous in their standards, and their criticism of less scrupulous producers may have antagonised rivals.

Case Basse is a small but highly acclaimed producer of Brunello di Montalcino, making around 10,000 bottles a year.

More than seven million bottles of Brunello are produced on average every year, 60 percent of which are sold abroad, with the wine proving particularly popular in the United States.

The sabotage is being investigated by prosecutors from Siena and Carabinieri police from nearby Montalcino, a town popular with British tourists which is dominated by a 14th century fortress.

Fabrizio Bindocci, the president of the Brunello di Montalcino Consortium, condemned the act of sabotage and said it had shocked all 250 producers of the esteemed red in Tuscany. “They feel personally affected by this unpardonable act,” he said.

Donatella Cinelli Colombini, the vice-president of the consortium, said: “I cannot think of a similar incident in this region in living memory. It is a dismaying affair.”

Silvio Franceschelli, the mayor of Montalcino, called the raid “ugly and cowardly” and expressed solidarity with the owners of the winery.

Italy court says wiretaps of president inadmissible in mafia case

2012-12-05T21:34:00.000+05:00

Italy's highest court on Tuesday ruled that a court in Palermo had wrongly dragged President Giorgio Napolitano into a probe on alleged negotiations between the mafia and the state following deadly gangland bombings two decades ago.

The constitutional court said it had accepted Napolitano's argument that wiretaps of him speaking to a former interior minister about the mafia investigation could not be used in the case and should have been destroyed immediately.

The ruling takes pressure off Napolitano, seen as the guarantor of Mario Monti's technocrat government, who is likely to play an important role in the formation of a new government after elections expected in March.

The 87-year-old president risked being weakened by the case which drew negative coverage of him in some domestic newspapers. A ruling against Napolitano would have marred his mandate, which ends early next year, by linking him with one of the most notorious episodes of recent Italian history.

Palermo prosecutors in July requested a trial for six mob-connected figures and six former state or police officials, including former Interior Minister Nicola Mancino, on charges related to negotiations between the crime network and the state from 1992 to 1994.

The Sicilian Mafia is alleged to have offered to end a string of bombings that killed 21 people in 1992-1993, including judges Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino, in exchange for lighter sentences and softer jail conditions for convicted gangsters.

Napolitano was dragged into the case because the prosecutors had tapped Mancino's phone and recorded four calls he made to the president.

Portions of the wiretaps were published by newspapers over the summer. In them, Mancino complained about the prosecutors and appeared to be asking the president for help in having the case moved to a different court.

Mancino, who denies any wrongdoing, is accused of perjury for saying he knew nothing about the negotiations.

Napolitano said it was illegal to wiretap the president, Italy's head of state, and when the prosecutors denied this and refused to destroy the recording he appealed to the constitutional court.

Suspected Mexican Mafia member arrested in Phoenix murder

2012-12-05T15:46:00.000+05:00

Steven Benavidez, who authorities say is linked to the Mexican mafia, is behind bars on suspicion of killing Erasmo Ledezma and possession of drug paraphernalia, authorities said.

Authorities say witnesses led investigators to believe that Benavidez and other Mexican Mafia members are associated with Ledezma’s death after Ledezma did not pay his share to gang members. The Mexican Mafia is a documented prison gang that taxes individuals to get money and support, according to Superior Court documents.

On Nov. 22, Phoenix fire fighters found Ledezma dead outside a business from gunshot wounds near the 4000 block of East Madison Street in Phoenix about 9:50 p.m.

Investigators found that the Mexican Mafia members were searching for Ledezma because they thought he leaked information to police about a recent arrest, court documents show. The gang members were also collecting taxes from Ledezma and it was time for him to pay up, officials say.

Benavidez and other Mexican Mafia members sought out the location where Ledezma lived through witnesses who knew him. Several witnesses were pressured to locate Ledezma or their lives would be threatened, court documents show.

Benavidez was arrested Friday on suspicion of first-degree murder, assisting in a criminal and lead gang, possession of drugs, misconduct involving weapons, possession and sale of marijuana and drug paraphernalia.

Land mafia responsible for unrest in Karachi: SC

2012-12-05T15:38:00.000+05:00

KARACHI, (SANA): The Supreme Court of Pakistan on Tuesday has issued a 10-page interim order in a suo moto case regarding law and order situation in Karachi. The court has declared the land mafia behind unrest in metropolis.

A five-member bench of apex court headed by Justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali heard the case from November 26 to 30 and reserved the verdict at Supreme Court’s Karachi Registry.

In the order, the apex court rejected a report submitted by Rangers on curbing violence in the city, and ordered the paramilitary forces to file a comprehensive report pertaining to its performance on 17 December during the next hearing. The court has observed that the report of Rangers would be kept secret.

The court has directed Chief Secretary Sindh to submit a detailed revenue record comprising details of sale and lease of government land and has impose the ban over conversion of the 33 years lease into 99 years lease.

The court has imposed the ban over transfer of the land till the correction of the revenue record and has summoned the record regarding transfer of land after the assassination of Benazir Bhutto.

The court has maintained that working on redrawing of electoral constituencies in Karachi is underway. The court has observed that Rangers should assure the protection of the lives and property of the citizens.

It directed the secretary of the Election Commission of Pakistan to consult the political parties about new electoral constituencies and submit a report.

The court has maintained that Chief Secretary, senior member board of Revenue and DCOs would monitor the implementation of the court directions and ensure the implementation with letter and sprit.

The verdict also said that a main reason of unrest in the city was land grabbing. The decision said that work on new constituencies pertaining to Watan Party case going on. It said that three meetings regarding new constituencies have done till November 28. The court declared the reports of senior members Board of Revenue regarding land records unsatisfied.

The court directed to establish a separate cell in Mukhtar Kar offices to maintain safe revenue records and change the areas of police stations.

The interim order was to be issued in the case on Monday but all the justices could not sign it, therefore, the release of the interim order was deferred.

Election Commission, Rangers, Revenue department, Jail authorities and IG Police have presented their respective reports to the court in past hearings. The bench expressed dissatisfaction over the implementation process of its directives and directed authorities to submit further reports.

'Amish Mafia' TV Series on Discovery Just 'Trash TV'?

2012-12-01T22:44:00.000+05:00

Move over Vito Corleone, the Amish mafia is out for retribution.

A new Discovery channel television series “Amish Mafia” is set to premiere Dec. 12 and will explore the underground lives of a vigilante Mennonite group seeking eye-for-an-eye justice for crimes against their community members. The series focuses on the leader of this mafia group, Lebanon Levi, a Mennonite who was never baptized and so can remain distanced from the church, and his cohort, who are identified as Alvin, Jolin and John.

The Amish mafia in the show, which is set in Lancaster, Pa., flaunt their body tattoos, drive cars, use cell phones and, most importantly, shoot guns. The technology these self-identified mafia members use are not approved by their church, which is characterized by the show as “looking the other way.”

“The [Amish] Church denies that the Amish Mafia exists — yet, like any other person in a community who holds power, the Amish know who to go to if there’s a problem,” said Dolores Gavin, the series executive producer, to the New York Post. Gavin is also known for her work producing other reality TV shows such as Discovery’s Sons of Guns and History’s Ice Road Truckers. Gavin claims that it took her two years to gain trusted access to the mafia group.

The show's first episodes include scenes showing the four mafia avengers taking actions against Amish members who violate the codes of the church, such as catching community members in acts of adultery or holding others accountable for vandalism. The Amish rarely seek help from “English” police due to their simple lifestyle, which is where Levi and his partners step in to right the wrongs.

Many scenes, however, are reenacted to protect some Amish people from being featured on camera, which is against the belief system of the Amish church, according to MailOnline.

Due to the show’s reenactments and the values and actions espoused by the “mafia” and other Amish featured on the show, the credibility of the "reality" series is up for debate.

Donald Kraybill, a professor at Elizabethtown College, which is located just 20 miles away from Lancaster, has been studying the Amish for years and told Lancaster Online that he considers the show “trash TV.”

“To call these shows documentaries is a fraudulent lie,” Kraybill said. He explained that some community members, such as Levi, have in fact been charged with crimes by the “English” police, but the existence of an all-powerful, vigilante mafia is likely an exaggeration.

“I'm not saying Amish are perfect saints and walk on water,” he said. “But this [show] is a twisted portrayal of the Amish community.”

Russian mafia whistleblower found dead outside UK mansion

2012-11-28T22:08:00.000+05:00

He has also provided evidence against those linked to the 2009 death of anti-corruption lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, a case that caused an international outcry and prompted the United States to push for a bill cracking down on Russian corruption.

Perepilichny, a Russian citizen, collapsed and died abruptly outside his home on an upmarket estate in the English county of Surrey on November 10, police said on Wednesday, the first time the case has come to light.

Perepilichny is the fourth person linked to the Magnitsky case to have died in strange circumstances.

"It is being treated as unexplained," a police spokeswoman said. "A post-mortem examination was carried out which was inconclusive. So further tests are now being carried out."

British media reports said Perepilichny appeared to be in good health when he collapsed in the evening outside St George's Hill, one of Britain's most exclusive estates, where he was renting a house for 12,500 pounds ($20,000) a month.

Dubbed as Britain's Beverly Hills and surrounded by neatly trimmed golf courses, the sprawling leafy estate is home to many prominent magnates and celebrities, its list of one-time tenants boasting stars such as Elton John and Ringo Starr.

Far beyond Russia's borders, Magnitsky's death has become a symbol of corruption in Russia and the abuse of those who challenge the authorities there.

This month the U.S. House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly to "name and shame" Russian rights violators as part of a broader trade bill, brushing off warnings from Moscow that the move would damage relations.

William Browder, a former employer of Magnitsky and a prominent London-based investor, said Perepilichny had come forward in 2010 with evidence involving the Magnitsky case that subsequently helped Swiss prosecutors open their investigation.

"Alexander Perepilichny approached us in 2010 as a whistleblower with evidence about the complicity of a number of Russian government officials in the theft of $230 million which Sergei Magnitsky had uncovered," said Browder, founder of Hermitage Capital Management.

"He provided us with copies of many of the original bank documents. In January 2011, Hermitage filed an application to the Swiss authorities seeking an investigation. It was announced in March that the Swiss prosecutor's office opened an investigation and froze the assets in a number of accounts."

Browder, whose grandfather was the general secretary of the American Communist Party, was one of the biggest Western investors in Russia but was barred from Russia in late 2005 and most of his staff left the country as Hermitage found itself coming under increasing official pressure.

Magnitsky was jailed in 2008 on suspicion of tax evasion and fraud, charges that colleagues say were fabricated by police investigators he had accused of stealing $230 million from the state through fraudulent tax refunds. The Kremlin's own human rights council has said Magnitsky was probably beaten to death.

MAFIA STATE
Leaked secret diplomatic cables from the U.S. embassy in Moscow once described Russia as a "virtual mafia state", and London has long been the chosen destination for Russians seeking refuge from trouble at home.

But concerns have been growing in recent years that Britain might be turning into a playground for Russian mobsters as gangland violence seems to be spilling over Russian borders.

In April, a former Russian banker was shot near London's Canary Wharf financial district, sending a chill through the immigrant community. In 2006, former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko died after drinking tea poisoned with polonium-210.

Asked about Perepilichny's case, Swiss prosecutors said it started its criminal investigation in March 2011 following a complaint made by London law firm Brown Rudnick filed on behalf of Hermitage Capital Management.

"Concerning the death of Mr Perepilichny and its consequences on the criminal proceedings, we'd like to stress that our strength resides in our ability to minimise the influence of such a regretful event on our investigation," the Swiss Office of the Attorney General said in a statement.

"A good cooperation with other judicial authorities is also essential to carry on our investigation efficiently."
Perepilichny was also a witness against Russia's notorious Klyuyev Group, a murky network of officials and underworld figures implicated in tax fraud who used European bank accounts to buy luxury property in Dubai and Montenegro, Britain's Independent newspaper reported.

"Perepilichny was the guy who brought all the evidence they needed to open the investigation," a source told The Independent. "He brought with him records of shell companies, Credit Suisse accounts, property transactions. The whole lot."

(Additional reporting by Martin de Sa'Pinto in Switzerland and Natalie Huet in Britain; Writing by Maria Golovnina; Editing by Will Waterman)A Russian businessman helping Swiss prosecutors uncover a powerful fraud syndicate has died in mysterious circumstances outside his mansion in Britain, in a chilling twist to a Russian mafia scandal that has strained Moscow's ties with the West.

Alexander Perepilichny, 44, sought refuge in Britain three years ago and had been helping a Swiss investigation into a Russian money-laundering scheme by providing evidence against corrupt officials, his colleagues and media reports said.

Police say Mexican Mafia prison gang led crime ring in Ventura County

2012-11-28T21:34:00.000+05:00

A 39-year-old man in an out-of-state prison directed a crime ring in Ventura County that forced competing gangs to work together and funneled money back to the Mexican Mafia prison gang, authorities said Tuesday.

Martin Madrigal was among 27 people, including two teens, who were indicted and accused of crimes such as conspiring to commit assault, extortion, home invasion, robbery and drug trafficking, Ventura County sheriff's and district attorney's officials said at a news conference.

All but two have been arrested, and at least 16 more are expected to be indicted, officials said.

The suspects are largely members of local gangs who worked with the Mexican Mafia, authorities said.

"These are hard-core criminal gang members. They wake up every day and try to decide where they're going to commit crimes," Sheriff Geoff Dean said at the news conference.

Authorities have seized 32 weapons, $36,000 in cash and a quarter-pound of heroin, officials said.

The Mexican Mafia is an organized prison gang that orders crimes such as killings, extortion and drug dealing inside and outside prisons, authorities say. The gang controls many Southern California street gangs, officials allege.

Officials said that in Ventura County, the Mexican Mafia forced rival street gangs into working together to commit violent crimes — something authorities had not seen before. Dean said the gang's use of fear and intimidation shows how powerful it can be.

"The shot caller was at such a high level of the Mexican Mafia that they knew they had to comply," Dean said of Madrigal.

The investigation, known as Operation Wicked Hand, began in April after investigators learned of a connection between two shootings in Moorpark and a heroin bust about the same time.

Those incidents were orchestrated by Edwin Mora, 28, a high-ranking associate of the Mexican Mafia who helped carry out orders from Madrigal, authorities said.

During the investigation, deputies thwarted crimes including two planned killings and a drugstore robbery in Ventura County, officials said.

The 35-count felony indictment from a Ventura County grand jury was returned Nov. 14, according to District Attorney Greg Totten. Arrests were later made in Oxnard, Simi Valley, Moorpark and other cities during a five-day period.

Madrigal is serving time for unrelated criminal charges at a prison outside California, which officials declined to identify. Dean said authorities "don't want to jeopardize that part of the investigation."

Details on how Madrigal allegedly communicated with Mora and ordered gang members to carry out crimes also were not disclosed.

Three of those indicted — David Acosta, 37, Alfred Perez, 28, and Javier Tamayo, 34 — face multiple 25-year-to-life sentences under the "three-strikes" law, Totten said.

Bail for the 27 defendants ranged from $1 million to $5 million. None has posted bail.

Jay Leiderman, Mora's defense attorney, said he found it troublesome that transcripts from the grand jury have not been made available. Leiderman declined to comment on the allegations against his client without having seen the transcripts but said he planned to refute them.

"Investigators like to wave around the word 'gang.' They use it to strike fear in the heart of the community. It tends to also involve a lot of puffery and allegations that maybe perhaps aren't 100 percent solid," Leiderman said.

Asian mafia assassin found guilty of stabbing casino crook 32 TIMES

2012-11-28T01:15:00.000+05:00

Asian mafia assassin found guilty of stabbing casino crook 32 TIMES in crowded karaoke bar over $10,000 gambling debt

A suspected Chinese mafia assassin was found guilty of murder Monday for stabbing a man to death 32 times at a crowded Las Vegas karaoke bar in 2009.

Xiao Ye Bai, 25, was convicted of a slew of charges, including extortion, kidnapping, attempted murder and armed burglary in connection to the July 2009 killing of Wen Jun 'James' Li.

Bai could face the death penalty. Alternatively, the jury could sentence him to life without parole, 20 years to life or 20 to 50 years in prison.

According to the prosecution, on July 6, 2009, Bai was sent to the Forbes KTV club on Jones Boulevard to collect a $10,000 gambling debt from Li on behalf of the Asian criminal organization United Bamboo, for whom he allegedly worked as a hired gun.

Bai's attorney, Robert Draskovich, never denied that his client stabbed Li, but argued that the bespectacled 25-year-old Chinese immigrant never intended to kill the man when he arrived at the club.

Bai's ex-girlfriend, Pei 'Nikki' Pei, who drove the assassin to the club the night of the murder and initially faced the same charges as he, testified for the prosecution during the week-long trial in exchange for a plea deal, the Las Vegas Journal-Review reported.

Pei pleaded guilty to three lower charges, among them accessory to murder, and faces a maximum of six to 17 years in prison.

Defense strategy: Bai's attorneys, seen on his left and right, never claimed that their client didn't stab Wen Jun 'James' Li, but insisted that he had no intention of killing him when he arrived at the club

According to the prosecution, Li was running a scam at Las Vegas casino baccarat tables that was allegedly supported by Asian gangsters.

Prosecutors said two months before the murder, Bai pulled Li into his car, where he proceeded to punch him in an effort to collect the money he owed, but evidently the intimidation did not work.

At around 3am on July 6, 2009, Bai's roommate saw Li at the Forbes KTV club and called the 25-year-old United Bamboo assassin.

About 30 minutes later, Bai and Pei pulled up to the club in the 3400 block of South Jones Boulevard.

Crime scene: Prosecutors say Xiao Ye Bai walked into the Forbes KTV karaoke bar in Las Vegas in 2009 and stabbed a man 32 times for failing to repay a gambling debt

Witness testimony corroborated by surveillance video showed that Pei first entered the karaoke bar alone and left at once. Bai then got out of the car and entered the bar, where he sought out Li in the crowd.
After coming face-to-face with Bai, Li screamed for help and tried to protect himself by throwing another person in his attacker's path.

Bai slashed the unfortunate club goer's arm and went in pursuit of his target. The victim stumbled and fell, and his assailant was soon on top of him, cutting and stabbing him in the head, back, neck and arms, according to witnesses.

A woman who saw the two men on the floor thought they were just fighting and tried to pull Bai off Li, but was stabbed four times in the process, according to investigators.

Gory scene: The club was crowded with people, one of whom tried to pull Bai off his victim and was stabbed four times as a result

After the gristly attack, Bai ran out of the club, got into the getaway car with Pei in the driver's seat and took off.

Pei testified during the trial that she thought that her then-boyfriend went to the bar simply to retrieve the gambling debt and did not become aware of Li's murder until a week later.

Beside the Li slaying, Bai also faces charges in the December 2008 shooting outside of a San Gabriel restaurant that left one men dead and another wounded.

Reputed Mafia don summoned to corruption inquiry

2012-11-28T01:04:00.000+05:00

Vito Rizzuto, right, reputed head of the Montreal Mafia, speaks with his lawyer Jean Salois.

Police confirm they have met with Vito Rizzuto amid reports that he has been summoned for what would be the memorable spectacle of a reputed Mafia don testifying at Quebec's corruption inquiry.

Provincial police will not comment on the inquiry appearance first reported by Radio-Canada, the French-language CBC.

The news organization said police delivered subpoena papers to Rizzuto, who was alleged to have been this country's most powerful Mafia figure and head of a crime family with myriad international ties.

Police confirmed to The Canadian Press that they tracked down Rizzuto on Monday.

"He was met - I can confirm that," said provincial police Sgt. Claude Denis.

"But that's all I can say."

The sight of a prominent underworld figure answering questions on a live TV broadcast would only be the latest twist in an inquiry that has shocked Quebecers, and the country. Such an event would be extremely rare.

Nearly four decades ago members of the Cotroni-Violi family, whom the Rizzutos violently supplanted, were called as witnesses to the last Quebec inquiry into organized-crime corruption.

The witnesses back then were un-co-operative.

"I don't refuse to testify," crime boss Paolo Violi told the 1974 inquiry, in an account described in a book about the Rizzutos, The Sixth Family. "I have a lot of respect for the court but I don't have anything to say."
He was slapped with a one-year jail sentence for contempt of court.

Rizzuto has been referred to only in brief snippets at the current inquiry.

Rizzuto's late father, Nicolo, has played a more prominent role at the inquiry.

Police surveillance footage has shown him stuffing cash into his socks after receiving it from construction bosses.

The inquiry has heard that bid-rigging construction cartels in Quebec drove up the cost of public works with the help of corrupt municipal officials, then shared some of the profits with the Mafia.

Porn mafia now targets students

2012-11-28T00:55:00.000+05:00

The porn mafia seems to have acquired a fresh and new market. It’s none other than higher secondary, high school and upper primary students of city schools.

Obscene and vulgar video clips are transferred to the mobile phones of these students through bluetooth, say special branch cops.

The sources said a large number of people were involved in the sleazy business as the police found several instances of the mafia operating near educational institutions.

Though most city schools have banned mobile phones on campus, students violate the order and smuggle them in.

The porn clips are first transferred from an outsider to a student and they are later shared among others.

Sources said internet cafes operating near schools are the supply hubs. The special branch police arrested a few men from Thrippunithura and High Court Junction on Sunday, on charge of providing porn clips to school students.

“Students usually give their mobiles to the shops that provide porn clips. When classes get over, the phones are loaded with them with Rs 100 for every gigabyte. The shops download new porn files every day from the internet and transfer them”, the police said.

The cops have already warned the city schools to probe such trends and curb the use of mobile phones in schools.

The school authorities have also been asked to inform the police when such instances are detected.

Chongqing mafia boss says jailed lawyer was framed

2012-11-28T00:40:00.000+05:00

Chongqing criminal does about-turn on claims that jailed attorney Li Zhuang faked evidence

Former defence lawyer Li Zhuang''s arrest in 2009 still has the legal community seething.

An imprisoned Chongqing mafia boss who alleged that his lawyer fabricated evidence on his behalf - resulting in the lawyer being jailed for 18 months - has changed his testimony and said police in the municipality forced him to lie to frame him.

Li Zhuang, the former lawyer of convicted mafia boss Gong Gangmo, was summoned on Friday, along with his attorney, by the Supreme People's Procuratorate for a meeting that lasted more than an hour, The Beijing News reported.

The summons came after Li, who was released from jail in June last year, submitted a petition earlier this month seeking a review of his case and accusing officers of wrongdoing in their investigation. The newspaper said Li provided seven audio and video clips to support his claims.

In petition documents, Gong said: "They asked me to recite what they had prepared to frame Li Zhuang. It was also their idea [for me] to fake a headache, refuse to answer questions and speak in a dialect other than standard Chinese at the hearing."

Li's conviction came amid a controversial anti-triad campaign orchestrated by disgraced former Chongqing party boss Bo Xilai. Li's imprisonment in December 2009 sparked a national outcry, with many complaining it was a political prosecution. If Li is vindicated, it could lead to retrials in a series of other cases from Bo's anti-triad campaign.

Li was jailed and stripped of his law licence after Gong, who was suspected of organised crime activities, alleged that Li told him to lie about being tortured into a confession. Gong's elder brother, Gong Ganghua, and cousin Gong Yunfei made the same allegations against Li, and both also attended the meeting on Friday, according to Wang Shihua, Li's attorney.

During the meeting, both of Gong's relatives said their testimonies were made under duress, according to a blog post by Wang.

Li asked the Supreme People's Procuratorate to either investigate the case or hand it over to a local prosecutor's office other than Chongqing's as he believed that prosecutors there were also involved in coercing confessions, according to comments he later made to the Beijing Times