Mafia news from Europe

Mafia arrests may be linked to Scajola
Two police officers among arrests, probe mole suspected

(ANSA) - Naples, May 16 - An anti-mafia round-up of 18 people on Friday - regarding alleged infiltration of the Neapolitan Camorra mafia into the northwestern Tuscan coastal area of Versilia - may be linked to last week's arrest of former Italian interior minister Claudio Scajola, investigators said Friday.
Two police agents, working for the Italian premier's office and the Lower House, were placed under house arrest in Friday's anti-mafia sting, accused of breaching the confidentiality of investigations.
Information leaks indicate that investigators has focused on the hypothesis that a mole may have furnished Scajola with privileged information on criminal investigations.
Scajola was arrested last week on suspicions that he helped former MP and businessman Amedeo Matacena flee Italian justice after a definitive conviction for Mafia links. Prosecutors in the southern city of Reggio Calabria said that they had uncovered "a network of complicity" that Amedeo Matacena "enjoys at high levels and thanks to which he was able to avoid arrest".
They issued a total of eight arrest warrants last week, including one for Matacena himself, who remains a fugitive.
On Friday, the Flying Squads of Caserta and Florence swooped on suspects believed by DDA anti-mafia investigators in Naples to be linked to the powerful Casalesi clan of the Camorra mafia, and to have worked to infiltrate the economic fabric of the Versilia area on behalf of the organized crime syndicate over a period of three decades.
Scajola, before falling from grace after a string of scandals, was a powerful ally of ex-premier Silvio Berlusconi.

http://www.ansa.it/english/news/politics...4b0f250422.html

17 'ndrangheta members arrested in the northern city of bologna and charged with drug trafficking

http://bologna.repubblica.it/cronaca/2014/05/14/news/ndrangheta_arresti_ros_di_bologna-86101098/

Italian billionaire arrested for Mafia connections

An Italian dairy billionaire - who once dubbed himself the 'Armani of Mozzarella' due to his power in the world of Italian cheese - has been arrested on mafia charges.

Dairy billionaire Giuseppe Mandara used the might of the Neapolitan mob to build his commercial empire, it is alleged.

The Mandara Group, the biggest producer of buffalo mozzarella in Italy, had been effectively controlled by the notorious Camorra mafia since 1983, investigators say.

The notorious La Torre Clan, which is based in the Caserta province near Naples, allegedly bailed the cheese king out when he was in financial trouble, investing 700 million of the old lira in his company.

The mozzarella mogul was arrested at dawn on Wednesday on suspicion of money laundering and mafia association, Italian news agency ANSA reported.

His mafia associates allegedly used their criminal earnings to pay off debts dating back to the 1970s and intimated land owners whose property he wanted to buy to build warehouses.

The dairy entrepreneur allegedly threw police off tack during the investigation into the disappearance of local politician Antonio Nugnes, who is presumed to have been murdered in 1990 with his remains dissolved in acid.

Mandara was held in 2012 accused of adulterating his prize product, mixing ordinary cow milk with the more expensive and creamier buffalo product.

He has previously been accused of mafia offences but the case was dropped for lack of evidence.

In Italy, Mozzarella DOC is a protected name that is supposed to guarantee the quality of buffalo mozzarella.

In the past the cheese has been the subject of public health scares after it emerged that carcinogenic chemicals were thought to be present in the soil – and the grass eaten by the buffalo – as a result of the illegal dumping of toxic waste by the mafia.

Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... Mafia.html

Major Drug Bust Arrest Evidence of Italian Mafia’s Presence in Colombia

A Spanish citizen belonging to Italy’s ‘Ndrangheta mafia has been arrested and four tons of cocaine seized in Colombia, in the latest illustration of the Italian organized crime group’s presence in Latin America.

Hermenegildo Ventura Casan, who was arrested in the Atlantic port city of Cartagena on May 15, reportedly served as a link between the European criminal group and the Medellin-based Oficina de Envigado. According to a press release from the Colombian national police (pdf), he oversaw an international drug trafficking network that used Cartagena as the departure point for a route passing through Panama, Costa Rica, Spain and Italy.

According to the release, the drugs were smuggled in containers with recyclable and industrial raw materials, which were shipped with documentation from false export businesses.

Among Ventura’s alleged contacts within the Oficina were the extradited leader of the group, Diego Fernando Murillo, alias “Don Berna,” and other key leaders. The 52-year-old Spaniard is also believed to have maintained contacts within Colombia’s dominant criminal group, the Urabeños.

Ventura’s arrest comes after international police body Interpol issued a “red notice” (international arrest warrant) for the Spaniard, who is also being investigated by authorities in the United States. He is currently being held in capital Bogota, awaiting extradition to Spain. Fourteen other people were captured during the operation.

InSight Crime Analysis

Italy’s ‘Ndrangheta, which is thought to control 80 percent of the cocaine entering Italy, has shown signs of a resurgence in Latin America in recent years. As well as being active in Colombia, they reportedly receive cocaine supplies from Mexico’s Zetas and are known to have established a trafficking route between Guyana and the United States.

The arrest of Ventura comes only weeks after authorities in the Dominican Republic captured another ‘Ndrangheta mobster who was reportedly working on establishing a new drug trafficking route through the Caribbean.

According to international intelligence agencies consulted by InSight Crime, the Spanish city of Barcelona has now become a central negotiating point between Colombian and European mafias, which may explain Casan’s Spanish origins and reported integration into the Italian group, despite the importance of blood ties. The use of a non-Italian middleman could also be intended to lower the profile of the ‘Ndrangheta’s activities in the region.

http://todaycolombia.com/2014/05/major- ... -colombia/

An Italian national who has been living in Kenya illegally was quietly deported last week


An Italian national who has been living in Kenya illegally was quietly deported last week in a top-level security operation following allegations that he had links with the dreaded Mafia.

The Sunday Nation has established that Giovanni De Caro, 70, who security agencies associate with the Milan branch of the international criminal network, was deported on Tuesday after living in Malindi illegally for the last three months. This was his second deportation from Kenya.

On Saturday, Interior and Coordination Cabinet Secretary Joseph ole Lenku confirmed that he had signed the deportation order.

“He was deported this week. It is important that we protect ourselves, our children and our country from these kinds of people,” Mr Lenku said.

Malindi is a favourite of Italian investors and tourists, earning it the nickname “Little Italy”. The foreigners largely live by their own rules and impose Italian culture.

De Caro has been a fugitive in Kenya following alleged differences with the Mafia in Italy. He was first deported from Kenya in June 2012 after a Malindi court declared him persona non-grata (an unwelcome person) for his alleged involvement in fraud, forgery and organised crime.

He was also found to have been residing in Kenya illegally since his arrival in 1992. After deportation to Italy, De Caro was jailed for one-and-a- half years by Italian authorities for economic crimes.

Police said that upon completion of his jail term, De Caro flew back to Kenya on February 19 this year and landed at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport from Charles De Gaulle Airport in Paris. He remained at the JKIA lounge for two days from where he contacted his Kenyan lawyers.

But security sources say De Caro supposedly fell ill at the lounge and sought medical attention.

“His lawyer was able to obtain court orders allowing the subject entry to Kenya for medical attention; thus De Caro was allowed back in,” said a source.

However, De Caro is said to have later travelled to Malindi in unclear circumstances, and allegedly continued operating his hotel business.

De Caro was previously associated with Malindi’s Oasis Village, which has since changed name and ownership.

According to close associates who spoke on condition of anonymity, the Italian had tried to sneak back to Kenya through Mombasa International Airport last November but was re-routed back to Italy.

BANNED FROM HOLDING OFFICE

According to information from Italian court documents, De Caro had been banned from holding any public office in Italy after being found guilty of fraud.

It is said he was among a group that, in 1990, formed a pyramid scheme that defrauded thousands of people of their money before escaping to Kenya.

The scheme, known as Network Florentine, brought together 15 companies and had at least 3,000 members before collapsing in 1991, with the directors making away with shareholders’ money.

Sources within the Italian community in Malindi said that De Caro was feared in the coastal town, with some alleging he may have been a high-ranking Mafia operative in the region. He is even claimed to have intimidated other investors.

“He told me recently that he is back and that I should prepare for the worst, insisting that he would kill me,” said an Italian investor in the hospitality industry, who requested anonymity for fear of reprisals.

The alleged presence of the Mafia in the Malindi underworld has long been suspected, but with little evidence. Foreign fugitives are also thought to hide among genuine investors who have pumped billions of shillings into Malindi’s economy.

http://mobile.nation.co.ke/news/Kenya-d ... index.html

Monaco heiress, 77, and her chauffeur die of their wounds after being shot in Mafia-style hit

The head of one of Monaco's richest families has died from gunshot wounds following a suspected Mafia hit.
Hélène Pastor, a 77-year-old heiress who was close to the royals who run the Mediterranean principality, was hit by a hail of bullets on May 6.
She and her chauffeur were attacked outside L'Archet hospital in the French city of Nice, which is a short drive from Monaco.


Now Mrs Pastor has died in Nice's St Roch hospital, where medics had carried out a number of operations.
Her driver, 64-year-old Mohammed Darwish, also succumbed to wounds in the face, neck and stomach – dying on May 10.
Investigators suspect two of Italy's most notorious crime syndicates, the 'Ndrangheta and the Camorra, of carrying out the double assassination.


Both crime gangs are said to be building property portfolios on the French Riviera as they expand their field of operations.
Mrs Pastor's family own buildings worth billions in the area, and detectives believe the Mafia were trying to muscle in.
Mrs Pastor had been visiting her son, Gildo, who runs a car hire company, at the Nice hospital when a solo gunman struck.


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-...l#ixzz32LfYEJnX

(ANSA) - Naples, May 21 - Italian police on Wednesday arrested five people in connection with two murders in 2001 and 2009 in Camorra turf wars at Ercolano near Naples.
One of those arrested was a minor when the hits were carried out, judicial sources said.

Source: http://www.ansa.it/english/news/general_...38c83be386.html

Libs take money of Mafia man

The suspected Mafia godfather of Melbourne helped bankroll a Liberal Party marginal federal seat campaign in the 2013 election, raising the prospect that the proceeds of crime have flowed into Liberal coffers.
The alleged crime figure's fundraising occurred despite Liberal politicians knowing of his suspected involvement in organised crime and in a previous political donation scandal investigated by federal police.
A Fairfax Media investigation can reveal the alleged Mafia boss helped host the "Bruce Campaign Fundraising Dinner", which a Liberal Party memo later described as a "very successful" event, at his Docklands reception centre on March 1 last year.

Federal Liberal MP Russell Broadbent, who has known about the donor's alleged crime ties for several years having been implicated in the 2009 donations scandal, was at the Docklands event with the suspected Mafia boss. The guest speaker at the event was Victorian Planning Minister Matthew Guy.
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Also at the fund-raiser was Liberal candidate for Bruce Emanuele Cicchiello, long-time Liberal operative and former Bass Coast mayor Neville Goodwin and state Liberal MP for Hastings Neale Burgess.
The alleged Mafia boss has been previously described by police in court as a person allegedly involved in "murder, gunshot wounding and arson". He has been named as a suspected hitman in two coronial inquests in the 1990s and identified in a recent police intelligence briefing as the leader of a ''well established'' Calabrian Mafia cell in Melbourne that remains a powerful presence at Victoria's wholesale fruit and vegetable market.

The Liberal donor has close associations with Melbourne's senior Italian organised crime identities, including an alleged drug trafficker who co-owns the Docklands function complex where the Liberal event was held, Waterfront Venues Melbourne.
This alleged drug trafficker was given a visa in 2005 after the suspected Mafia boss lobbied and donated to the Liberal Party as part of a campaign to have the Howard government overturn its decision to deport the man on character grounds. Allegations from a Liberal insider that the donations amounted to a bribery attempt were investigated by the federal police in 2009 in a probe that generated significant publicity.
The alleged Mafia boss and his associate who was granted a visa cannot be named due to a criminal court suppression order.
Liberal sources confirmed that hire of Waterfront Venues Melbourne was donated by the alleged Mafia boss for the $250-a-head dinner. Food and drink was also heavily subsidised. Expensive items were also auctioned off at the event, including a helicopter ride for two and a dinner.
No specific records of the fund-raiser have been lodged with the Australian Electoral Commission, with Liberal sources saying the individual donations made as part of the event were under the $12,100 disclosure threshold.
Despite being the subject of numerous organised crime probes, the alleged mob boss has never been charged with a criminal offence and denies any involvement in organised crime or political bribery. The federal police bribery probe was closed after gathering insufficient evidence.
The revelations come as the Independent Commission Against Corruption probes donations by colourful business identities to Liberal politicians in NSW.
Mr Broadbent declined to respond to repeated requests from Fairfax Media for comment. The Liberal MP previously lobbied the Howard government to give the suspected Mafia figure's associate a visa, despite authorities arguing he should be deported because he was a criminal.
The figure was issued a visa on humanitarian grounds in 2005. Mr Broadbent was one of four Liberal MPs who lobbied to overturn the man's deportation who were investigated by federal police in their 2009 probe.
In 2012, the crime figure and the suspected Mafia boss took over the Docklands venue where the Bruce campaign fund-raiser was later held. A third owner of Waterfront Venues Melbourne is a relative of late Mafia godfather Rosario Gangemi, who died in 2008 and was previously identified by police as a top Mafia leader allegedly involved in murder and racketeering at Melbourne's fruit and vegetable wholesale market.
Fairfax first sought to question Mr Broadbent in 2009 about why he had attended fund-raisers with the alleged Mafia figure and his associates. It is believed that Mr Broadbent's relationship with the alleged Mafia figure is more extensive than publicly known.
The pair are believed to have met on several occasions in the company of a small number of other donors, with Mr Broadbent having facilitated meetings between the man and senior state and federal Liberal Party figures, including Bruce Billson and Amanda Vanstone.
State Liberal MP and former lower house Speaker Ken Smith, and his former electorate staffer and ex-Bass Coast mayor Neville Goodwin have also previously been involved in fund-raising and charity events with the alleged Mafia boss dating back to the mid 1990s.
The alleged Mafia figure has helped raise thousands of dollars for the Liberals in Melbourne's outer south-east, where he is perceived to hold influence over voters of Calabrian heritage.
Asked about his association with the alleged Mafia boss, Mr Smith said: "He's never asked me for anything. I take people as I find them.''
The suspected Mafia boss has a business empire spanning Victoria, including stalls at the wholesale fruit and vegetable market, property developments, supermarkets and involvement in the nationwide La Porchetta pizza chain. He has also had dealings with NSW Liberal Party donors, including real estate agent Pat Sergi. Mr Sergi, named in a 1979 royal commission as a money launderer for the Mafia, was recently called as a witness at the NSW ICAC hearings into Liberal Party fund-raising.
A spokeswoman for Mr Guy said the minister "was invited to attend the [Docklands] function by the Liberal campaign for Bruce. The minister had no role in organising the event or its guest list."
Mr Goodwin confirmed he has known the owner of the venue for several years, while Mr Burgess said he attended the Docklands function as a guest of a prominent market gardener in his electorate who had taken a table at the event, and did not know who owned the venue.


Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/national/libs-take-money-of-mafia-man-20140522-38rrq.html#ixzz32ScDtEFn

Top Camorra mobster turns State witness
Antonio Iovine is one of 4 ex bosses of powerful camorra clan


22 May 2014
(ANSA) - Naples, May 22 - A top Camorra mobster, Antonio Iovine, has started to collaborate with anti-mafia prosecutors in the southern Campania region, Italian media reported Thursday.
Iovine, also known as 'o ninno', is considered one of the four former bosses of the powerful Casalesi clan from Casal di Principe in the province of Caserta, whose death threats have forced anti-mafia writer Roberto Saviano into 24-hour police protection.
The others are Francesco Bidognetti, Francesco Schiavone (aka Sandokan) and Michele Zagaria.
Iovine, 50, is currently serving a life sentence for multiple murder and other crimes after being captured in autumn 2010 following 15 years on the run.
He was handed the definitive sentence in January 2010 following the 12-year so-called Spartacus maxi trial against the Casalesi clan, in which Bidognetti, Schiavone and Zagaria were also sentenced to life imprisonment.
"When last December I wrote that Antonio Iovine was considering turning State witness, I was called a visionary," wrote Saviano Thursday in a tweet.
"It has happened," he continued.
Naples Mayor and former magistrate Luigi de Magistris also hailed the development Thursday.
"It is positive that breaches are being made in Camorra clans and that there is collaboration with the judiciary," De Magistris said.
"The most damaging blows to mafia organisations have been made also thanks to the collaboration ofSstate witnesses," he said.
Close relatives of Iovine, including his wife Enrichetta and his son Oreste, have been transferred to a secret location outside the province of Caserta for protection.

^^^^ this is huge news..

His father must be rolling over POS, hes one of the financial guys I remember reading. Did he have any contact with MMD I doubt but hes gonna be knowledgeable about so much shit, should be exciting for us.

Italian crime families use Malta to launder dirty money
News magazine l’Espresso says Malta features in Camorra’s network of shop fronts for the laundering of their narcotics empire
Matthew Vella
May 22, 2014


Camorra in Malta? The investigative news magazine l’Espresso seems to think so. They are setting up shop on the island with fronts masquerading for money laundering operations, serving up bad food at the front of the house while their dirty cash gets ‘washed’ in the back.

‘How the Camorra became European’ – writes Giovanni Tizian – who goes far as describing the island’s entertainment mecca, Paceville, as “free territory” for the Neapolitan mobsters.

“Restaurants, discos, casinos and nightclubs. The ideal place to invest hard cash. The Casalesi here have banked on restaurants and gambling. Nicola Schiavone planted part of his family’s fortunes here – now he is locked up in the 41 bis,” Tizian writes of the maximum-security jail that houses convicts from the organised crime families.

According to turncoat Francesco Della Corte, Schiavone’s right-hand man Nicola Della Corte “handled the clan’s economic interests in Malta, Romania, Corsica, Elbad and Emilia Romagna.”

Despite the alleged inexistence of the kind of violence and deep-rootedness of Mafia-style criminality, the links with Sicilian gangs and local criminality have long been established. While gangs from the Cosa Nostra families and Camorra clans benefit from the weak state in the south of Italy, in Malta they find intimate connections with top businessmen, links with political patrons, and financial and legal know-how for their money laundering activities.

An Italian magistrate’s dossier and transcripts on conversations between the deceased boss of the Resuttano mandamento of the Sicilian Mafia, Gaetano Fidanzanti (first reported in MaltaToday in February 2014) and an Italian connection seeking to set up a gaming business in Malta – in MaltaToday’s possession – names a prominent business group and its chairman as a possible hook-up to set up shop on the island.

It’s no secret that Sicilian traffic to Malta provides casinos, of which there are none on the Sicilian island, with up to 50% of their business: connections made with Sicilian businessmen and similar ‘men of honour’ are easy to make.

“The way money laundering works is… the money has to arrive in Ireland, then return to Italy, and then make psychopathic turns. The secret is to never let it stop, move it continuously to clean it, until it cannot be whiter. Europe has become a large washing machine,” Tizian writes.

Nicola Schiavone was arrested in 2010 in his villa in Casal di Principe, the small town north of Naples where his clan is based. He is the son of imprisoned mobster Francesco Schiavone, reputedly the long-time top boss of the clan. Nicola Schiavone was wanted in connection with three murders.

Fighting money laundering

The use of Maltese bank accounts and international wire transfers have featured in the vast majority of suspected transactions reported to the police and Malta’s financial intelligence analysis unit (FIAU) in 2013.

29 suspected offences were reported to the police in 2013, the highest amount since 2008, the majority pertaining to suspected fraudulent activity.

“The main trend observed during the year as that most cases referred to the Police for investigation involved the use of a company registered in Malta having at least one non-resident foreign beneficial owner. Once again, the use of Maltese bank accounts and international wire transfers featured in the vast majority of the cases reviewed,” the FIAU said in its annual report.

“As observed in 2012, the use of companies licensed by the LGA (Lotteries and Gaming Authority) to operate in the remote gaming sector also featured in a number of cases referred to the police for investigation. Similarly, companies licensed or authorised by the MFSA (financial services authority) to provide services were identified as having potentially been used to disguise the origin of criminal proceeds,” the FIAU said.

The LGA says individuals involved in the gaming sector are closely kept under review and monitored to make sure that the fit and proper test is satisfied at all times.

“Malta has a strong reputation in this industry and a number of EU member states use Malta as a best practice model to launch remote gaming regulations in their own countries,” the authority said.

↓http://www.maltatoday.com.mt/news/natio ... 4A2VNLPaSp

Right. And he's one of the 4 top bosses of Camorra. He has nothing to say about MMD, and I'm sure has no clue where he is anyway.
The thing with these guys, in the rare times that a boss would rat in Italy..they give bits and pieces of info, and half-truths. They throw out just enough info to get them out of the harsh 41-bis regime in jail, which is what this guy will be under if he doesn't speak. Still, plenty of people are going to suffer now because of this.

That's pretty much it. But being half-a-rat is like saying someone's a little pregnant. Because there are still going to be labor pains.

This is surprising, though. Not shocking; nothing shocks me anymore. But it's still surprising.

You seem to be knowledgeable about the Italian mafia in Italy/Europe. I know the Italian organizations have a strong influence on local politicians and possibly the police. I am ignorant on how deep is the mafia in corrupting the police. But can you tell me how corrupt is the local police or state police and what relations do they have with the local captains or bosses. Is it as deep as the cartels in Mexico are with the local and state authorities or is it much less or less obvious.

^^ I really couldn't answer that, BP. From what I've seen, and what I know...the local carabinieri seem to take their job very seriously. Politicians, that's a given that they're corrupt, but I haven't seen that with the local police, but I'm not there to really speak on this.

8 people, included 4 carabinieri, were arrested in the town of Gela and charged with mafia association, extortions, frauds and other crimes.This was 10 days ago.

So what are you saying is that the local police aren't as corrupt as the local police in Mexico. But I don't get if the local police are corrupt and complicent as the local authorities. Do the local bosses have some juridisction over the local police or what?

I am guessing the caribineri are the local authorities. But what I don't get is how are the local authorities so anti mafia?

So the local police has power over the local bosses or what? It's hard to images that. I thought the Italian mafias more powerful than what you are telling me? I mean if they are.getting arrested by the local authorities doesn't that mean they don't have power over the local politicians or police?

no western european country is as corrupted as mexico

and as far as italy is concerned, I agree with carmela, law enforcement agencies do take their job seriously.

especially anti-mafias squads.

A trader of 42 years was killed in the evening in Palermo under the eyes of his daughter in front of his market .

Translated by:google translate from italian.

Luankuci Mexico is not in Europe bro.

I don't think u understood it good.He didn't say that Mexico is in Europe,he said there is no country in western Europe that is corrupted as Mexico.lol whatever i said now....

12 arrested in anti-Camorra mafia sweep
Probe sheds light on turf war between rival Ponticelli clans

(ANSA) - Naples, May 27 - Police on Tuesday arrested 12 people in an anti-mafia sweep against the Campania region's Camorra crime syndicate.
The suspects, who are said to belong to the De Micco clan operating in the Ponticelli district of Naples, were arrested on charges of mafia association for drug trafficking, attempted murder and illegal possession of firearms. In total, 14 people have been placed under investigation in connection with the probe. Two suspects are currently on the run. Investigations showed how some alleged De Micco clan members wore a tattoo reading 'Bodo' - the clan's nickname - followed by the words "respect, fidelity and honour". Police also uncovered an accounts book recording profits from criminal activities and monthly payments to be made to affiliates, as well as legal and weapons expenses. The investigation also shed light on the ongoing turf war between the De Micco clan and the rival D'Amico group, which led to the murders of respective clan members in January and March 2013. The Calabrian 'Ndrangheta and the Neapolitan Camorra have posed the most powerful threats to the legal economy in recent years, outstripping Sicily's Cosa Nosta.

http://www.ansa.it/english/news/2014/05/...fc723b6454.html

Political corruption 'helped Mob thrive', says Camorra boss
Iovine says Neapolitan mafia not solely to blame for crimes

(ANSA) - Naples, May 28 - Antonio Iovine, a top Camorra boss turned State witness, has told prosecutors that the Neapolitan mafia was able to thrive thanks to the complicity of widespread corruption in the local political system. "There was money for everyone in a system that was completely corrupt," Iovine told investigations days ago. "It made no difference what political side a mayor came from because the system operated, and operates, in the same way...
"I'm well aware of the crimes that I've stained myself with. But I'm explaining to you a system in which the Camorra is not the only one to blame". Iovine's statements were rendered public on Wednesday after being presented as evidence in a criminal trial. Iovine, also known as 'o ninno', is considered one of the four former bosses of the powerful Casalesi Camorra clan from Casal di Principe in the province of Caserta, whose death threats have forced anti-mafia writer Roberto Saviano into 24-hour police protection.
The others are Francesco Bidognetti, Francesco Schiavone (aka Sandokan) and Michele Zagaria.
Iovine, 50, is currently serving a life sentence for multiple murder and other crimes under Italy's tough prison regime for organised criminals, the so-called article 41-bis, after being captured in November 2010 following 15 years on the run.
He was sentenced to life imprisonment in absentia in January 2010 along with Bidognetti, Schiavone and Zagaria following the 12-year so-called Spartacus maxi trial against the Casalesi clan.

http://www.ansa.it/english/news/general_...20460350f8.html

Plans of Palermo courthouse attack leaked to security forces
After letter with death threat to Palermo chief prosecutor

(ANSA) - Palermo, May 28 - An attack on the Palermo courthouse is allegedly in the planning, confidential sources said Wednesday.
Judicial sources confirmed the news, and Sicilian public-order authorities are gathered in an emergency meeting to discuss new security measures.
A letter containing death threats to Palermo chief prosecutor Roberto Scarpinato and the carabinieri officer in charge of courthouse security was delivered to the ANSA Palermo newsroom earlier on Wednesday.
"Watch out we've prepared a crackling present for Scarpinato and the courthouse carabinieri chief," said the missive signed P.R.A.
The initials are unknown to security forces. Scarpinato was the chief prosecutor in the 1996-2004 trial of former premier Giulio Andreotti, who was found guilty of long-term Mafia association but acquitted on grounds that the crime had timed out.
Scarpinato has also led hard-hitting investigations into the slayings of anti-Mafia prosecutors Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino, as well as into the relationship between the Mafia and the masons, the Mafia and the financial system, and alleged negotiations between the State and the Mafia.

http://www.ansa.it/english/news/2014/05/...9dd6e76aee.html

Well I guess the local authorities are heavily funded by the state then but from what I see or read from mw2 is that politicians,public officials and bussinessman are much more opportunistic and are lured to make money with the Mafia. What you have in Italy is industrial corruption something that doesnt happen in Mexico at least not done by the cartels. Sure there is corruption in Mexico but the corruption caused by the cartels is mainly with the local and some areas with the state police agencies like the AEI. What you have in Italy or at least southern Italy is a cultural problem with the Mafia where doing (illegal) bussiness with the mafia is the normal. It might appear that Mexico is more corrupt(probably is but its caused by politicians keeping some public money in their pocket not cartels doing bussiness with politicians) because of the occassional shootouts and police corruption but the federal authorties/army/marines and.federal government are very anti-cartel and not to mention the DEA in Mexico feeding information to the federal authorities. Lots of capos and captains of all levels have been killed or captured by the federal authorities. Not to mention they get beaten by the army or federal police to confess crimes. I think it would be more efficient to pump all those billions into the local authorities instead of having the army and marines going after them. That way the local police wont have to rely on cartel and citizen bribes to earn a decent living and curb stomp cartel activities more efficiently. Its just unfortunate that the PRI doesnt want to give power to the state.governments like the PAN did. But there ARE European countries more corrupt than Mexico including Russia and many slavic states.

Your kidding rite? Politicians in mexico dont take money from cartels???? Thats hilarious

southern italy is as corrupted as mexico but italy as a whole not

I see it as being comparable to American law enforcement in that the locals are still somewhat corruptible, yet on the National level it's a lot more difficult to buy yourself legal protection.

italy does top corruption charts among west eu nations

but comparing it to mexico is simply ridiculous, even if we focus on the south alone


this

the south is extremely corrupted so it's comparable with mexico

Top mafia informer leads cops to AK-47s
Iovine considered most dangerous mobster to change sides

(ANSA) - Naples, May 30 - The most dangerous Italian mobster ever to turn State's witness on Friday helped police find four AK-47s inside the home of another mafioso. Antonio Iovine, a top Camorra boss whose decision to become informer made international headlines earlier this month, led police to the automatic assault rifles at the home of Antonio Cioffo, convicted for associating with the Naples-based Camorra mafia.

http://www.ansa.it/english/news/general_...296b9aa4fd.html

^^^ unbelievable. I wonder if Iovine has his family safe in hiding.

yes, police brought his immediate family with helicopters to hide location in northern italy

Oh ok, I didn't know that, but I was sure they'd have to. There's still going to be a lot of bloodshed over this, I think. Anyone related...cousins, uncles, whoever.

anyway he's not the most dangerous mobster ever to turn state's witness
giovanni brusca killed between 200 and 300 men by himself

lol but these are current headlines and those words are good for media attention.

I hope so. It's not their fault .

True but he's going to pay one way or another. They can't possibly hide his entire family that carries the Iovine name. He's put them all at risk now. And wit sec in Italy isn't like over here. They toss you into a new location and shout, "ruuuun Forrest ruuuuun...." They're vulnerable no matter where.

Oh, absolutely. He put his entire extended family in harm's way. It's a shame, and it's a MUCH more selfish move in Italy than it is here.

Is there much of a mafia presence in northern Italy? It has to be at least a little safer up there.

of course there is much of a mafia presence in northern italy, especially 'ndrangheta

two brothers roberto and giovanni scognamiglio have been killed tonight by camorra in torre annunziata, napoli

http://www.ilmattino.it/NAPOLI/CRONACA/omicidio-due-fratelli-uccisi-in-casa/notizie/719468.shtml

that has been widely discussed around the forums

just search around and you'll find plenty of topics

Rocco Castiglione, 38, was killed and his brother Raffaele, 34, was unhurt in an ambush carried out in Roccabernarda in Crotone. Both are known to the police for various offenses. The ambush was carried out in the locality Salinella, near the stables of the two.

Thanks to Hollander for posting this on another board.

Well it's more of a threat relationship than a bribe. If you're a local politician in northern Mexico especially in Tamaulipas state where the Gulf and Los Zetas operate. And receive a envolope with cash it's taken more of as a threat than bribe. It's either the cash or bullets and the poorer the town the less powerful politicians are. Mexico's political power is really centralized on the D.F area and Mexico city. So the local politicians are usually left to fend for themselves and politicians in poor states can't afford to buy guards and if they do either they are killed or corrupted. They can't rely on the local authorities because they don't get a good salary and are corrupted or simply intimidated by the local captains. The cartels don't have to buy everyone they just simply need to corrupt the police in charge of operations and the police chief and maybe a dozen or two police to act as informants. It so bad in Tamaulipas that the some police are lured into the cartel lifestyle and move up the ladder to get more money and power. That's why the Gulf Cartel is so notorious for having AEI in their structure. Now the Los Zeta are having the same luxury as well. The Sinaloa cartel walk a fine line between corruption/bribe and fear. They are more generous to their politicians and give them more money than Los Zetas or Gulf and is more comparable to the Mafia in Italy in terms of political connection. The Caballeros Temolarios are the worst they started to freaking extort the politicians to simply operate in Michoacan. That's why the people revolted against them because they wanted to extort everything. They walked the line when they started to rape daughters and mothers. That's when the people said enough and revolted against them. As a result most of it's leadership got taken down by the federal government because an civilian momevement that was going in Michoacan was more of a threat to the government than the cartels. So they had to step in to take down the bosses as quickly as possible and stop the civilian movement from spreading or gaining influence in other states. The PRI are bunch of power hungry assholes. Sure some drug bosses do have political connections to some powerful people in the federal government but since Calderon put a spotlight on the cartels and declared war on them many of the powerful bosses have gone down with their political connections with them. The newer drug bosses in Los Zetas and Gulf Cartel don't have the same connections. Also most politicians and especially powerful ones don't want to associate themselves with the cartels. It's mainly with the local authorities were much of the organized crime corruption lays. Some powerful politicians like Moreira(the state governor of Coahuila) declared war on Los Zetas and Trevino personally. Moreira was a known powerful politician from the PRI and one of the most known and proven politicians to be corrupted as hell. So there was some natural tension between him and Los Zetas(both of them of power hungry assholes) as he saw his police get corrupted by them. So he financed his own state police called GAFES to take down or simply get rid of Los Zetas from his state. As he arrested some high ranking Zeta bosses that operated in Coahuila(Moreira's state) one of them being a cousin of ex Los Zetas leader Trevino or more known as Z-40. Trevino took it personally so he killed his nephew in retaliation and the bastard Trevino even put a sign saying "Eye for an eye" and that's when shit hit the fan. It was a literary a war between PRI politician Moreira and Trevino. It was amusing to see a powerful known corrupt politician and Los Zetas go to war over power that really got personal. The GAFES and Los Zetas would go at it shooting each other on the streets. I think someone should write a book about it because of the interesting scenario a powerful well known PRI politician vs Los Zetas leader Miguel Angel Trevino aka Z-40.

Police arrest 16 in 'Ndrangheta mafia sting
Crea clan accused of extortion, contract-rigging in Rizziconi

(ANSA) - Reggio Calabria, June 4 - Italian police on Wednesday arrested 16 in a sting against the Crea clan of the 'Ndrangheta mafia, a gang based in the town of Rizziconi that is part of the powerful Calabrian organized crime group.
The arrests included the clan's alleged crime boss and patriarch, Teodoro Crea, 65, as well as Crea's wife, children and daughter-in-law.
One of Teodoro Crea's sons, Giuseppe, 36, remains a fugitive.
Three former Rizziconi city councilors were among those stopped by police.
Police also seized assets worth an estimated five million euros, including villas, land and bank accounts. Investigators are probing accusations of pressure against the public administration, extortion, corruption in public bids, and fraud against the European Union.
Ex-mayor Antonino Bartuccio - elected March 2010 on a civic list - has played a "fundamental" role in the probe, collaborating with police and reporting irregularities from the beginning of his term. In April 2011, the mayor and his nine councilors resigned over the extent of clan infiltration in the city administration and interference in municipal affairs, allegedly to facilitate the Crea clan's illegal interests.
Threats and intimidation ultimately led to the resignations and dissolution of the administration.
The municipality of Rizziconi, located east of the major southern port of Gioia Tauro, has a long history of 'Ndrangheta mafia influence and control.
The municipal administration was also dissolved in 1995 and 2000.

http://www.ansa.it/english/news/2014/06/...56463818e8.html

claudio fiorentino, arrested in 2010 on charges of mafia association and extortions, has been gunned down in bari, apulia

http://www.baritoday.it/cronaca/omicidio-giovinazzo-ucciso-cladio-fiorentino-3-giugno-2014.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCT35zNISJ8

Maxi operation of the provincial command of the police in Palermo. engaged in the execution of 31 stops against leaders and followers of the district Mafia Bagheria at the conclusion of a complex investigative activities coordinated by the local DDA.

Among the firm after investigation by the police, coordinated by the prosecutor Francesco Messineo, dall'aggiunto Leonardo Agueci, and substitutes Malagoli Catherine and Francesca Mazzocco, there are excellent names as Charles Guttadauro - brother of Philip and Joseph - Chief of Sour ten. There are Comparetto Joseph, a man of honor Villabate, and Emanuele Modica, Casteldaccia, considered affiliated with the Canadian mafia, who in 2004 escaped death in an ambush in Montreal.

In handcuffs in the operation called "Reset", also Messicati Anthony Vitale, who returned to Italy a few months (after a brief hiding in Bali, where he was identified and arrested) and released on a technicality. Among those arrested are Joseph Di Fiore, Giovanni Pietro Flamia, Salvatore Lo Piparo, Giovanni Di Salvo, Michele Modica and Emanuele Cecala, the latter also held responsible for any acts of violence.

Translated using Google Translate

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABPUM-DIi1s

Source: http://palermo.blogsicilia.it/colpo-alla-mafia-di-bagheria-i-nomi-degli-arrestati/258413/

Informant says Berlusconi ex-undersecretary 'cosa nostra'
Cosentino 'repeatedly met with Camorra bosses, arranged bribes'

(ANSA) - Caserta, June 4 - The allegedly Camorra mafia-linked politician Nicola Cosentino, a former undersecretary to three-time premier Silvio Berlusconi, was "our thing" said a Camorra informant in a Caserta courtroom on Wednesday.
In a judicial meeting, Camorra clan member and informant Roberto Vargas described Cosentino as "cosa nostra" (our thing), a reference to Mafia membership and said that the politician had met with Casalesi head Francesco "Sandokan" Schiavone to talk about contracts and politics.
"Cosentino met with Sandokan after his release in 1993 and before the Spartacus raid (1995). The two met in the warehouse annex of Vicenzo Cantiello's shoe shop. (Cantiello is a relative of boss Salvatore Cantiello). Cantiello told this in 2003 after he left his cell. Then in the course of the years, Nicola Schiavone (son of Sandokan) told me many times that Cosentino was 'cosa nostra'", said Vargas.
Vargas also said that Cosentino took care of the bribes to companies building the Sparanise power station near Caserta.
"Nicola Schiavone told me that we should not do anything because Cosentino had closed the deal with a bribe of 20 thousand euro each month, delivered into the hands of the cashier of the Nicolino Panaro clan".
Cosentino was arrested in April along with 12 others for alleged extortion and unfair competition in favor of his family petrol-pump business in the southern Campania region Also on his rap sheet is a March 2013 arrest on suspicion of collusion with the Neapolitan mafia for alleged links with the powerful Casalesi clan whose death threats have forced anti-mafia writer Roberto Saviano into 24-hour police protection.

http://www.ansa.it/english/news/2014/06/...d5b0474d67.html

Camorra fugitive caught
On the run for three months from 11-year conviction

(ANSA) - Naples, June 9 - Italian police on Monday caught a fugitive member of the Neapolitan Camorra mafia.
Domenico Cesarano, 58, a suspected affiliate of the Vesuvian Fabbricino clan, was found in a seaside home with his wife.
He had been on the run for over three months from an 11-year conviction for loan sharking and racketeering.

http://www.ansa.it/english/news/2014/06/...8376e2e2ad.html

Calabria farm councillor probed for mafia
Michele Trematerra 'helped 'Ndrangheta land contracts'

(ANSA) - Reggio Calabria, June 10 - Calabria's farm councillor, Michele Trematerra, has been placed under investigation on suspicion of links to the region's powerful 'Ndrangheta mafia, judicial sources said Tuesday.
Trematerra, of the small post-Christian-Democrat UDC party, is suspected of helping 'Ndrangheta-linked businessmen win contracts from the regional government, they said.
Fifteen people are being probed including the former mayor and an ex-councillor in the town of Acri.

http://www.ansa.it/english/news/2014/06/...853bef50d7.html

Trevinos nephew was killed.thats y mereiras nephew was shot and kolled.not arrested.lazcano was still alive then i believe.and the templarios dont just extort politicians.chayos nephew was 1of the most powerful in the state of michoachan and os getting out of jail.i know about the autodefensas.there fukn great.mexicos needed them a long time.but there also corrupted. Look at el americano and papa smurf(estanislao beltran i believe).ive read they both work for templariod

Eco-mafia crimes, 80 per day, reap 15 bn euros in 2013
321 organized-crime groups involved

(ANSA) - Rome, June 11 - An average of over three environmental infractions were committed in Italy every hour last year, reported the Italian environmental association Legambiente on Wednesday.
In discussing its 2014 report, the group noted that 29,274 infractions were committed in 2013, that revenue from the crimes topped 15 billion euros and that 321 organized crimes groups had been involved. The financial takings from environmental crimes was down from some 16 billion euros the previous year, though profits from illegal special waste management remained at 3.1 billion euros and illegal building was still at 1.7 billion. A whopping 47% of the environmental crimes recorded last year were in the four regions known for high level of organized crimes: Campania, Puglia, Calabria and Sicily.

http://www.ansa.it/english/news/2014/06/...c856309168.html

Dell'Utri extradited from Lebanon
Former Berlusconi aide faces seven-year Mafia sentence

(ANSA) - Fiumicino, June 13 - Former Berlusconi aide Marcello Dell'Utri was handed over to Interpol agents and extradited from Lebanon to Italy to face a seven-year Mafia conviction on Friday. His plane touched down at Rome Fiumicino early Friday morning amid high security and anti-Mafia agents served him notice that he must serve jail time before he was taken to Rome's Rebibbia prison in an ambulance. Dell'Utri, a former close aide of ex-premier Silvio Berlusconi's, left Italy without authorisation and went to Beirut before the Supreme Court last month upheld a seven-year jail term against him for the Mob ties, making the conviction definitive.
Dell'Utri, 72, is the former head of the advertising arm of Berlusconi's business empire and is credited with creating the three-time premier's centre-right party, Forza Italia, in 1993, six months before it swept to victory in general elections.
At the original trial in Palermo, the former Senator was found to have sealed "a pact of protection" with Cosa Nostra for Berlusconi at a meeting in May 1974.
The court said that meeting "formed the genesis of the relationship that linked the businessman (Berlusconi) and the Mafia with Dell'Utri's mediation".
Berlusconi employed a Mafia boss and killer recommended by Dell'Utri, the late Vittorio Mangano, as an stable manager in the mid 1970s. It is alleged that this appointment was to protect his children from the kind of kidnappings that were then rampant in Italy.
Dell'Utri's lawyers said the case against him was built on testimony from ex-Cosa Nostra informants that lacked credibility.

http://www.ansa.it/english/news/2014/06/...97296b3447.html

Iovine urges ex-cohorts to come clean
'Casaelesi clan has no future' says Iovine

Scrivi alla redazione
(ANSA) - Naples, June 13 - The most dangerous Italian mobster ever to turn State's witness urged his former cohorts to come clean on Friday. "I invite those who were close and committed these crimes with me to speak with magistrates," said Antonio Iovine, a top boss in the Naples-based Camorra whose decision to become informer made world headlines last month.
His statement was made via a video link in a trial against the former mayor of Villa Literno, a town outside Naples, and other suspects for alleged links to the Camorra. Iovine, also known as 'o ninno', is considered one of the four former bosses of the powerful Casalesi Camorra clan from Casal di Principe in the province of Caserta, whose death threats have forced anti-mafia writer Roberto Saviano, of Gomorrah fame, into 24-hour police protection.
The others are Francesco Bidognetti, Francesco Schiavone (aka Sandokan) and Michele Zagaria.
Iovine, 50, is currently serving a life sentence for multiple murder and other crimes under Italy's tough prison regime for organised criminals, the so-called article 41-bis, after being captured in November 2010 following 15 years on the run.
He was sentenced to life imprisonment in absentia in January 2010 along with Bidognetti, Schiavone and Zagaria following the 12-year so-called Spartacus maxi trial against the Casalesi clan.
Saviano has hailed Iovine's "repentance" as "the biggest blow ever" against the Camorra.
Mafia experts say it is even more significant than the 1980s evidence of former top Cosa Nostra figure Tommaso Buscetta, because Buscetta's evidence, which eventually implicated late Christian Democrat statesman Giulio Andreotti, regarded events much prior to his capture.
Iovine was also in a position to keep pulling the strings despite the severe conditions of his incarceration, Camorra analysts said.
Speaking through the courtroom video-conference call Friday, Iovine said he has known since his time on the run that the Casalesi clan "had no future," a conviction that has solidified during his detention.

Four arrests, 30 mn assets seized in Camorra sweep
Campania deputy speaker's firm sequestered but pol not probed

(ANSA) - Naples, June 16 - Italian police on Monday arrested four people and seized assets worth 30 million euros in a probe into the activities of a top Camorra clan with activities in northern Naples, other Italian regions and foreign countries.
Among the assets seized from the Polverino clan was a Carrefour supermarket near Naples and a construction company owned by the deputy speaker of the Campania regional assembly, Biagio Iacolare, who was not among those placed under investigation.
"I haven't dealt with that company for 10 years," said Iacolare, a member of the small centrist Catholic UDC party.

http://www.ansa.it/english/news/2014/06/...4d5f932a11.html

a member of the puccinelli clan, ciro paradisone, has been gunned down in napoli inside his car

http://www.solonotizie24.it/wip/2014/06/...uccinelli/36892

a drug dealer, francesco camisa, has been gunned down in bari

http://www.baritoday.it/cronaca/altamura-omicidio-francesco-camisa-16-giugno-2014.html

Palermo 'Zen' district Mafia chief nabbed
17 arrests on drugs charges

(ANSA) - Palermo, June 18 - Italian police on Wednesday arrested the presumed head of Cosa Nostra in Palermo's crime-ridden Zen district, Guido Spina, on suspicion of running a "huge" drugs operation there.
Police said Spina, among 17 arrested, demanded protection money from shops and firms as well as residents of the notorious Zen housing estate.
To keep locals happy with his "reign," they said, he hired a popular Palermo sentimental-ballad singer for a concert there.

http://www.ansa.it/english/news/2014/06/...2f516a912d.html

Camorrista shot dead in Naples
Ciro the Sandwich, 34, dies on way to hospital

(ANSA) - Naples, June 18 - A member of a top Camorra clan was shot dead in Naples Wednesday.
The 34-year-old Ciro Mercurio, aka "Ciro 'o panino" (Ciro the Sandwich), died on his way to hospital from multiple gunshot wounds sustained in the Fuorigrotta quarter.

http://www.ansa.it/english/news/2014/06/...07549314d7.html

'Ndrangheta top Mob in Emilia-Romagna
'Ndrangheta infiltration in post-quake reconstruction contracts

(ANSA) - Bologna, June 18 - A law-enforcement meeting in Italy's Emilia-Romagna region on Wednesday found that the Calabria-based 'Ndrangheta mafia is the most infiltrated in this wealthy northern region, where it has caused a rise in financial wrongdoing and in the overall crime rate.
The meeting of prefects, police commissioners, Carabinieri military police, and tax police commanders found that 55 companies involved in reconstruction in the wake of two major earthquakes that killed 26 people and caused widespread damage in May 2012 have been black-listed after investigators found they had mafia links.
Of these, more than half had links with the 'Ndrangheta, and the rest were connected to the Sicilian Mafia and the Naples-based Camorra mafia.
The 'Ndrangheta is believed to be the most powerful of Italy's mafias for its virtual stranglehold on the European cocaine trade.

http://www.ansa.it/english/news/general_...659e6d15bb.html

32 Sacra Corona Unita arrests in Taranto
Accused of mafia conspiracy, drug trafficking

(ANSA) - Taranto, June 17 - Italian police on Tuesday arrested 32 suspected members of the Sacra Corona Unita (SCU, United Holy Crown), the mafia group operating in Puglia.
"We have decapitated the clan," police said after charging those arrested with a slew of crimes ranging from mafia conspiracy to drug trafficking.
The SCU is Italy's fourth mafia after the Calabrian 'Ndrangheta, Cosa Nostra in Sicily and the Camorra in Naples.

Pope Francis has condemned the mafia's "adoration of evil" at a mass in Calabria, the southern Italian base of the 'Ndrangheta crime syndicate.

The Pope said the gangsters were effectively "excommunicated" - or banished - in the eyes of the Church.

Earlier, the Pope visited the jailed father of a three-year-old boy who had been killed in an apparent mob hit over an unpaid drug debt.

The Pope has repeatedly spoken out against organised crime and corruption.

His latest condemnation, delivered before a crowd of tens of thousands, described the 'Ndrangheta as the "adoration of evil and contempt of the common good".

"Those who in their lives follow this path of evil, as mafiosi do, are not in communion with God," the Reuters news agency quoted him as saying. "They are excommunicated."

Meeting with prisoners

The 'Ndrangheta is a network of clans in the "toe" of Italy that dominates the country's cocaine trade.

It is one of the most powerful mafia organisations in Italy, along with the Sicilian Cosa Nostra and the Neapolitan Camorra.

Earlier on Saturday, the Pope visited a prison to meet the jailed relatives of "Coco" Campolongo, a three-year-old boy who was killed along with his grandfather in an execution-style shooting in Calabria.

"It must never again happen that a child suffers in this way," the Pope said.

The Pope also met hundreds of other inmates at Castrovillari prison, many of whom are serving time for mafia-related crimes.

The AFP news agency reports that many of the prisoners wept as the Pope greeted them.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-27956554

NYC cop killer maybe uncovered 100 years later in Palermo
Joe Petrosino, pioneering anti-Mafia officer, shot in 1909

(ANSA) - Palermo, June 23 - Italian police may have uncovered who was behind the infamous murder over 100 years ago of Italian-American New York City police officer Joe Petrosino, it emerged Monday after police arrested 95 suspected Mafia suspects in Palermo. Among those arrested included Domenico Palazzotto, who was caught bragging in police recordings that "the uncle of his father, Paolo Palazzotto, committed the murder of the first police officer killed in Palermo, Joe Petrosino, on behalf of Cascio Ferro" in 1909. Vito Cascio Ferro (1862-1943) was a boss of the Sicilian Cosa Nostra who also operated in the United States.
He was let off charges of assassinating Petrosino, a pioneering anti-Mafia policeman who had traveled to Palermo on a top-secret mission that was leaked to the American press. Petrosino continued on his mission despite the danger, believing the Mafia would not dare harm a member of law enforcement. While waiting to meet with someone who claimed to be an informant, Petrosino was ambushed and gunned down in Piazza Marina. Charges against the suspected assassin's heir and others arrested Monday ranged from extorsion and association in a criminal network, in the towns of Resuttana and San Lorenzo. Police code-named the operation Apocalypse.

↓http://www.ansa.it/english/news/2014/06 ... 64c72.html

pretty ballsy to bragg about a 105yrs old murder. surprised this wasn't a bigger story. mmd day is coming soon. I was thinking won of his own would take him out, or a cop pops him. I think Europe is sick of this shit.

54 arrests in 'Ndrangheta sweep across Italy
25 mn euros seized in Calabria, Lazio, Umbria

(ANSA) - Rome, June 24 - Italian police arrested 54 people in three Italian regions in a sweep against a top clan in the Calabrian 'Ndrangheta mafia Tuesday.
Police said the Mole' clan had a "significant arms trade with Eastern Europe as well as huge drugs trafficking with North Africa".
They said the clan reinvested the proceeds in "large swathes of the legal economy in Calabria, Lazio and Umbria".
Police seized assets worth some 25 million euros in the operation.

http://www.ansa.it/english/news/2014/06/...6875ad9b69.html

Seven arrests for mafia dealings in L'Aquila reconstruction
Business people accused of working with Camorra's Casalesi clan

(ANSA) - Rome, June 25 - Italian finance police on Wednesday arrested seven business people for alleged mafia dealings in post-earthquake reconstruction efforts on private residences in L'Aquila. The business people allegedly helped the Casalesi clan of the Neapolitan Camorra mafia infiltrate rebuilding following the devastating 2009 earthquake in the central region of Abruzzo that killed 309 people, destroyed much of regional capital and left tens of thousands homeless. Four of the suspects were being taken in jail and three put under house arrest.
The detainees are accused of extortion aggravated by mafia methods, illicit intermediation and exploitation.
Finance police are also conducting dozens of seizures related to the suspects in L'Aquila, Caserta and Rome. The arrests follow five arrests last week in a corruption probe related to the restoration of two important churches wrecked by the earthquake.
Former deputy commissioner for reconstruction, Luciano Marchetti, an official of the culture ministry, and his colleague Alessandra Mancinelli, were arrested together with three businessmen on suspicion of corruption, perjury, bid-rigging, fraudulently influencing public officials and issuing and using non-existent invoices.

http://www.ansa.it/english/news/2014/06/...fbd04f083a.html

Mafia ex-lifer killed in ambush near Catania
Wife slightly hurt in hit on car

(ANSA) - Catania, June 27 - A man who was recently released from a life sentence for Mafia crimes was shot dead in an ambush near Catania Friday.
Salvatore Leanza, 55, died instantly as a hail of bullets from helmet-clad motorbike assassins hit his car. His wife, who was driving, was slightly hurt in the hit, police said.

http://www.ansa.it/english/news/2014/06/...54184bd166.html

A lot of arrests in Sicily,in last few months.17 arrested in Zen,not to mention 90+ arrested this week.What do you guys think,how this will affect Sicilian Mafia in Palermo?

the people arrested will be replaced by others so i don't think it affects it so much

20 arrests in Turin 'Ndrangheta probe
'Huge control' over tenders in province

(ANSA) - Turin, July 1 - Italian police on Tuesday arrested 20 people in a probe into suspected infiltration by the Calabrian 'Ndrangheta mafia into the legal economy in and around Turin.
Police said the Calabrian Mob had managed to gain "huge control" over public-sector tenders in the province of Turin.
Some 15 million euros in 'Ndrangheta-linked assets were seized during the course of the operation.

Government must 'adopt' Calabria to crush Ndrangheta: Bindi
Anti-Mafia head urges long term investment campaign for region

(ANSA) - Imperia, July 7 - Italy's government needs "to adopt" Calabria with a constellation of long term investments to combat "deep penetration" of the southern region by the'Ndrangheta crime gang, Anti-Mafia commission president Rosy Bindi said Monday.
"The government must decide to adopt Calabria," Bindi said during a visit to the northern city of Imperia, "It must do so, reinforcing the police, providing enough magistrates but also through economic and social policy".
The relationship between the 'ndrangheta and Calabrian society is "a relationship of deep penetration and as such it needs very lengthy work in which the state must commit itself to the hilt," said Bindi, who recently visited Calabria.
"The state must decide to bring the 'ndrangheta to its knees in Calabria and wherever it spreads its structure," she said.

http://www.ansa.it/english/news/2014/07/...84305a476f.html

Raid targets Madrid-based Camorra clan
More than 30 arrests made so far in joint operation between Spanish and Italian authorities

Spanish and Italian law enforcement authorities have busted a mafia clan that ran money laundering and drug operations in both countries.

Around 30 arrests have been made so far in an ongoing raid against a branch of the Camorra mafia group. The operation involves the Spanish National Police and Civil Guard, the Spanish High Court and the Naples Anti-Mafia Attorney’s Office.

The ring was well established in Spain through real estate and hotel ventures, and served as a go-between for mafia bosses back in Naples. The Spanish unit bought millions of euros worth of drugs in Colombia, using Camorra money, and took care of transportation and storage.

The ring was firmly established in Spain through real estate and hotel ventures
The money, plus the return on investment, was transferred back to Naples, and the profit made by the Spanish operators was concealed through its business network. The network laundered millions of euros through hotel and real estate firms that faked losses. The investigation is supported by hundreds of hours of wiretaps and video footage capturing alleged meetings between mafia members.

Most Spanish arrests are taking place in the Madrid region. The ring was particularly active in towns northwest of the capital, such as Majadahonda and Villanueva de la Cañada, where it had investments worth more than €8 million and owned apparently ruinous Italian food restaurants.

http://elpais.com/elpais/2014/07/08/inenglish/1404813581_025658.html

Giuseppe Conti Taguali, 54, was shot dead in the town of Cesarò (Messina) in a mafia-style murder; he was the brother of Gianfranco Conti Taguali, reputed head of the Santapaola family in the town of Bronte (Catania)

A probe into modern day Cosa Nostra crime in Sicily stumbled upon evidence which appears to have solved a 100-year-old Mafia murder mystery. Police arrested 95 people on Monday (June 23) for extortion, drug trafficking and money laundering.

But, in the process, Italian officers may also have solved the century-old mob murder of a New York detective. Joe Petrosino, a New York police detective, was shot dead while on the island to collect evidence for a Mafia probe in 1909.

http://www.euronews.com/2014/06/23/italian-police-solve-century-old-mafia-killing/

360 mn euros seized from Mafia-linked businessman
'Articulated corporate plots', says Palermo's DIA

(ANSA) - Palermo, July 18 - Italy's Anti-Mafia Investigation Department (DIA) seized 360 million euros in real estate and financial assets from a Mafia-linked businessman on Friday in a small town near Palermo.
DIA director Arturo de Felice led agents to seize more than 360 million euros of assets including corporate holdings, private real estate and bank accounts from 47-year-old Stefano Parra, 47, in findings they said were "complex and articulated corporate plots, even through a third natural or legal party, by which Parra was able to control considerable corporate holdings and real estate".
Parra was previously arrested in May 2000 for Mafia-related crimes including the delivery of explosives used for illumination in caves where the bodies of Mafia victims were hidden.

Good read on La Stidda from this week's news. It's in Italian, though.


Stidda The fifth mafia: The story of the children who defied Cosa Nostra

http://www.grandangoloagrigento.it/stidd...-a-cosa-nostra/

I've been a fan of Giovani Ribelli since he played Phoebe's brother on "Friends."

And it's killing me to not use a smiley here, Lady.

That's Giovanni Ribisi, ya numbnut. Oh you are soooo not good at this.

It was a joke but I didn't want to use a smiley!!

lol lol (see what I did there?)

Antonino Zarcone started cooperating with police,he is a capo from Bagheria.I can post article but its in italian.

Cops bust intl coke-trafficking ring
After finance guardsman refuses 100,000-euro bribe

(ANSA) - Brindisi, March 31 - The finance guard on Tuesday arrested four men and are seeking three more on suspicion of forming an international drug trafficking ring that brought cocaine from Colombia, Ecuador and Peru.

The seven arrested in the southern Puglia and Calabria regions face charges of criminal association with intent to acquire, import, transport, possess, distribute and sell drugs.

Police have detained Francesco and Vittorio Pezzuto, aged 71 and 48, from the town of Squinzano in Puglia, as well as Giuseppe Novello, 34, and Stefano Condina, 59, from Calabria.

Squinzano-based brothers Antonio and Patrizio Pellegrino and one Colombian national have escaped arrest and are being sought by police.

The investigation kicked off in 2013 when the alleged traffickers offered a finance guard who was posted to Brindisi port 100,000 euros to look the other way while the drugs were moved in.

He reported the attempted bribery instead.

The organization allegedly brought shipments of 70-100 kilos of cocaine - worth about four million euros each - into Genoa and Gioia Tauro ports disguised in canned asparagus and banana shipments.

http://www.ansa.it/english/news/2015/03 ... 81a4a.html

9 mafia-related murders in italy in the last two weeks

cosa nostra: franco mazzè,46, member of the zen family killed in palermo, paolo forestieri,25, killed near siracusa, salvatore cutrone,66, and francesco torrisi,27 killed near catania

ndrangheta: fiore gentile,54, member of the arena family killed near crotone and pietro procopio,60, killed near catanzaro

camorra: antonio pastella,38, member of the amato family and ciro d'ambrosio,42, both killed in naples

sacra corona unita: severino palumbo killed near foggia

Cellino ex-mayor, executive councillors arrested - update 2
Town council dissolved in April 2014 for mafia infiltration

(ANSA) - Cellino San Marco, April 10 - Police on Friday arrested 14 people relation to a corruption probe, including the former mayor of the Puglia town of Cellino San Marco, near Brindisi, and several ex-members of the council executive. The municipality was put in the hands of commissioners appointed by central government for mafia infiltration in April 2014. The former mayor, criminal lawyer and Forza Italia member Francesco Cascione, has been taken to jail.
Those arrested are suspected of crimes ranging from criminal association to embezzlement. Four entrepreneurs from the provinces of Brindisi, Bari and Lecce were also among the people arrested along with a person considered close to Puglia's Sacra Corona Unita mafia syndicate. Investigators suspected that a criminal organisation headed by Cascione manipulated public contracts and staff selection procedures, including one for municipal police officers, in exchange for bribes.

@m2w: Here is the video of franco mazzè shot dead: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-5dWLrNSlE

Police arrested the fugitive Sebastiano 'Nuccio' Mazzei, acting boss of the Mazzei crime family, led by his father Santo Mazzei.

the gangster vincenzo pace,47, was shot dead in naples

It is a mistake,real target was boss Emanuele Cito he is only injured.

Naples clan boss Lucio Marrone arrested in Spain
Was on list of Italy's 100 most dangerous fugitives

(ANSA) - Naples, April 13 - Police from Naples working together with Spain's Guardia Civil arrested fugitive Camorra boss Lucio Morrone, 53, in Spain on Monday.
Morrone, who was on Italy's list of the 100 most dangerous fugitives, was wanted for a 2010 drug conviction of more than four years in prison, and for a 2013 conviction for drug trafficking carrying a sentence of 20 years in prison.
Marrone is considered the head of the "Teste Matte" (Crazy Heads) criminal organization, which investigators say derives from the Mariano clan of the Camorra and is allegedly in charge of illicit operations in Naples' Spagnoli area in the historic centre.
Italian police worked with Spanish authorities to trace Marrone to Benalmadena, a town on Spain's southwest coast between the cities of Malaga and Marbella. They arrested him in a post office there as he was picking up a money transfer from Naples.
Marrone allegedly provided false documents in an attempt to escape arrest, but then surrendered when he heard the word "carabinieri", Italy's military police.
Undersecretary of Defense Gioacchino Alfano praised Naples' carabinieri on the operation.
"Once again, legality and justice have prevailed over deceit and criminality," Alfano said.
"For this umpteenth success I congratulate the Naples police and investigative teams, who have shown that they never give up," he said.

the latest camorra-related hits in the latest days left dead rodolfo zinco, 46
ciro cortese, 37
armando faucitano,45
aldo pezone, 41
mario mazzanti, 29

How Italy’s Government Enables the Mafia

Italy flag on gun
MARCH 14, 2015 David Howden Emilio Parodi

Beyond nice wines, warm beaches, and sultry women, Italy is well-known for something less savory — the mafia. It is interesting to understand how such a powerful “machine” managed to enter society in such a strong and meaningful way, but more importantly to grasp its role alongside the central government of Italy. On the one hand, it is easy to state that the mafia and the corrupt economic system it functions within are wrong and unproductive for the country. On the other hand its presence may be of help to a country’s economy, something that is especially true in the case of Italy.

In order to understand how corruption infiltrated the highest echelons of Italian society, it is essential to understand the progression of Italy throughout the twentieth century, both politically and economically.

The growing strength of crime organizations such as the “Sicilian mafia,” the “Camorra” (located in the Naples region), and the “Ndrangheta” (from the region of Calabria) have been noted for their relations with the construction industry, typically through a direct channel with the Italian government. These “associations” have grown enormously over the past fifty years creating empires that are clearly visible throughout the major sectors of the economy.

The Italian State: A Reliable Partner for the Mafia

This growth was fueled by the political and economic model present in Italy during the second half of the twentieth century following the Second World War. One major political party (Democrazia Cristiana) ruled the country for almost forty years. The reason for this very partisan approach to politics was the opposition to a strong and growing Communist Party (the largest in Western Europe during the 70s and 80s) that was seen as a major threat as most people feared they were going to be taken over by a Soviet-style central government. This feeling was especially endemic during the height of the Cold War. This period of Italian politics was dominated by one ruling political party and fostered engrained political-business connections that fueled the growth of organized crime.

This latter point in particular was less costly as belligerents were assured that the necessary authorities that needed to be “paid off” to look the other way would remain the same for an extended period. Coupled with a desire to supply goods that were either rationed after the war or taxed heavily (such as cigarettes), the mafia was an outgrowth of the desires of consumers coupled with weak governance structures. The resultant corruption restructured Italy’s economy almost completely.

As was the case during the nineteenth century, these corrupt associations were found in the southern regions of Italy. With the strengthening of this direct channel with the central government the mafia´s rapid growth moved north to more industrialized and much more strongly developed areas of Italy. What was once a contained problem has now entered all major industrial sectors by forming an intricate web between business and politics. (Dwight Eisenhower´s Italian counterpart would likely have warned of this “industrial-political” complex.) Organized crime has spread like a form of cancer that has become untreatable and has progressed to the stage where its removal would likely imperil the already shaky economy. In short, even if the surgery were a complete success, the patient would likely die.

The fact that corruption has been deeply rooted within Italy’s political, social and economic structures makes it even more challenging to perform its obligations within the European Union. It will be very challenging for Italy to exit the recession it is facing with such a corrupt and unhealthy system it possesses. Public debt is currently over 130 percent of Italian GDP. One obligation to remain a part of the Eurozone is to keep public debt under 60 percent of GDP, and the annual public deficit under 3 percent of GDP. Italy is nowhere near fulfilling either of these criteria (though, in its defense, few European countries are). One reason for the difficulty in getting public finances in order is the engrained political-economic order. This is a similar problem to America´s own difficulties in making necessary budget cuts to its own warfare-welfare economy. Too many entrenched interests make balancing the budget all but impossible.

In Italy the problem is accentuated because the relevant parties are inside the government itself. In America, public finances are a shambles mostly because voters don´t want to give up entitlements, or hold politicians accountable for boondoggles spiraling out of control (e.g., the War on Terror, the War on Drugs, etc.). In Italy it is the same politicians drafting the budget who directly use these funds to the benefit of themselves and the people who surround them.

Italy’s economic instability is not only destroying its economy from the inside, but also from the outside. Investors coming from abroad (e.g., other Europeans, Americans, Arabs, Chinese, etc.) do not want to cope with or run afoul of such a corrupt system. This creates instability that is quite visible because there is no real possibility of growth within the country due to government mismanagement and a lack of foreign investment. Italy only managed to attract 1.4 percent of its GDP in foreign direct investment last year, far less than the European average of 3.3 percent.

What Can Be Done?

The Lega Nord party recently proposed that the more productive and prosperous northern regions should separate from the poorer and more stagnant southern regions. The southern regions are where the mafias are most heavily concentrated, however, corruption is country wide. Exiting the euro (another popular proposal) would be rather difficult due to the complexity of the problem, though more to the point, it would be damaging to the country even if successful.

The fact of the matter is that Italy needs the help of Europe. One of the only forces keeping further widespread corruption in check is that it is somewhat “regulated” by a larger system: the European Union. The Stability and Growth Pact that should keep government finances better balanced does create pressures on the Italian government to conform. Throughout the 1970s and ´80s, this unwholesome business-political system had managed to turn Italy into the most heavily indebted country in Europe. External pressure from the EU forced Italian public finances on a more sustainable trajectory. (Between the advent of the euro and the dawn of the financial crisis, Italian government debt to GDP had fallen by a fifth; annual inflation which averaged more than 10 percent during the 1970s and ´80s has been below 3 percent since 2000.)

Aiding this process was the birth of the common currency in 2002. Unable to print new lire to satisfy its spendthrift ways, the Italian government (much like the other inflationary periphery countries) was forced to be held accountable by its tax payers. The ECB may not have shown the most restraint over the past six years, but compared to the central banks of Southern Europe it replaced, it has been a veritable enforcer of a gold standard.

Italy is between a rock and a hard place. The mafia-dominated corruption that entangles the country is so deeply rooted that it is all but impossible to reform (or preferably eliminate). Such reform could today only come about by eliminating the central government. The system that exists today was the result of unchecked political power for an extended period of forty years. (Strangely, this outcome was in response to the fear of unchecked political power in the form of communism.) If this undesirable system cannot be changed, Italians will have to change the one thing they can — where they live. Young Italians, especially skilled and ambitious Italians, have been leaving their beloved country in droves, a trend magnified since the recession began. Leaving their homeland may be a small price to pay to ensure that the failing system in place today dies off so that a better Italy can rise from its ashes.

http://mises.org/library/how-italy%E2%8 ... bles-mafia?

Police seized 27 million euros in 5 regions (Sicily, Lazio, Lombardia, Veneto and Friuli) to the Mazzei crime family and arrested Francesco Ivano Cerbo, a front-man of the clan. Among the things seized construction companies, discos and supermarkets.


More than 40 arrests in a police op against the Iannazzo clan of Lamezia Terme. Among them the boss Vincenzo Iannazzo and his brothers. With them also the killers of the organization and some entrepreneurs including Francesco Perri, owner of the "Two Seas", one of the biggest shopping centers of Calabria.

Anti-Camorra raid nabs 64 suspects
Suspected of drugs, extortion, using 'kids' to do dirty work

(ANSA) - Naples, June 9 - State Police arrested 64 people Tuesday on suspicion of belonging to Camorra mafia clans operating in the Forcella area of Naples.
The suspects are believed to belong to the Amirante, Brunetto, Giuliano and Sibillo clans. They are accused of mafia association, murder, attempted murder, drug trafficking, possession of illegal weapons, and extortion.
A total of 77 people have been placed under investigation in the probe into a crime syndicate that emerged out of the ashes of the historic Giuliano clan, which took over illicit activities in various parts of the Naples historic city center.
Investigators say the probe has shed light on a series of ambushes motivated by turf wars between rival clans.
Wiretaps also revealed the syndicate used very young affiliates to do their dirty work - whom they called "the kids".
The suspects were arrested on various charges including mafia association, homicide, attempted murder, drug trafficking and illegal weapons possession. Prosecutors are also looking into possible links between the Forcella clans and the 1985 assassination of crusading anti-mafia investigative reporter Giancarlo Siani.
A mobster named Angelo Nuvoletta died in 2013 at the age of 71 while serving a life sentence for ordering the hit on Siani.
Siani had written an article in the Naples newspaper Il Mattino revealing Nuvoletta's betrayal of an another Camorra boss, Valentino Gionta, an ally whom Nuvoletta had had arrested in order to placate an adversary during a bloody, violent rash of reprisals.
Nuvoletta is believed to have ordered Siani's murder to save face, and cover up the fact that he had broken a mafia honor code.
Nuvoletta was arrested in May 2001 after 17 years in hiding.

Cops bust Palermo drug ring
Ten nabbed for growing, possession, distribution

(ANSA) - Palermo, June 9 - State Police on Tuesday arrested 10 people on charges of growing, producing and possessing with intent to deal marijuana, hashish and cocaine.
"The investigation allowed us to dismantle an entire criminal organization, some of whose components are connected with the Cosa Nostra (Sicilian mafia)," police said.
"We were able to seize significant amounts of drugs".

Smuggling tonnes of cocaine through an Italian port
Mobsters with the powerful 'Ndrangheta syndicate develop creative new ways to sneak 'blow' past overwhelmed police.

Gioia Tauro, Italy - In Calabria, one of Italy's poorest regions, the Gioia Tauro port has become known for the massive quantities of cocaine transported by organised crime groups.
"The port was born with an original sin," said Roberto Di Palma, an Italian magistrate and mob researcher, during a conversation with Al Jazeera at his Reggio Calabria office.
The "original sin" Di Palma refers to is the 'Ndrangheta, Europe's most powerful crime syndicate, an organisation that is more dangerous and influential than the Mafia, its better-known Sicilian cousin.
The coastal road leading to the Gioia Tauro port runs past a number of abandoned warehouses and un-farmed plots of land. In Calabria - home to powerful 'Ndrangheta families with global influence - the illegal activities of organised crime dwarf the revenues of the legal economy.

Roberto Di Palma, magistrate on organised crime, in his Reggio Calabria office [Antonella Corigliano/Al Jazeera]
The Gioia Tauro port is one of Europe's largest when it comes to transhipment, the term the shipping industry uses to describe ports used primarily as intermediate destinations.
Every year 3.6 million containers arrive at the Gioia Tauro port, a number that makes it extremely difficult for the companies operating there, as well as the team of 25 policemen supervising it, to control the port's inflows and outflows.
"How can we check everything?" a nearly desperate company manager told Al Jazeera on condition of anonymity.
"It's nearly impossible. If we checked every cargo, no ship would stop and the port would die."
Di Palma said "when it comes to drug trafficking, it is always hard to have reliable numbers. What we can say with certainty is that in terms of numbers of drug requisitions by port authorities, Gioia Tauro tops Europe".
90 percent purity
When estimating cocaine volumes, authorities involved in fighting narcotrafficking use what is known as the one-to-10 rule of thumb.
According to this rule, for every police seizure there are about nine drug shipments that freely transit through the port.
According to data published by the DIA, the Italian law enforcement agency dealing with organised crime, between 2011 and 2014 total seizures amounted to 5.5 metric tonnes, implying that almost 50 tonnes of cocaine probably transited through the port over that time period.
Vincenzo Caruso, who is in charge of port security and a lieutenant colonel with the Guardia di Finanza, a police force that deals with financial crimes, said in a phone interview with Al Jazeera that "the cocaine arriving in Gioia Tauro is usually about 90 percent pure, meaning that it can be cut up to four times before being placed on the market".
Given that the average street price of cocaine in Western Europe is somewhere between 60-70 euros ($67-79) a gram, the estimated market value of the cocaine that transited through Gioia Tauro between 2011 and 2014 is somewhere between 30bn-35 billion euros ($34bn-39bn).
Italian police estimate the 'Ndrangheta controls between 60-80 percent of Europe's cocaine market. Narcotrafficking, coupled with other activities including real estate, the illegal arms trade, and hazardous waste management, yield the group an annual revenue of roughly 56 billion euros ($63bn), more than the combined annual revenue of Deutsche Bank and McDonald's.


Data from the UNODC, the UN agency monitoring drug trafficking and consumption, show the volume of seizures have declined. However, Di Palma said these numbers should be taken with caution, since the 'Ndrangheta has recently refined its smuggling techniques, for a time duping port authorities.
Refining techniques

The 'Ndrangheta's new smuggling technique is called "rip-off" and is at the centre of a new book Oro Bianco (White Gold), authored by Nicola Gratteri and Antonio Nicaso, the world's top researchers on the Calabria-based crime syndicate.
A few years ago, cocaine smuggling was mainly carried out by establishing fake cargo companies under the control of the 'Ndrangheta.

But now the group relies on men whom it has placed in key ports along cocaine trafficking routes, a technique it first experimented with in Gioia Tauro, a port where it was able to take more risks thanks to the strong influence it exercises in the region.

The strategy involves a 'Ndrangheta member strategically placed at a port who opens up a container bound for Gioia Tauro, and hides cocaine parcels inside it. His counterpart in Gioia Tauro is then informed of the container's number. When it arrives at the Italian port, the crime syndicate rushes to empty it before customs or police are able to check it.
"It's nearly impossible for authorities to find out what is going on," a port worker in Gioia Tauro told Al Jazeera on condition of anonymity.

"There are just too many containers coming and going, and the 'Ndrangheta's influence is strong despite the work of the authorities."

The recent economic crisis also plays a role. A number of companies operating in Gioia Tauro were hit heavily and at risk of going bankrupt. The 'Ndrangheta loaned money to companies in crisis, allowing them to take them over and operate in the port without anyone noticing.
The new smuggling technique has two benefits, Nicaso and Gratteri told Al Jazeera.

It reduces costs because the criminal organisation no longer has to open up fictitious cargo companies. It also diminishes risk, because cocaine is smuggled in smaller quantities - up to 200kg per shipment. If seized, the loss is not a major setback.

Impossible to halt
This makes it harder for authorities to stop the inflow.
Nevertheless, the Gioa Tauro Guardia di Finanza has been quick to find ways to fight the "rip-off" technique.
Caruso and his men were the first to take notice. As the Guardia di Finanza caught on, it started checking the codes on the cargo container locks to see whether they were tampered with. If the code was different, the cargo probably contained a drug parcel.
This strategy has now been imitated across Europe by other national authorities fighting narcotrafficking.

As authorities discovered more and more containers that had been tampered with, the 'Ndrangheta responded by forging locks with the same numerical code as the original in order to bypass police checks.
This made it once again hard, if not impossible, for Gioia Tauro's authorities to find drug parcels. However, Caruso said "new prevention techniques are being developed, and we are certain we'll soon have positive results".
Di Palma, Gratteri, Nicaso, and Caruso complain that the 'Ndrangheta and its cocaine smuggling are often falsely considered to be a local or national problem; the 'Ndrangheta is an organised crime network that operates on an international scale.

Authorities in Gioia Tauro can put up a fight, they say, but until there is a coordinated effort by international police, it may be nearly impossible to bring to a halt an industry worth billions.

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/feature...0065547781.html

police dismantled a drug ring led by the ndrangheta in italy and france and arrested 17 members of the gang. the leaders of the drug ring are the Magnoli brothers who live in vallauris (france)

30 members of the mazzei crime family arrested in catania (sicily) charged with drug trafficking and extortions

'Ndrangheta-Colombia cocaine ring busted
Drugs transported to Spain on sailing yachts

(ANSA) - Reggio Calabria, June 17 - Italian finance police on Wednesday started carrying out 34 arrest warrants against 34 people suspected of being members of Calabria's 'Ndrangheta mafia syndicate and involved in drugs trafficking from Colombia, ANSA sources said. Suspects were also arrested in Spain.
American investigators and Spain's Guardia Civil paramilitary police force cooperated in the probe. The authorities confiscated around four tonnes of cocaine during the probe. The drugs were transported from Colombia to Spain via sailing yachts, sources said.

Police bust major 'Ndrangheta cocaine ring
'Smuggled a ton of pure coke into Italy in five months'

(ANSA) - Turin, June 18 - Finance police on Thursday busted what investigators say is a major 'Ndrangheta mafia drug ring that smuggled a ton of pure cocaine into Italy in just five months.
Police arrested eight suspects and seized 415 kilos of uncut cocaine, worth about 35 million euros.
Seven people were arrested in Italy and one in Portugal as authorities seek another seven suspects, three of them Brazilian.
Police also seized assets worth eight million euros, sources said.
Investigators say the drug rink trafficked cocaine from Brazil and Peru via Portugal and Spain into Italy, where it supplied 'Ndrangheta clans in Calabria, Lombardy and Piedmont.

Mafia in Australia: Major drug trafficking group linked to senior politicians, investigation reveals

Links between the Calabrian Mafia and senior Australian politicians have been uncovered in a joint investigation by Four Corners and Fairfax newspapers.

The year-long investigation found the Calabrian Mafia, known as 'Ndrangheta, had used a number of well-known party donors to put a "legitimate public face" on its activities.

The 'Ndrangheta is one of the world's most powerful criminal groups and is thought to be one of the major players in the world of international drug trafficking.

In Australia it operates using threats and violence in both legitimate businesses, such as fruit and vegetables, and illegitimate businesses, such as drugs.

The investigation has revealed a series of contacts between known and suspected criminals and senior politicians.

On one occasion, a man with deep mafia associations met then prime minister John Howard and other top Liberal Party figures at a fundraising event. It is not suggested that Mr Howard knew of the connection.

The investigation has also revealed donors have lobbied on behalf of a mafia figure to a host of Liberal and Labor MPs over issues related to their businesses.

Son of alleged mafia boss did work experience at embassy

Four Corners can reveal the son of another alleged mafia boss did work experience at the Australian embassy in Rome while former Liberal minister Amanda Vanstone was ambassador.

Prior to his placement, Italian authorities were sharing sensitive information about the alleged mafia boss through the embassy.

Amanda Vanstone
PHOTO: Ms Vanstone is at the centre of two cases uncovered during the investigation. (AAP: Lukas Coch)
While there is no direct evidence the embassy placement — which involved the man's son working in a clerical role — led to any actual security breaches, security agencies have described it as a major lapse.

Ms Vanstone, who is now retired from politics, is also at the centre of another episode uncovered during the investigation.

When she was immigration minister in the Howard government, she granted a visa for a crime boss who was later jailed for drug trafficking and implicated in a murder plot.

The man, who is the brother of a well-known Melbourne businessman, has an extensive criminal history in Italy.

He was set to be deported, but his family used its money and influence to conduct a lobbying campaign with some of the country's most powerful Liberal politicians — including Ms Vanstone.

Eventually in 2005, the man was granted a visa to stay in Australia on humanitarian grounds.

There is no suggestion Ms Vanstone acted improperly in either case, though confidential police assessments suggest it indicates her South Australian Senate office had likely been infiltrated by mafia figures.

Just a couple of years later, the man was implicated in one of Australia's largest ever drug busts.

'Lack of checks' in donations system leading to 'loopholes'

Known as "The Honoured Society" in Australia and reportedly involved in the Victoria Market murders in 1963.
The report also details how "loopholes" in the donations system, and the long-running failure to reform it, continue to expose Australian politicians to potential corruption.

Through Freedom of Information laws, the investigation obtained a 2009 AFP report that described a "lack of checks and oversight" in the Australian political donations system as "significant" failings.

"As it stands, political parties and candidates can receive significant support and financial contributions through avenues not covered by the statutory disclosure regime," the AFP report said.

"Loopholes" in the oversight system mean it is "difficult to identify any bribery in the form of political donations".

The report states the Australian Electoral Commission has attempted to address this on many occasions, but that many amendments have not been passed by the Federal Parliament.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-06-29/it...ticians/6579076

Ecomafia crimes up 7 bn to 22 bn euros

(ANSA) - Rome, June 30 - The amount of crimes against the Italian environment committed by organised crime groups, or Ecomafia offences, grew seven billion euros last year to 22 billion euros, according to the latest report on the phenomenon from green group Legambiente.

Last year there were 29,293 ecocrimes, or 80 a day, the report said, with a 26% rise in the waste sector and a 4.3% gain in the cement sector, "mainly fuelled by corruption". Puglia is the top region per number of crimes while Lazio is top in central Italy and Lombardy leads the way for corruption-linked ecocrimes, said the report.

More than half the crimes, 14,736, took place in the four regions where Italy's mafias are based: Puglia, Sicily, Campania and Calabria.

Crimes affecting the agri-food sector amounted to 7,985, for a value of 4.3 billion euros, and the illicit animal racket notched up 7,846 crimes.

http://www.ansa.it/english/news/2015/06 ... 4750e.html

Ten arrested in 'Ndrangheta San Ferdinando operation
Investigations confirm mafia infiltration of local town council

(ANSA) - Reggio Calabria, July 2 - Ten people have been arrested on suspicion of mafia crimes as part of investigations into Calabria's 'Ndrangheta crime syndicate, sources said Thursday.
The operation, carried out on Wednesday night, targeted the Bellocco-Cimato and Pesce-Pantano clans operating in San Ferdinando on the Gioia Tauro plain.
It was the continuation of a 2013 probe that shed light on their activities in the area.
The 10 suspects were arrested on mafia, weapons and drugs-related charges and for damage.
They included former local councillor Giovanni Pantano, who was arrested within the context of the 2013 probe and subsequently released. Investigations also confirmed the infiltration by the local 'Ndrangheta in the San Ferdinando municipality where mayor Domenico Madafferi and his deputy Santo Cieli were arrested last October

http://www.ansa.it/english/news/2015/07 ... cd220.html

Casalesi mob,ex PD MP bilked 23 mln in methane scam
Pact between mobsters and cooperative 'dated to 2000'

(ANSA) - Naples, July 3 - The CPL Concordia cooperative paid the Casalesi clan of the Camorra more than 23 million euros in bribes from public funds obtained for methane contracts in the province of Caserta, ANSA sources said Friday.
The extent of the Naples' crime gang's lucrative takings in the methane business emerged as Carabinieri arrested six people and disclosed that former parliamentarian Lorenzo Diana is under investigation in the probe of the racket.
Diana, a former senator for Premier Matteo Renzi's centre-left Democratic Party (PD), acted as a "facilitator" for relations between CPL and the vicious Casalesi clan in Caserta province prosecutors said. Naples Prosecutor Giuseppe Borrelli said Diana had " a role of absolute importance".
The agreement between CPL senior managers and the mobsters dated to as far abck as 2000 and was mediated also by Antonio Piccolo, a businessman closely linked to underworld circles led by the Camorra kingpin Michele Zagaria, the sources said.
Antonio Iovine, a senior member of the Casalesi clan, made the arrests possible by turning state's evidence.
CPL took over the concession for providing methane to seven administrative districts after the firm originally holding the concession, Consorzio Eurogas, was pushed out and forced to hand over the concession for free following Camorra intimidation, said the sources.
Clan affiliates were given jobs at the cooperative and CPL did not bill Camorra boss Michele Zagaria and his family for gas consumption worth 47,000 euros, said the sources.

http://www.ansa.it/english/news/2015/07/...89aadc6a3b.html

Ten arrested for 'exporting' Calabrian mafia to Germany

Italian and German police arrested 10 suspects overnight who are accused of associating with the 'Ndrangheta and 'exporting' clans from the Calabria-based mafia organisation.

The 'Rheinbruecke' operation followed the recent 'Helvetia' operation that uncovered the export of 'Ndrangheta clans to Switzerland which reported directly to the mafia's Calabrian leadership, police said.

Junior defence minister Gioacchino Alfano praised Italian and German police for Tuesday's "brilliant" operation.

The 'Ndrangheta, Italy's wealthiest mafia, emerged in the mid-1970s and runs a drugs and extortion business worth billions of euros.

It has links to Columbian drugs cartels and is one of the world's most powerful criminal groups.

The organisation operates mainly in Italy and Europe but extends its influence and networks from Italy across the world.

A report by Italy's anti-mafia directorate in 2011 described the 'Ndrangheta as having "virtually unlimited resources".

http://www.adnkronos.com/aki-en/security...PkVRRrNIpK.html

Cops nab 40 mafia suspects in Bari
Clan 'controlled extortion racket, drug trade'

(ANSA) - Bari, July 7 - Carabinieri police on Tuesday arrested 40 alleged affiliates of the powerful Strisciuglio mafia clan operating in and around the southern city of Bari.

The sweep came after a three-year investigation that uncovered what prosecutors said is a heavily armed criminal organization affiliated with the Neapolitan Camorra mafia, with a network of affiliates both within and outside prison walls.

The clan controlled the drug trade, met publicly in a piazza to exchange information and discuss strategy, extorted construction businesses, and infiltrated ultrà supporters of the Bari soccer team.

Those arrested include clan boss Domenico Strisciuglio, Sigismondo Strisciuglio, and his wife Eugenia Prudente. One suspect who turned State's witness has been placed under house arrest in a protected location.

http://www.ansa.it/english/news/2015/07 ... 52dcd.html

44 arrested in 'Ndrangheta drugs bust
International operation breaks up cocaine trafficking ring

(ANSA) - Rome, July 9 - Police on Thursday bust an international drugs ring linked to Calabria's powerful 'Ndrangheta mafia, arresting 44 suspects in Italy and abroad.
The organisation allegedly trafficked cocaine from South America to markets in north Italy and Europe. Over 600 kg of cocaine were seized in the operation, which also involved authorities in Colombia and Spain. The suspects included a group of Albanians based in Fiano Romano north of Rome, who allegedly took receipt of one of the largest batches of drugs handled by the criminal organisation. The cocaine originated in Venezuela, Colombia and Chile, prosecutors said. The traffic was managed by the 'Ndrangheta's Mancuso clan in partnership with other clans operating along Calabria's Ionian coast and the Albanian and Colombian organisations. 'Ndrangheta has in recent years replaced Sicily's Cosa Nostra as Italy's most powerful mafia because of its dominance of the international cocaine trade.

http://www.ansa.it/english/news/2015/07/...2a9fd42435.html

Ex-mayor among 13 arrested for Camorra ties
Accused of corruption in public contracts


(ANSA) - Naples, July 14 - Carabinieri military police on Tuesday arrested 13 suspected members and supporters of the Zagaria faction of the powerful Casalesi clan of the Neapolitan Camorra mafia.
Among those arrested are former Caserta mayor Pio Del Gaudio from Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia (FI) party and two ex-members of the Campania regional council.
They were named as Tommaso Barbato, formerly of the Christian Democratic UDEUR party, and Angelo Polverino, from Berlusconi's now-defunct People of Freedom (PdL) party.
Also in handcuffs was real estate builder Giuseppe Fontana, who allegedly paid Polverino 30,000 euros in 2010 and Del Gaudio 20,000 euros in 2011 in off-the-books financing for their successful election campaigns.
Investigators say Fontana was promised public contracts in return.
The suspects face charges of mafia association, corruption, falsifying property deeds, tampering with public contracts, and illegal party financing.
Police also seized bank accounts worth 11 million euros.
The arrests came as part of a probe into corruption in Campania region water utilities and illicit financing of local politicians.

http://www.ansa.it/english/news/2015/07/...c65e3e6bbe.html

FI MP Sarro quits Anti-Mafia Commission
Named in investigation into alleged mob infiltration of govt

(ANSA) - Rome, July 15 - Carlo Sarro, a Forza Italia MP named in a Mob investigation, has quit the Anti-Mafia Commission, its chair Rosy Bindi said Wednesday.
Sarro submitted a letter of resignation, she said.
Sarro, a Lower House MP representing ex-premier Silvio Berlusconi's FI, was earlier named in the probe into alleged Camorra infiltration of public administration.
On Tuesday, Naples anti-mafia prosecutors sent the Lower House a formal request that Sarro, 56, be put under house arrest, ANSA sources said.
If parliament voted to lift his immunity, Sarro could face charges of involvement in rigging a contract competition.
Sarro is under investigation along with businessmen Lorenzo Piccolo and Antonio Fontana over a 31.7-million-euro contract for sewer and water networks of the Gori Spa company, sources said.
Investigators believe that the contract competition was rigged to ensure that the work went to companies linked to Michele Zagaria, the head of a notorious Camorra clan called the Casalesis.

http://www.ansa.it/english/news/2015/07/...e4b7e9923e.html


Camorra: 10 arrests of alleged drug pusher gang near Naples
Gang protected by 'look-out' system

(ANSA) - Naples, July 15 - Ten people believed to be part of the Italian Camorra were arrested on suspicion of drug trafficking Wednesday, ANSA has learned.
The group, which was arrested in Casavatore, near Naples, allegedly peddled an estimated 150,000 euros worth of drugs, including marijuana and hashish, every month.
Investigators from the Italian Carabinieri in Casoria, who worked together with the Antimafia Investigative Agency in Naples, seized 20kg of marijuana and arrested 24 alleged drug pushers - including some minors - during investigations. They also found that a gang of 10 people had formed a group dedicated to the peddling of drugs within the busy district of Casavatore.
The illegal activity was being "protected" by a lookout system among the pushers which allowed them to "watch over" key areas and develop places in which they could hide.
The arrest warrant for criminal conspiracy to commit drug trafficking was issued by the investigating judge in Napoli. The group are believed to be part of the 'Ferone' branch of the Camorra, the feared crime organisation that originated in Naples. Ernesto Ferone is one of the bosses in the mafia group.

http://www.ansa.it/english/news/2015/07/...241a35586e.html

Police arrest nine and seize 330 mn in 'Ndrangheta bust
Aemilia operation focuses on Emilia-Romagna branch of mafia

(ANSA) - Bologna, July 16 - Police on Thursday arrested nine more people as part of the ongoing Aemilia operation probing the presence of the Calabrian 'Ndrangheta mafia in the Emilia-Romagna region.
Assets, commercial property and businesses worth a total of 330 million euros were also seized as part of Thursday's bust.
Those arrested are accused of fraudulent money transfers for mafia activities.
In January, the operation saw 117 arrests connected to Nicolino Grande Aracri, 'Ndrangheta boss of the Grande Aracri clan, who was already in prison at the time and was also among the nine for whom arrest warrants were executed on Thursday.
Of the remaining eight arrested, Alfonso Diletto, Michele Bolognino and Giovanni Vecchi were sent to jail, while Domenico Bolognino, Jessica Diletto, Francesco Spagnolo, Patrizia Patricelli and Ibrahim Ahmed Abdelgawad were placed on house arrest.
Over 300 carabinieri police from the regions of Emilia-Romagna, Lombardy, Calabria and Lazio, as well as helicopters and dog units, were involved in Thursday's police raid.
The 'Ndrangheta has in recent years replaced Sicily's Cosa Nostra as Italy's most powerful mafia because of its dominance of the international cocaine trade.

http://www.ansa.it/english/news/2015/07/...10cb4ab348.html

20 Camorra arrests in 'huge' haulage op
100 mn assets seized

(ANSA) - Naples, July 20 - Italian police on Monday arrested 20 people and seized 100 million euros in assets in a probe into the Neapolitan Camorra mafia's bid to "monopolise" a "huge" chunk of the Italian road haulage market.
Investigators said the powerful Mallardo clan based in Giugliano just outside Naples controlled "swathes" of the southern and central Italian trucking market.
The arrests were made in Naples, Salerno, Palermo, Caltanissetta, Catania and Bologna. Coldiretti, a farmers' group, said fruit and vegetable prices were inflated by as much as 300% because of the mafia's control of transport to market.

http://www.ansa.it/english/news/2015/07/...5a6927b10b.html

Ex Campania regional tourism assessor in Camorra probe
Politician was former UDC regional coordinator

(ANSA) - Caserta, July 20 - A former regional councillor for tourism in the government of Campania, Pasquale Sommese, has been placed under investigation on suspicion of links to Camorra crime gangs as part of a wider probe of the mob, police sources said Monday.

Sommese was until April the regional coordinator for the Union of the Democratic Centre (UDC) party, set up by former members of the old Mafia-plagued Christian Democrat party.

He was placed under investigation by the Naples Anti-mafia police department as part of an inquiry into links between the underworld and politicians in the Caserta area near Naples which climaxed with the arrest of 11 businessmen, former mayors and former regional councillors last week.

Sommese and 17 other people had their homes searched as part of the inquiry.

http://www.ansa.it/english/news/2015/07 ... 4319e.html

Police arrest four in antiquities trafficking bust
'Ndrangheta boss Pantaleone Mancuso, 68, nabbed in probe

(ANSA) - Catanzaro, July 20 - Police on Monday arrested four suspected members of an antiquities trafficking ring, including alleged boss Pantaleone Mancuso, 68, of the eponymous 'Ndrangheta mafia clan.
The other three suspects were named as Riace bronzes expert Giuseppe Braghò, 68, Francesco Staropoli, 56, and Giuseppe Tavella, 54.
Police also searched the home of alleged international antiquities trafficker Luigi Fabiano, 47, a Swiss citizen of Italian origin who lives in Thun, where they seized various archeological artifacts and shipped them back to Calabria.
Judges issued restraining orders preventing Fabiano and two others from entering or staying in Vibo Valentia, where the alleged trafficking ring had its operational headquarters in a garage near the city's courthouse.
Investigators say the trafficking ring dug a 40-metre-long tunnel from the garage to the archeological site of the ancient city of Hipponion, where it has been looting objects for years and sending them to Switzerland for international sale online.
The artifacts included amphoras, pottery artifacts, column capitals and entire statues.

http://www.ansa.it/english/news/2015/07/...931ee76341.html

Certain mafia crimes are utterly detestable. Here, we see the Mancuso clan of Vibo Valentia, which is roughly where my family is from, depriving the area of its cultural heritage, plundering and then selling-off antiquities to international dealers.

The other great unforgivable mafia crime is environmental degradation, toxic dumping, etcetera.

Although I have certain "fan boy" inclinations, I absolutely condemn crimes of this nature, crimes that destroy the history and land of southern Italy . . . .

Trezzano sul Naviglio installs anti-'Ndrangheta road signs
'Mafia clans not welcome here' mayor says

(ANSA) - Milan, July 21 - The authorities in Trezzano sul Naviglio near Milan on Tuesday installed traffic signs banning clans operating under Calabria's powerful 'Ndrangheta mafia from the area.

"Municipality out of bounds to the 'Ndrangheta" and "Mafia clans are not welcome here" read the signs in blue on a white background positioned by mayor Fabio Bottero accompanied by the president of the Lombardy chapter of the national association of municipalities (ANCI), Roberto Scanagatti.

The initiative came under the auspices of the ANCI campaign '100 municipalities against the mafia'. For years Trezzano sul Naviglio was considered one of the municipalities with the largest and most deep-rooted 'Ndrangheta presence in Lombardy.

"Trezzano wants to free itself from the clans," Bottero said. "Our city hosts companies that are excellent on an international level and it has a healthy social fabric, but we aren't able to remove the problem," he continued.

The anti-mafia road signs have been erected on an experimental bais, but proponents hope transport ministry officials will grant them permanent authorization.

http://www.ansa.it/english/news/2015/07 ... fe6bf.html

Police arrest 41 in 'Ndrangheta gaming ring worth 2 bn
Anti-mafia and finance police conducted early-morning raid

(ANSA) - Rome, July 22 - Anti-mafia and finance police arrested 41 people in an early-morning raid Wednesday, following a probe into an online illegal gaming ring run by Calabria's 'Ndrangheta mafia worth about 2 billion euros, investigators said.
The operation involved the seizure of 45 national and 11 international businesses, 1,500 betting parlours, 82 national and international online gaming websites, and numerous pieces of property.
Of the 41 people arrested, 28 were sent to jail and 13 were placed under house arrest.
Police also executed five restraining orders and five orders to appear before judicial police as part of the operation.

http://www.ansa.it/english/news/2015/07/...7b9c1d746b.html

11 mln seized from Camorra businessman
Francesco Grassia collected protection money for Casalesi clan

(ANSA) - Naples, July 28 - Anti-mafia police on Tuesday seized 11 million euros of assets from a former businessman with close ties to the Neapolitan Camorra crime syndicate.
Francesco Grassia, 70, provided logistical support to members of the infamous Casalesi clan based in Caserta, allegedly collecting protection money and investing the income and importing weapons from the former Yugoslavia. He was arrested in 2000.
Companies, property and bank accounts were seized in Tuesday's operation.

http://www.ansa.it/english/news/general_...01545c0b37.html

Italian police arrest 4, seize assets in anti-Camorra raids
Those arrested include members of powerful Casalesi clan

(ANSA) - Frosinone, July 30 - Italian police arrested at least four people and seized assets worth millions of euros on Thursday as part of a major operation against the Camorra, the mafia based in the Campania region.
Those arrested include members of the powerful Casalesi clan who specialise in the construction industry and are based in the province of Caserta, local sources said.
Some of the arrests, carried out by anti-mafia officers, occurred in the province of Frosinone in southern Lazio.
Italian financial police oversaw raids and the seizing of assets, including real estate, in both Lazio and Campania.

http://www.ansa.it/english/news/2015/07/...29a3d5599e.html

It is perhaps worth noting that "Madafferi" is the same surname as that of the lead players in the Australian 'Ndrangheta scandal

See this . . . .

And judging from the incidence of the surname in Calabria, there is undoubtedly a relation . . . .

Madafferi 24.40 San Ferdinando Reggio Calabria
Madafferi 8.28 Oppido Mamertina Reggio Calabria
Madafferi 7.74 Santa Cristina d'Aspromonte Reggio Calabria
Madafferi 6.00 Rosarno Reggio Calabria
Madafferi 5.76 Varapodio Reggio Calabria
Madafferi 3.02 Delianuova Reggio Calabria
Madafferi 3.01 Gioia Tauro Reggio Calabria
Madafferi 2.86 Scido Reggio Calabria
Madafferi 2.80 Molochio Reggio Calabria

Net closing on Mafia boss Messina Denaro with arrests
Fugitive Cosa Nostra head used code, messages to communicate

(ANSA) - Rome, August 3 - With Monday's arrests of 11 of his key supporters, the net is closing on fugitive Cosa Nostra Mafia boss Matteo Messina Denaro, police said after dawn raids in Sicily.
They revealed that Messina Denaro, on the run since 1993, used the same sort of coded message system as his predecessor Bernardo Provenzano.
The messages, written on tiny scraps of paper called 'pizzini', used codes that referred to various farm practices and animals for communications among Denaro and his lieutenants, police said Monday.
They added this was the same sort of the 'pizzini' method used by Cosa Nostra's Provenzano before his arrest in 2006 and suspected subsequent hand-off to Messina Denaro. The messages, with references to "pigs", "fertilizer" and "beans" were bound with Scotch tape, to be read and destroyed within a defined period.
Farmers Vito Gondola, 77, and Michele Terranova, among the 11 arrested on Monday, were key to ensuring messages were transmitted, police allege. Meetings among Mafia members were held only on farms, making it much more difficult to eavesdrop on conversations, said police.
Messina Denaro, 53, has not been publicly seen in more than 20 years, but an informant last year helped Italian authorities to update their ideas of the Mafia boss's appearance, including the fact he no longer wears eyeglasses and his dark hair has receded.
Premier Matteo Renzi cheered the arrests in a Facebook post and urged fast action in capturing Messina Denaro himself.
"I am grateful to the investigators...now, full speed ahead to capture the fugitive boss," Renzi wrote of Messina Denaro. "Italy is...united against organized crime". The arrests were made in a dawn operation between Palermo and Trapani, with suspects ranging in age from 27 to 77.
The work demanded well-coordinated action by various police and security experts as "the Mafia remains one unified organization," Palermo's Chief Prosecutor Francesco Lo Voi said at a news conference.
Messina Denaro also enjoys "a high degree of protection" in Sicily, proven by the fact he has been so well hidden since 1993, authorities added.
That unity is based on greed, added prosecutor Teresa Principato.
"Matteo Messina Denaro is a kind of parasite that does not take into account family ties, but makes use of the money that the members of his family and the clan can get him". Added Interior Minister Angelino Alfano in a post on his Twitter feed: "The State wins, the Mafia loses".
He alleged the 11 arrested had "aided and abetted" Messina Denaro.
Rosy Bindi, head of the parliamentary anti-mafia commission, called Monday's arrests a "significant success".
"The operation that led to the dismantling, with 11 arrests, of the network of loyal (Mafia) men who helped the boss of Cosa Nostra to exercise the role of command and preserve its economic power is a significant success...demonstrating the determination of the institutions in the fight against the Mafia," said Bindi.

http://www.ansa.it/english/news/2015/08/...fc3fcbd81c.html

Mafia attacks on journalists on the rise
Anti-mafia commission releases alarming report

(ANSA) - Rome, August 5 - Organized crime attacks and intimidation against journalists have been rising steadily between 2006 and 2014, the parliamentary anti-mafia commission said Wednesday in a report on the condition of journalists threatened by the mafia.
"The increase in acts of hostility against journalists is alarming," said commission chair Rosy Bindi and deputy chair Claudio Fava.
"There were 2,060 such attacks between 2006 and October 31 2014, with a steady increase that peaked in the first 10 months of 2014 when 421 acts of violence and intimidation took place - almost three incidents every two days," Bindi said.
Currently in Italy, 20 journalists live under armed guard and 11 have been killed by various mafia organizations, according to the report.
Calabria and Sicily are the two regions most dangerous for journalists.
The report said such acts of intimidation go almost totally unpunished since "there are very few incidents in which the perpetrators have been identified, tried, and convicted".
The report also pointed to the "unscrupulous and intimidatory" use of lawsuits in order to induce journalists to tone down their investigative reports.
TV journalist Milena Gabanelli, for example, has been sued for over 250 million euros by various disgruntled subjects in the course of her career as a hard-hitting investigative reporter.
The report goes on to denounce a "more subtle but no less harmful form of violence, which is the situation of extreme job and economic insecurity of the vast majority of the journalists who come under threat".
Freelancers are the "de facto supporting framework of the entire Italian news system" but have no juridical protection, and "this grave lack to remedied as soon as possible", the commission said.

http://www.ansa.it/english/news/2015/08/...da96278e81.html

the camorra wars in napoli left 3 dead in the latest days
luigi galletta, 21
salvatore d'alpino, 34
giovanni panico, 33

Eight arrests, 1.5 mn seized in 'Ndrangheta extortion op
Calabrian mob got 3% of contracts from businesses

(ANSA) - Catanzaro, August 13 - Police in the southern city of Catanzaro on Thursday arrested eight people and seized some 1.5 million euros in assets in an operation to bust a 20-year extortion ring on the coast of Calabria.
The arrested people are allegedly members of the Gallelli and Procopio-Mongiardo clams of the Calabrian mafia, both of which operate in the Catanzaro area.
The gangs alleged targeted businesses that won public contracts and the owners of hotels and holiday villages.
The seized assets were properties and shares in companies.
Catanzaro anti-mafia prosecutor Giovanni Bombardieri praised the courage of a entrepreneur who reported the extortion.
"Today's operation stems entirely from the statements made by a businessman who had been tormented for 20 years and found the courage to report the tyranny he was subjected to, thanks in part to the results of investigations in the area recently," Bombardieri said. In one case, the businessman was forced to hand over 3% of a 500,000-euro public contract to the mobsters, investigators said.

http://www.ansa.it/english/news/2015/08/...be3ffd9c4c.html

Casamonica: police forced to intervene
Funeral cortege paraded for several kilometres

(ANSA) - Rome, August 21 - Police were forced to intervene on Rome's roads yesterday as the funeral of mafia boss Vittorio Casamonica caused traffic chaos in the capital, sources told ANSA on Friday.
The first call into the municipal police came around 9.30am when the funeral procession, which included a horse-drawn carriage and tens of cars, began to block via Tuscolana. A patrol squad was sent to the scene before reinforcements were dispatched.
"In 30 years of service I have never seen something like that," one police officer said. "We intervened to make sure they (the procession) kept on the right, to keep the traffic flowing. There was a risk of complete chaos throughout that area of the city. We preventively closed some roads and created diversions." The funeral procession continued for several kilometres, from the funeral parlour in Romanina to Cinecittà.
There had been suggestions that traffic wardens had been posted to the area to make sure the funeral went smoothly, rather than reacting to the chaos it caused.

http://www.ansa.it/english/news/general_...ffe50ae21f.html

Here's the Post article on the funeral...

http://nypost.com/2015/08/21/over-the-top-godfather-funeral-causes-outrage-in-rome/

Ostia council dissolved for mafia infiltration (2)
Ex council chair nabbed in Rome mafia case

(ANSA) - Rome, August 27 - The government on Thursday dissolved the council of the coastal town of Ostia near Rome because of mafia infiltration and after a string of corruption scandals, Interior Minister Angelino Alfano told reporters after a cabinet meeting on Rome's woes.
Former Ostia town council chairman Andrea Tassone was arrested in June along with 43 others in connection with the Rome mafia case into a crime ring that allegedly includes gangsters, businessmen and politicians.

http://www.ansa.it/english/news/2015/08/...a44ae26db8.html

Palermo remembers general murdered by mafia
General noted for fighting terrorism, criminal organisations

(ANSA) - Palermo, September 3 - A ceremony was held in Palermo on Thursday in memory of Carlo Alberto Dalla Chiesa, a general from Italy's Carabinieri military police who was killed by the Mafia 33 years ago.
Dalla Chiesa played a key role in fighting terrorism in Italy in the 1970s, helping to capture members of the militant left-wing Red Brigades organisation. While serving as prefect of Palermo in 1982, he was murdered with his wife Emanuela Setti Carraro by a group of gunmen following Mafia orders.
Attendants laid wreaths by their tomb on Thursday and observed a minute of silence, followed by a long applause.
Italian Interior Minister Angelino Alfano and Palermo Mayor Leoluca Orlando were among institutional representatives at the ceremony.
Italian President Sergio Mattarella said in a statement that Dalla Chiesa was a leading example for younger generations, due to his "unyielding battle against the insidious work of terrorist and criminal organisations and his clever and persistent action".

http://www.ansa.it/english/news/2015/09/...0874edc59f.html

Camorra-linked man killed by gunshots in Naples
Pasquale Ceraso, 67, shot several times in neck while in car

(ANSA) - Naples, September 3 - A 67-year-old man with links to the Camorra criminal organisation was killed by gunfire in central Naples early on Thursday morning, police said.
Pasquale Ceraso's body was found inside a car on Via Santa Teresa degli Scalzi, not far from Naples' famous archaeological museum. He had been shot several times in the neck.
His car had continued to move after he had been shot dead, before slamming into a wall.
The alarm was raised by some people in the area who heard gunshots.
According to local reports, the man had links to the Camorra, or Naples' mafia. He had been arrested several times, accused of involvement in drugs and arms trafficking and extortion.

http://www.ansa.it/english/news/2015/09/...35a550cf1e.html

Nine mobsters arrested for extortion of shops, drug dealers
Gangsters took protection money at Christmas, Easter, Ferragosto

(ANSA) - Caserta, September 4- Police flying squad officers arrested nine Camorra mobsters at dawn Friday on charges running an extensive extortion racket bilking thousands of euros from shopkeepers, bars and even drug dealers, police said.
The nine belonged to the Bidognetti faction of the feared Casalesi clan of the Camorra operating in the Caserta area just north of Naples.
Heads of the gang were identified as Gaetano Cerci, 50, and Dionigi pacifico, 53.
The nine, based at the town of San Nicola la Strada on the outskirts of Caserta, demanded protection money of between 500 and 1000 euros from bars, mozzarella sellers and even drug dealers each Christmas, Easter and Ferragosto, police said.
Three of the nine also were charged with stealing coats and the cash register from a well known fashion store in the centre of Caserta.
The gang also ran a "credit collection" service that in one case was used by the manager of a betting shop to try and recover gambling debts run up by a soldier.

http://www.ansa.it/english/news/2015/09/...692caf7349.html

Naples officials deny Camorra is 'integral part' of city
Anti-mafia commission head refuses to apologise for comment

(ANSA) - Naples, September 15 - Senior officials in Naples on Tuesday rejected claims by the head of Italy's anti-mafia commission that the Camorra is an "integral part" of the city, arguing that it involves just a small group of citizens.
Rosy Bindi is visiting Naples this week as part of a mission for the anti-mafia commission and said on Monday that "the Camorra is an integral part of this society, this city, and this region".
Naples Mayor Luigi de Magistris said on Tuesday that he did not agree with the comment at all and that he had jumped on his seat when he heard it.
"The majority of Neapolitans are tired of the Camorra and their bullying," he said following a meeting with the commission.
Naples Chief Prosecutor Giovanni Colangelo also rejected the comments, saying that normal Neapolitans did not have a propensity to commit crime.
"Criminals represent a small percentage of the population compared to citizens who want to live in peace," Colangelo said.
Bindi refused to apologise on Tuesday, saying that "not denying the Camorra is the first step to fighting it".

http://www.ansa.it/english/news/2015/09 ... c8cb8.html

Over 40 arrested in Naples Camorra operation
Suspects believed to belong to, or have links, with clans

(ANSA) - Naples, September 18 - Carabinieri police arrested 43 people in the centre of Naples and in other areas as part of a massive operation targeting Camorra mafia clans on Friday.
The officers implemented 34 warrants to jail suspects, while nine others were put under house arrest. They are suspected of crimes including mafia-style criminal association, extortion, drug trafficking and illegal possession of weapons of war.

http://www.ansa.it/english/news/2015/09/...9d5f1353c6.html

Camorra boss accused in 2004 double murder
Uncle and nephew gunned down in turf war

(ANSA) - Naples, September 23 - A detained boss in the Neapolitan Camorra mafia was served a warrant Wednesday for the murder of two men in a turf war in 2004.
Biagio Cava, 60, boss of the clan of the same name in the province of Avellino, is suspected of ordering the hit on Antonio and Francesco Graziano, uncle and nephew, gunned down in an ambush at San Paolo Bel Sito near Naples on June 11, 2004.
Informants have provided written testimony against Cava.

http://www.ansa.it/english/news/2015/09/...a84e3fc91c.html

Rough times in Naples - cop has been hurt in Naples shooting. The shooter was just collecting protection money in the district of Fuorigrotta (Naples) when two police officers showed up.

http://www.ansa.it/english/news/2015/09/...a6a784c0ef.html

Camorra members shooting at police officers didn't happen since a long time... apparently police officers in Naples went crazy and everyone is hunting the shooter.

War in the old town of Naples. This year Ciro Esposito has been killed he was the son of the incarcerated boss of Forcella, Piero. Behind the killing are the Giuliano, Sibilio and Brunetti families. Since the killing there have been many shooting and death people in Forcella. What is interesting here is that the Giuliano, Sibilio and Brunetti have bosses that are 18 to 21 years old so the youngsters are trying to take over the business.

Cops nab 54 in 'Ndrangheta mafia bust
Suspects face racketeering, drug trafficking charges

(ANSA) - Rome, September 28 - Carabinieri police on Monday arrested 54 alleged mobsters in a crackdown on two elite clans of the Calabria-based 'Ndrangheta mafia.
The suspects face racketeering and drug trafficking charges, police said.
The clans allegedly laundered some of their ill-gotten gains through a Dutch flower import-export company, investigators said.
The crime syndicates were named as the Commisso clan operating out of the town of Siderno in Reggio Calabria province with affiliated in Canada and the Netherlands, and the Coluccio clan out of Marina di Gioiosa Jonica. The Commisso clan "can count on at least 500 hitmen", prosecutors said.

http://www.ansa.it/english/news/2015/09/...b8b17bcb61.html

Mafia: Sicilian clan 'trafficked drugs' with ambulances and funeral home
By Umberto Bacchi
November 24, 2015 14:25 GMT
Italian police
Italian police arrested 37 alleged affiliates of a mafia clan involved in drug trafficking Reuters
A mafia clan used ambulances and a funeral home to traffic drugs in the Sicilian city of Catania, a police investigation has revealed. Italian authorities have arrested dozens of people in dawn raids targeting affiliates of the Cappello-Bonaccorsi crime syndicates.

A total of 37 men aged between 24 and 56 were held on a series of charges, including mafia association, drug trafficking and unlawful possession of weapons as part of an operation dubbed "Revenge 5".

Among them were Salvatore Spampinato, 38, and Antonino Cosentino, 36, who respectively ran a non-profit NGO for emergency medical care and a funeral home. Detectives alleged ambulances of the first were used to transport drugs, including cocaine, undisturbed across the city, while the second served as logistics base for the clan trafficking activities.

The criminal gang, which featured several relatives of jailed Mafiosi, allegedly controlled the drug market in several districts and suburbs of Catania, including San Cristoforo, Monte Po' and San Berillo Nuovo.

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/mafia-sicilian ... me-1530273?