MAFIA TODAY

Israel to Open ‘Cyber Gym’ for Training Against Hackers

Capo — Sun, 12 May 2013 16:02:50 +0000

An Israeli participant at a cyber security conference at Tel Aviv University.

Israel Electric gets a daily workout by fending off thousands of cyber attacks. As the provider of almost all of the country’s power, it’s a popular target for hackers.
Now the state-run utility wants to make money off of the expertise it’s gained from dealing with the online assaults by opening a “cyber gym,” a virtual training arena where corporate-security trainees can spar with simulated attackers.
Cyber Control, another Israeli company, will help the utility build models of member companies’ networks for cyber-gym members. Once the arena is up and running, security staff at companies from around the world will be able to participate in exercises to defend against denial-of-service attacks and other threats in an environment that resembles their employer’s actual system.
Power companies in South Africa were among the first to express interest in the gym, Cyber Control CEO Ofir Hason said in an interview. This project is the first of its kind in Israel, Hason said.
Israel Electric’s revenue last year was hit after turmoil in Egypt cut gas supplies. The new training center, which is being set up across the street from the Orot Rabin Power Station in Hadera, Israel, is scheduled to open in the next few months.
“We are using our expertise to create another revenue stream,” said Iris Ben-Shahal, a spokesman for Israel Electric.
Israeli government networks are among the most highly attacked in the world, according to the Soufan Group, a New York-based security adviser. Adversaries include governments, terrorist groups and other extremists, the Jan. 14 report said.
Israel Electric fends off as many as 20,000 infiltration attempts a day. The goal for the gym is to help other companies bulk up to handle similar threats.

Source: bloomberg.com

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Police fear trans-Atlantic Mafia war after Canadian mobsters found ‘riddled with bullets’ in Sicily

Capo — Sun, 12 May 2013 15:39:43 +0000

Convicted killer Juan Ramon Fernandez Paz, nicknamed Joe Bravo, and associate Fernando Pimentel found dead
Pair shot at least 30 times and bodies set on fire
Paz deported to Sicily after serving 10 years in Canada for drugs offences
Also killed 17-year-old girlfriend by punching her in the throat
Police believe 56-year-old was key player in multi-million pound drugs deals
Source: ‘The hit was ordered from Canada. The fear now is that their could be more blood letting’

Charmer: Juan Ramon Fernandez Paz, nicknamed Joe Bravo, was said to have seduced female security guards while in a maximum security prison

Italian police fear a trans-Atlantic Mafia war after the charred and bullet ridden bodies of two Canadian gangsters were found on the Mediterranean island of Sicily.
Convicted killer and mob enforcer Juan Ramon Fernandez Paz, nicknamed Joe Bravo, was discovered along with his associate Fernando Pimentel after an anonymous tip off to police.
Investigators said they were ‘riddled with at least 30 bullet wounds’ and an attempt had been made to burn their bodies following the hit.
One senior police source said: ‘The hit was ordered from Canada. Paz was the main target and Pimentel was probably killed because he was with him at the time. The fear now is that their could be more blood letting.’
The bodies were discovered on wasteland in the hamlet of Casteldaccia, near to the city of Palermo, on the Mafia’s island stronghold of Sicily.
Paz, 56, had been deported from Canada last year after serving a 10 year jail sentence for drug offences and was in Sicily negotiating with mob bosses in a bid to secure lucrative trans Atlantic drug deals.
Italian police were aware that he and Pimentel were in Sicily after being tipped off by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and they were named as wanted in a round up of 24 mobsters earlier this week but could not be found.
Investigators say that Paz was working as the Mafia’s ‘Canadian ambassador’ and was a key player in the multi-million pound deals using his ties with well known Montreal Godfather Vito Rizzuto as his introduction.

With his good looks and smart designer clothes Paz could have walked straight of the set of mob TV blockbuster The Sopranos but he had a fiercesome reputation who served time for killing his 17-year-old girlfriend after punching her so hard in the throat she died.

Connections: Police believe Juan Ramon Fernandez Paz was a high level player in the clan headed by notorious Godfather Vito Rizzuto

In jail he also had a powerful reputation, threatening inmates and using his influence as an enforcer for Rizzuto to carve himself influence and secure drugs could be smuggled in for inmates.

He also managed to secure shipments of drugs from Jamaica and there were even rumours that with his good looks he had managed to seduce female guards at a maximum security jail where he was being held.
Unusually, Spaniard Paz had managed to reach a reasonably high level of power within the Rizzuto clan.
But as he was not Italian he would never have earned the ultimate accolade of Godfather and his own crime family.
Paz had arrived in Sicily last year and had opened a gym in the Palermo suburb of Bagheria and Pimentel is thought to have arrived last month from Canada to visit him, with the last positive sighting of both men being in early April.
Pietro Scaduto, 49 and his brother Salvatore, 51, have been arrested by police in Palermo in connection with the murder but they said others were also being sought for the double killing.
A police spokesman said: ‘We had been monitoring Paz’s activities for several months but he had not been seen since early April. He was named in a prosecution order to be arrested and we believe he was involved in drugs trafficking between Canada and Sicily.’

Arrested: Pietro and Salvatore Scaduto have been detained in connection with the murders

‘We also think he was using his links with Vito Rizzuto to look into the possibility of importing drugs from South America into Sicily and then onwards to Canada. We shall be liaising with colleagues from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police as part of the investigation.’
Rizzuto was the Godfather of the Montreal Mafia and was released from a US prison last November after serving a lengthy sentence for three mob murders in the 1980′s.
During his time in jail a bloody war raged between rival factions in Montreal for control of his empire and his son Nick was a victim, gunned down at the age of 42 three years ago.

Source: dailymail.co.uk

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Britain’s marijuana mafia: Two million users, £6bn worth of trade and 30,000 deaths. A leading author meets the men (and women) feeding the UK’s terrifying addiction

Capo — Sun, 12 May 2013 14:09:45 +0000

A total of 750,000 cannabis plants were recovered by the police in 2009-10
Independent Drug Monitoring Unit says UK consumes 1,000 tons each YEAR
Three joints a day causes similar damage to 20 cigarettes in the same period

Cyril lives in a five-bedroom detached home hidden along an 800-yard drive in the middle of the Kent countryside. A grandfather and a businessman, he revels in the life of a country squire. But Cyril is one of the single most dangerous criminals I came across in my journey through the secret underworld of cannabis or hash. An outwardly respectable, middle-class businessman, he is clearly more than capable of having someone killed.
Cyril is a hash ‘financier’, called upon to help fund major gangland deals. ‘My role is to cough up £50k on a Monday and by Friday get £120k back, no questions asked,’ he says. ‘That’s a sweet deal.’
Cyril takes me in his gleaming black Bentley Turbo to a nearby lock-up garage, which he opens with an electronic remote control. The door slides up slowly to reveal three chairs, a table and a line of tools. He takes a hacksaw and runs his fingertip slowly along it.

Dangerous delivery: A shipment of hash awaits transportation in a warehouse in southern Spain, bound for destinations around the world

‘See that?’ he says, picking something from between the tiny teeth. ‘That’s blood.’ He laughs. ‘Violence, or the threat of violence, is part of my business. If the other team isn’t scared of me, then I’m going to have a problem on my hands.’
He picks up a claw hammer and smashes it down on a wooden worktop, leaving a dent the size of a 50p piece. ‘That’s what it does to people’s faces. Leaves them with a lasting reminder of who you are.’
Without a trace of irony, Cyril adds: ‘I don’t want you making out I am some sort of psycho who gets people topped if they upset me. This is the trade I work in. I am a businessman and hash is a lucrative way for me to earn a living. End of story.’

The illicit trade in cannabis stretches from some of the poorest countries on Earth to middle-class homes in the UK. It is now believed to be the biggest source of income for organised crime around the world.
Attracted by staggering profits, an underworld network of gangsters, drug barons, crooked police and even terrorists have made cannabis their contraband of choice. And they have no qualms about using sex, intimidation, bribery and murder to achieve their aims.
Cocaine, heroin, LSD and amphetamines all bring devastating consequences but it is no exaggeration to say that cannabis, and in particular hash, its concentrated resin, is the most deadly of them all. It brings a level of violence, illness and addiction that to most people would seem barely credible.
The cannabis industry dwarfs the trade in heroin and cocaine. According to the Serious Organised Crime Agency, around 270 tons of cannabis are consumed every year in Britain, of which 80 per cent is grown here. In comparison, Soca calculates that 23 tons of heroin and 30 tons of cocaine are imported annually, with street values of £2?billion and £3?billion respectively.

Some estimates are higher still. According to the Independent Drug Monitoring Unit, there are up to 2.7?million cannabis users consuming 1,000 tons worth £5.9?billion. This compares with a million users of cocaine and 300,000 of heroin.
The global cannabis trade is reckoned by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime to be worth a staggering £200?billion a year.
I have spent a quarter of a century talking to and investigating figures in the underworld here and abroad and my contacts are unrivalled. The more I have come to know about the hash business the more I have come to realise that the risks are just as deadly as for any Class A drugs.
I’ve been told of hitmen paid to kill rival criminals who dared to encroach into another gang’s territory. I’ve travelled from the lawless Rif mountains in Morocco to darkened warehouses in Spain protected by heavily armed gangsters, feeling just as queasy as if I had been in the company of Colombian cocaine dealers or Turkish heroin smugglers.
Cannabis is far from ‘safe’ despite its reputation. Users are six times more likely to suffer from serious mental illness than non-users.
It is also carcinogenic. The British Lung Foundation says smoking three joints a day causes similar damage to smoking 20 cigarettes a day. That would suggest that up to 30,000 people a year contract cannabis-related cancer.

Yet such is the demand for the drug that an entirely new industry has cropped up to meet it. Between 2004 and 2007, police detected around 800 illegal cannabis ‘farms’ each year. This rose to 7,000 by 2009-10. Most produce high-strength herbal ‘skunk’, but now laboratories have sprung up to make premium-grade hashish.
With average prices of £21 per quarter ounce, there is an ever- growing commercial and personal market for cannabis grown here in Britain. That’s where The Consultant comes in. He specialises in organising every aspect of a ‘home-grow operation’ – from the renting of a suitable house to organising the heating, lighting and the right crop to grow. His clients include people wanting to smoke their own to those who see it as a way to make a living. And his services do not come cheap: for setting up a growing room, there is a flat fee of £3,000.
The Consultant takes me to a large semi-detached house in Lewisham, South-East London. In the loft, ultraviolet lights buzz gently. Dozens of seeding cannabis plants, each at least 3ft tall, make the space feel more like a jungle, and the smell is all-consuming.
The Consultant tells me that he grew up surrounded by ‘duckers and divers’. For some years in the early 1980s, he was a ‘grass’ dealer in Chelsea, selling the leaf, rather than the hash resin form of cannabis. Through his dealing, he claims he got to know pop stars and even members of the Royal Family.
He fell into growing when his supply dried up. ‘I couldn’t see anything wrong with it,’ he says. ‘Surely it’s better to do it this way than line the pockets of cold-blooded gangsters who charge a fortune to smuggle the stuff.’
He’s part of a burgeoning phenomenon. A total of 750,000 cannabis plants were recovered by the police in 2009-10, with the largest concentrations being found in West Yorkshire, Greater Manchester and the West Midlands.
Energy companies calculate that up to £100?million worth of electricity is being stolen to fuel the sophisticated lighting systems needed to encourage the drug to grow. British Gas – now a major supplier of electricity – has formed a special team to tackle the problem.

The Consultant: Inside a ‘home grown’ hash factory in the suburbs of London where cannabis plants are tended to

At the retail end of the supply trade, Micky cuts up a ‘9 bar’ – the slang term for a nine-ounce block of hash – in an East End lock-up. He smokes a large joint as he works, carefully cutting down the large block into smaller chunks which he weighs on a set of digital scales and then wraps in cellophane.
Micky always sticks to the speed limit as he drives his respectable Audi estate through the London streets. He doesn’t want to get pulled over by police.
‘Stay put,’ he says, opening the lid of the armrest between us and removing a tightly wrapped ounce brick of hash. ‘Won’t be long.’
I watch as he climbs the steps to a large, period terrace house. Through the property’s big bay window, I notice a group of people sitting at a table – obviously the host is holding a dinner party. I see a man leading Micky in. He places the hash on the table before leaving.
‘I hate it when a customer tries to show me off like that,’ he says back in the car. ‘When you drop cocaine off with a punter, they try to keep it hush-hush. Hash users think it’s as normal as having a cup of tea.’
Micky, a 29-year-old East Londoner, comes from a long line of villains – his father was a chauffeur for the Kray twins.
He operates out of a swish apartment close to Canary Wharf, and his customers range from lawyers to film stars to builders. ‘That’s the thing about hash – it crosses the class divide,’ he says.
Indeed, many people I know shrug their shoulders at the mere mention of hash as if it is barely worth anyone’s attention. Their attitude sums up perfectly the way this illicit industry has been allowed to balloon into a multi-billion-dollar network. But even at the civilised end of the market, where well-heeled British clients buy their hash from amiable dealers, you are never more than a step away from vicious gangs. Tom is a former public schoolboy from Berkshire who nurtures a loyal set of customers who only ever buy hash from him. ‘I’m a professional hash dealer,’ he says. ‘I have made a decent living for more than 30 years because I am trusted. I also believe my hash is healthy. There is nothing chemical in the hash I sell.’
Tom claims to have numerous celebrity clients and says he is often flown across continents with hash for tycoons. ‘My business relies solely on word of mouth,’ he says. ‘The rich and sometimes famous people I supply put a good word in to their chums. I’ve got at least ten customers I’ve supplied throughout the 30 years I’ve been in this business. I reckon that’s unique.’
Two weeks before we met, Tom flew to Tibet to inspect a £10,000 shipment of finest Himalayan hash before it was smuggled into Europe, paid for by a client who belongs to one of the world’s most famous banking families.
‘My customers don’t want to know about the other side of this business,’ Tom says. ‘I think they imagine I only ever deal with nice, smiley- smiley farmers who give me a hug and slab of hash and then we’re on our way.
‘Of course that is utter b******s. I have to deal with some really horrible characters, the ones who shift the hash to the UK.

The Consultant: Londoner Micky (pictured) whose father was a driver for the Krays and who sells to film stars and builders alike

‘The only problem with supplying a range of hash is that I have to deal with a different set of gangsters for each brand: North London Turks who smuggle the best hash from Afghanistan; West London Sikhs bringing it in from Nepal; and a gang of French mafia importing from Morocco.’
Tom predicts an uncertain future for the UK underworld. ‘Soon it’s going to be crawling with so many bloody foreigners that the police are going to lose control and it will be like living back in Victorian times with crooks and pimps on every street corner trying to make a quid. A lot of these people from abroad are much more desperate for cash than the Brits.
‘The cities will soon be overflowing with them and that’s when the real problems will begin.’
It’s not just those users and gangsters who die at gunpoint or whose lives are ruined by cannabis. Besides the barons, dealers and smugglers, there is an army of ‘part-timers’ who often pay the ultimate price for their involvement. These are the mules – characters who often risk their own lives and liberty in a desperate bid to make a few thousand pounds. Every year dozens of people are either arrested or die after swallowing balls of hash tightly packed in plastic. These so-called ‘eggs’ usually hold about five grams of hash apiece. And most mules are expected to swallow around 50 of them at a time.

Many are forced into it by human traffickers and other criminals. Others are students hoping to make some extra money by re-selling the hash once they get home.
The first time Jane worked as a mule was when she was a penniless 18-year-old student in Tangier needing money to get home to Birmingham. She swallowed 30 pellets of hash in exchange for £1,000 and made it back to the UK to deliver it, even though one of the pellets burst in her stomach.
Now a nurse in her mid-30s, Jane has revived her career as a mule to support her family. Since 2010, she has returned three times to her Moroccan lover in Tangier. Each time she swallows hash pellets before the journey home. She says: ‘My husband lost his job and my salary doesn’t cover the costs of bringing up my family. And, if I’m honest, I liked escaping the drudgery of my life and meeting my lover.
‘If a bag bursts inside me it might kill me. If I get arrested I’ll end up in prison. Either way, I will lose my family and destroy them.’
Away from the chaotic, low-reward world of amateur mules such as Jane, there are a number of ‘professionals’. I was introduced to Perry and Dev by one of Essex’s most notorious criminals. Perry and Dev are what are known in the trade as ‘do-it-yourself-merchants’. They buy hash in Spain from one specific supplier, then Perry ‘mules’ it to the UK and they distribute it.

Going underground: Perry and Dev run a small time hash smuggling operation from Spain to Essex

Perry explains that he takes a budget airline flight from southern Spain with the tightly packed bricks of hash taped round his waist. The hash itself is triple-packed in cellophane so that it does not smell and then smothered in hair conditioner to put sniffer dogs off the scent.
Perry lays out 15 bricks of hash on the table in front of him and I casually ask him the street value of what he has just smuggled through. ‘They’re worth two grand a brick so that makes £30,000 once we’ve sold it all to our customers.’ So how much did Perry pay for it in Spain? ‘Hundred and fifty quid a block,’ he says. ‘Not a bad little earner, eh?’
Foreigners – mainly eastern Europeans – are accused of more than a quarter of all crimes committed in the UK. Astonishingly, they also make up nine out of ten drug suspects and are responsible for more than a third of sex offences.
The figures back up fears of an immigrant crime-wave and officials believe that it’s not helped by the ease with which so many eastern Europeans are able to get into Britain with false identities which hide their criminal past.
Nowhere illustrates this problem more than Albania. The collapse of law and order in that country has created a criminal element feared even by the Italian mafia.
I meet Albanian hash baron, Ivan, through a British gangster called Jerry. He warns me in advance that Ivan is ‘a right nutter’ before adding: ‘They are the maddest, baddest people I’ve ever met. Step out of line and they murder you.

Head honcho: Moroccan hash kingpin Leff, who owns and runs a hash farm in the Rif Mountains

‘The Albanians are the ones we all fear. They’ve got a stranglehold on virtually all the hash that comes in from the countries east of Albania. You cross them at your peril.’
At a meeting in a pub near Braintree, Essex, Ivan tells me: ‘I come from a long line of smugglers. My family controlled everything that went in and out of the area. That’s how we make our living. We charge people to bring their drugs through our territory. Why not?
‘I live in the UK half the year, using a different identity because I spent some time in prison in Albania. I like the life in England but I also like to be back in Albania to make sure my friends do their jobs properly.’ He smiles. ‘I have two wives in the UK and two in Albania. It’s perfect. Most men would like to have my life, I am sure.’
But why hash? ‘Because more people use hash than anything else, my friend. It’s just another commodity to us. Hash, coke, people – we will bring anything in if there is a demand for it. But hash is the biggest business, so we make sure we control it. It’s not easy but I have many friends in high places so I can always get my shipments through without any problems.’
The easy availability of high-quality home-grown cannabis is fuelling the problem in Britain and matters are only going to get worse. Some estimates predict that the number of cannabis smokers in this country will double within 20 years.
Britain is, in the words of one law enforcement official, ‘a very lively marketplace for hash’. But that is an understatement. We are in the grip of an epidemic and it will take more than an increase in domestic production to stem the tide of ruthless gangsters drawn to our shores by this lucrative trade.
Robert, my contact in UK customs, says: ‘Countries such as the UK are being swamped with four times the amount of hash that used to come in as gangs of foreign criminals try to create huge markets out of substandard, dangerously cut drugs, and that includes hash.’
In a chilling postscript, he says the authorities have little or no chance of cracking these operations.
‘The police and other authorities rely on informants, but it’s getting harder and harder to infiltrate these criminal gangs. Informers are few and far between and gangs from eastern Europe are so ruthless, other criminals dare not cross them.’

Names have been changed to protect identities.

Source: dailymail.co.uk

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For banks in cyber heist, how to get their money back?

Capo — Sun, 12 May 2013 13:50:45 +0000

(Reuters) – Because the sums were large and such attacks are relatively new, the two Middle East banks hit in a $45 million ATM heist face an uncertain path in trying to recover their losses, financial, insurance and legal experts say.

Oman-based Bank of Muscat lost $40 million and United Arab Emirates-based National Bank of Ras Al Khaimah PSC (RAKBANK) lost $5 million in the global heist, U.S. prosecutors said on Thursday. Hackers gained access through third-party companies that processed transactions for prepaid debit cards issued by the banks, the prosecutors said.

While details of what happened are still sketchy, experts said the banks could bring claims against the processing companies in court, or they could file claims with their own and the processing companies’ insurers.

“There’s no hard and fast rule,” said Dan Karson, the Americas chairman of Kroll Advisory Solutions. “We’re in very much a new cybersphere of finance, and allocating liability is still very much evolving.”

Any claims by banks against the processing companies would depend on the contracts between the two parties, Karson and other experts said. Those contracts include industry security standards, which are required by the major credit card payment networks, in this case MasterCard.

In most security breach cases, the processing company in question did not fully comply with the standards, said Doug Johnson, vice president for risk management policy at the American Bankers Association.

However, even if the processor failed to comply with security standards, banks may still be unable to get back their money. That is because the contracts between processors and banks, under terms set by credit card companies like MasterCard or Visa, typically limit the processor’s liability.

“They can’t make everybody whole, or they’ll be out of business,” said Michael Klaschka of Integro Insurance Brokers, which has many financial institutions as clients. “The bank may have very little recourse against the credit card processor.”

In the hit against Bank of Muscat, the processor is enStage Inc, based in Cupertino, California, a source close to the Bank of Muscat said. Bank of Muscat has not commented on the attack.

Officials at enStage did not respond to requests for comment on Saturday. EnStage CEO Govind Setlur said in a statement in the Times of India his company had implemented security enhancements since the attack.

In the RAKBANK case, the processor is India’s ElectraCard Services, according to people familiar with the situation. RAKBANK has not confirmed that ElectraCard Services is the payment processor and ElectraCard Services has not commented.

MasterCard has said it cooperated with law enforcement in the investigation and said its systems were not compromised in the attacks.

The banks can still try to sue the processors for negligence or other claims, but their success may be limited by their contracts, which include regulations that lay out specific fines and dispute resolution procedures mandated by the credit card companies.

Such lawsuits have proven difficult to win, according to Joseph Burton of the law firm Duane Morris in San Francisco, an expert in financial litigation. U.S. federal courts have generally, but not unanimously, found that banks are restricted to contractual remedies.

In one major case, card-issuing banks filed a class action against Heartland Payment Systems after the processor announced in 2009 that a hack had compromised the data for more than 100 million credit cards.

A federal judge in Houston, Texas, dismissed almost all of the claims in 2011, finding that the banks were bound by their contracts, which included regulations set by Visa and MasterCard that govern how banks can seek relief after a breach. The banks’ appeal is pending.

Bank of Muscat and RAKBANK could also seek payment from their insurers under their general policies.

Some banks also have additional security coverage for cyber crime, although experts said the market for such policies is still relatively immature. It is not known if Bank of Muscat or RAKBANK carried cyber insurance.

The insurers, in turn, could also press claims against the processors, or the processors’ own insurers.

“It’s certainly possible that the bank could be left holding the bag,” said Frederick Rivera of the law firm Perkins Coie, an expert in financial services litigation in the United States.

A complicating factor is that the banks are located in the Middle East, while one of the processors is based in India, making it unclear which courts would have jurisdiction over any litigation. But experts said the requirements that credit card companies impose on banks and processors are global in nature.

Federal prosecutors will also seek restitution for the banks from the defendants arrested in the case, though the amount of funds available likely won’t approach the total amount of stolen money.

The U.S. Justice Department indicted eight people it said had withdrawn cash in New York, and prosecutors had seized hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash and bank accounts, along with luxury watches and a Mercedes sport utility vehicle. But the New York cell was just one part of a coordinated global heist in which $45 million was withdrawn from cash machines in 27 countries on December 21 last year and February 19 this year. U.S. prosecutors have not said where the ringleaders of the gang were based.

The prosecutors said the gang targeted prepaid debit cards issued by the two banks, using hackers who broke into the payment processing company to raise account balances and withdrawal limits for the cards.

The heist did not compromise the accounts of any individual customers, unlike in cases of identity theft. In those cases, customers are typically made whole by their financial institution or credit card companies, which in turn seek to be made whole by the company that was breached.

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Une mafia multiculturelle à Montréal

Capo — Sun, 12 May 2013 13:46:49 +0000

Juan Ramon Fernandez, un associé de Vito Rizzuto (photo), aurait comparé ce dernier à Dieu selon un enregistrement de la police.
PHOTO ÉDOUARD PLANTE-FRÉCHETTE, LA PRESSE

L’intronisation d’individus non italiens dans les rangs de la mafia de Montréal semble avoir choqué des membres de la Cosa Nostra en Sicile, selon des enregistrements de police.

Le National Post a révélé ce matin que Juan Ramon Fernandez, un associé de Vito Rizzuto tué cette semaine en Italie, avait dû insister pour faire reconnaître son statut de mafiosi.

L’homme est né en Espagne.

«Vito nous a intronisés, moi et mon camarade Raynald [Desjardins]», a-t-il assuré à un membre de la mafia qui hésitait à le reconnaître comme «made-man» et à lui permettre de s’asseoir à leur table. Au Canada, c’est Vito Rizzuto qui «décide des foutues règles», a ajouté Fernandez.

«Tu n’es pas Italien», a répliqué son interlocuteur, l’air surpris.

«Fais preuve de respect. Je m’assieds à la droite de Dieu. Aussi près que ça», lui a répondu du tac au tac Fernandez, faisant apparemment référence à Vito Rizzuto, finissant de convaincre le Sicilien, toujours selon le National Post.

Traditionnellement, seuls les individus d’origine italienne peuvent espérer joindre officiellement les rangs de la Cosa Nostra.

Source: lapresse.ca

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Sicily wiretaps show how Montreal mob boss Vito Rizzuto paid for breaking Mafia rules

Capo — Sat, 11 May 2013 12:54:22 +0000

Vito Rizzuto was sentenced in 2007 to 10 years in a U.S. prison for his role in three gangland murders.

Montreal mob boss Vito Rizzuto broke the fundamental, centuries-old rules of the Mafia by formally inducting non-Italians into his Mafia clan, including a French-Canadian and a Spaniard, according to conversations secretly recorded in Sicily.

He may be regretting his multicultural approach.

One of his non-Italian inductees, Juan Ramon Fernandez, who was born in Spain and seen as his rock-ribbed, loyal henchman, was recently killed in Sicily, apparently because he was reluctant to choose sides in Montreal’s deadly Mafia war.

Another, Quebecer Raynald Desjardins, has been named as the architect of the rebellious faction that challenged the leadership of Mr. Rizzuto in Montreal, authorities allege.

The wiretaps were released to the National Post on Friday after a large police operation in Sicily that arrested 21 men on Wednesday.

They shed fascinating and unexpected light on the perplexing and deadly struggle for control of Canada’s underworld — a struggle that has claimed 20 lives — after police in Sicily monitored conversations between dozens of mobsters, including Canadians visiting and living in the birthplace of the Mafia.

Declaring that Mr. Rizzuto “makes the f–king rules” regardless of what Mafia bosses in Sicily thought, Mr. Fernandez asserted his right to sit at the table with other “men of honour.”

“Vito ‘made’ me and my compare, Raynald,” Mr. Fernandez is heard saying on a wiretap, a reference to being officially inducted into the Mafia, a right previously reserved for Italians.

“You’re not Italian,” said the surprised man he was speaking with.

“No, no. Me and my compare,” Mr. Fernandez insisted, were “made” men despite their lineage.

Source: news.nationalpost.com

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OJ Simpson blames his lawyer for his robbery and kidnap conviction as he seeks a new trial

Capo — Sat, 11 May 2013 12:43:26 +0000

Former NFL star OJ Simpson is seeking a new trial to overturn the charges of armed robbery and kidnap, for which he is currently in jail
Simpson is blaming his lawyer, Yale Galanter, for the conviction in 2008, claiming he botched the case
Simpson was convicted of leading an armed sports memorabilia heist to reclaim heirlooms and personal mementos he believed had been stolen from him after his famous murder trial

OJ Simpson will return next week to the Las Vegas courthouse where he was convicted of leading an armed sports memorabilia heist to ask a judge for a new trial on the grounds that his lawyer, Yale Galanter, botched his case.

Simpson will take the witness stand to testify that the Florida lawyer who collected nearly $700,000 is to blame for his armed robbery and kidnapping conviction in 2008 and his failed appeal to the Nevada Supreme Court in 2010.

OJ Simpson is seeking a new trial to overturn his 2008 conviction for kidnap and robbery, claiming his lawyer botched the case

Simpson’s testimony in open court will offer a first look at the aging 65-year-old former football star since he was handcuffed and sent to prison more than four years ago.

Simpson looks grayer, heavier and is limping a little more from long-ago knee injuries, friends say. He is now Nevada inmate No. 1027820, a far cry from his playing days when Simpson wore jersey No. 32, won the Heisman Trophy, earned the nickname ‘The Juice’ in the NFL and gained induction into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

Simpson is scheduled to be in Clark County District Court beginning Monday for the entire five-day hearing.

He is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence that makes him first eligible for parole at age 70.
If he wins a new trial, prosecutors would have to decide whether to retry him for the incident that happened in September 2007 or offer a plea deal sparing the time and expense of another trial.

OJ Simpson (left) appeared in court in 2008 with his attorney Yale Galanter (right) on charges on kidnap and armed robbery. He was found guilty and is blaming Galanter for the conviction

In a sworn statement outlining his upcoming testimony, Simpson said he told Galanter in advance that he planned to confront two collectibles dealers in Las Vegas and retrieve what he expected would be family photos, heirlooms and personal sports mementos that he believed had been stolen from him after his ‘trial of the century’ in Los Angeles.

‘I fully disclosed my plan to Yale Galanter, and he advised me that I was within my legal rights,’ he said.

Simpson said the two even had dinner the night before in Las Vegas, and Galanter told him the plan was OK as long as he didn’t trespass on private property or use physical force.

Simpson claims that at trial, Galanter told him he didn’t need to testify because prosecutors failed to prove their case, and didn’t tell him about a plea offer by prosecutors that would have gotten him a minimum of two years in prison.
‘Had I understood that there was an actual chance of conviction, I would have accepted such an offer,’ Simpson said.

Galanter, who is expected to testify Friday, declined to comment ahead of his appearance.

Throwing trial attorneys under the bus on appeals is a common legal tactic for people convicted of crimes, but rarely successful.

Simpson’s 94-page petition for a new trial exempts trial co-counsel Gabriel Grasso from the conflict-of-interest question. It says Grasso wasn’t made aware of Galanter’s pre-incident advice, wasn’t privy to private strategy discussions between Galanter and Simpson, and was rebuked when he tried to advise Simpson without Galanter’s approval.

Former District Attorney David Roger is due to testify. In an interview, he recalled discussing a possible plea with Galanter during trial, but said discussions didn’t yield ‘negotiations in the legal sense.’

Galanter said Simpson might be willing to serve 24 months in prison, Roger recalled. Prosecutors countered with 30 months. Galanter later said Simpson wanted no more than 12 months. Roger said he thought Galanter had spoken with Simpson.

‘That’s where the conversation ended,’ the former prosecutor said.
H. Leon Simon, the chief deputy district attorney now handling the case, said Simpson isn’t owed a new trial. Evidence was overwhelming, he said.

Hotel security video showed Simpson and five other men arriving at the Palace Station casino-hotel with middleman Thomas Riccio, and leaving with boxes of items. Jurors heard audio recordings of Simpson and others talking about the plan ahead of time and of the five-minute confrontation involving nine men crammed around a big bed in a small room. Two of the men said they had guns.

Simpson trial co-defendant Clarence ‘C.J.’ Stewart served more than two years of a seven and a half to 27 year prison sentence before the state Supreme Court overturned his conviction. The justices ruled Simpson’s fame tainted the Las Vegas proceedings and Stewart should have been tried separately.

Stewart took a plea deal to avoid a retrial and was convicted of felony robbery and conspiracy but set free.

‘As far as Simpson is concerned, I wish him luck,’ said Stewart, now 59 and driving limousine in New Orleans. ‘He needs to tell the truth about Yale Galanter. Yale only represented him to protect himself, to make sure his name didn’t come up.’

Source: dailymail.co.uk

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Mayor of Battipaglia arrested for suspected Camorra deals

Capo — Sat, 11 May 2013 12:37:07 +0000

Mayor Giovanni Santomauro

Probes into contract rigging and office abuse for city chief

(ANSA) – Naples, May 8 – The mayor of the Campania city of Battipaglia was arrested Wednesday morning for suspected contract rigging as part of broader investigations into Camorra mafia dealings in the southern region.

Investigators believe that Mayor Giovanni Santomauro granted city contracts to companies linked to the powerful Casalesi clan. Charges against the mayor could include bid rigging, bribery and aggravated abuse of office, investigators said. Building contractor Nicola Madonna was also arrested, suspected of illegally obtaining contracts from the city of Battipaglia worth five million euros. The Casalesis are the Camorra clan whose death threats have forced anti-mafia writer Roberto Saviano, author of the 2006 bestseller Gomorrah, into round-the-clock police protection.

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Spain busts Chinese-Moroccan cash-laundering gang

Capo — Sat, 11 May 2013 12:33:32 +0000

Spanish police said Thursday they busted a network of Moroccan and Chinese nationals who laundered hundreds of thousands of euros a week in drug money.

Officers arrested two Chinese nationals, one suspect from Hong Kong and three Moroccans in raids at locations including a major Chinese trading estate near Madrid, a police statement said.

The network sold hashish that was smuggled from Morocco to Spain, distributing it to Britain, France and other countries, and laundered the money via wholesale purchases of clothes and jewellery.

The police said they seized 21 million items of clothing worth more than 100 million euros ($131 million) as well as luxury cars and jewels and watches worth four million euros.

After catching drug-traffickers in December with 11 tonnes of hashish, police traced the gang’s financial activities and discovered it was laundering 500,000 euros of drug money a week.

“The group that has been broken up was mainly composed of nationals from Morocco and China specialised in introducing the illicit money into the legal market,” the statement said.

“To do so, they carried out a multitude of commercial transactions of clothing, deluxe watches, jewels and other goods.”

Moroccan members of the network used the money in transactions involving suspects in the industrial estate of Cobo Calleja, considered the biggest Chinese wholesale hub in Europe.

The site was the centre of a major raid last year in which scores of suspects including a Chinese businessman, Gao Ping, were charged with money-laundering and other crimes.

Source: globalpost.com

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Diamond heist gang meant to steal cash

Capo — Sat, 11 May 2013 12:15:35 +0000

Suspects behind the breathtaking theft of €37m worth of diamonds at Brussels Airport were arrested after bungling attempts to offload their haul.

Seven men have been charged in connection with one of the biggest gem thefts on record after police made a series of arrests in France, Switzerland and Belgium two days ago.

A week before the robbery in February, a large consignment of cash was flown out of Brussels airport on the same Helvetica Airways LX789 flight to Zurich that was targeted by the international armed gang.

Investigators believe that the robbers got wind of the shipment and planned their robbery with the expectation of making off with tens of millions in high-value banknotes rather than diamonds, which are much more difficult to convert into ready cash.

“They were sitting there with a haul of €37m in diamonds and did not know what to do with it,” investigators told the ‘Nieuwsblad’ newspaper.

“If the perpetrators had stolen money, then chances are that we would still be looking for them today.”

Wearing masks, hooded police anoraks and armed with machine guns equipped with laser sights, the robbers struck at 7.47pm local time.

After cutting through a security perimeter fence, the robbers used two black vehicles equipped with blue flashing police lights to race across the airport tarmac.

Coming to a halt alongside the Brink’s van and the passenger jet, four armed men left each vehicle and held up the aircraft’s pilot, co-pilot ground staff and security guards.

The robbers took only two minutes and 50 seconds to carry out the heist.

The robbers then broke into the Swiss Fokker 100 airliner’s cargo hatch, the place where the consignment was at its most vulnerable, before the plane taxied to take-off. (© Daily Telegraph, London)

Irish Independent

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