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Re: Real Life Organized Crime News [Re: chopper] #462227
01/09/08 06:25 PM
01/09/08 06:25 PM
Joined: Mar 2007
Posts: 9,228
Sheffield UK
chopper Offline
Gaetano Lucchese
chopper  Offline
Gaetano Lucchese

Joined: Mar 2007
Posts: 9,228
Sheffield UK
Following eight weeks of trial, a federal jury in Central Islip, New York, returned a verdict last week convicting Colombo organized crime family acting boss Alphonse “Allie Boy” Persico and administration member John “Jackie” DeRoss of murder in aid of racketeering and witness tampering.



Specifically, Persico and DeRoss were found guilty of orchestrating the May 26, 1999, murder of Colombo family underboss William Cutolo, Sr.


The evidence at trial established that Persico and DeRoss murdered Cutolo because they believed he was about to take control of the Colombo family from Persico, and to serve as retribution for Cutolo’s actions during the bloody Colombo family war in the early 1990s.


During the war, Cutolo, on behalf of the faction loyal to Vic Orena, tried to wrest control of the Colombo family from Alphonse Persico and his father, the family’s official boss, Carmine “The Snake” Persico. As part of the murder plot, Persico summoned Cutolo to a meeting on the afternoon of May 26, 1999. That afternoon, an auto mechanic dropped Cutolo off at a park near 92nd Street and Shore Road in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, the designated place for the meeting with Persico. Cutolo was never seen or heard from again, and the government’s evidence indicated that Cutolo’s body most likely was dumped into the Atlantic Ocean.


That evening, DeRoss kept watch over Cutolo’s crew at the Friendly Bocce Social Club in Brooklyn, where the crew was awaiting Cutolo’s arrival for their traditional Wednesday evening dinner. When Cutolo failed to show up, DeRoss feigned surprise and directed Cutolo’s son, William Cutolo, Jr., to telephone his father. Early the next morning, May 27, DeRoss, on Persico’s orders, arrived at Cutolo’s home and began questioning Cutolo’s widow, Marguerite Cutolo.


Persico and DeRoss were also found guilty of tampering with witnesses Marguerite Cutolo (Cutolo’s widow), Barbara Jean Cutolo (one of Cutolo’s daughters), and William
Cutolo, Jr. The trial evidence included a recording William Cutolo, Jr., secretly made of DeRoss threatening the Cutolo family in March 2000, several months after it was publicly disclosed that Persico was a target of the FBI’s investigation of the Cutolo murder.


During the meeting, DeRoss ordered the Cutolo family to provide false, exculpatory information to a private investigator hired by Persico. DeRoss told the Cutolo family that, if they did not assist Persico, Marguerite Cutolo could be “hurt,” as could the “little . . . kids,” referring to Barbara Jean Cutolo’s seven and five-year-old daughters.


Marguerite and Barbara Jean Cutolo both testified at trial that, as a result of DeRoss’s threats, the Cutolos withheld information about the murder from law enforcement authorities for years, including Cutolo, Sr.’s statement to Marguerite Cutolo on May 26, 1999, that he was going to a meeting with Persico.


Persico is the second acting boss of a La Cosa Nostra crime family convicted this year of murder charges in the Eastern District of New York. On July 31, 2007, Bonnano organized crime family acting boss Vincent Basciano was convicted of racketeering murder and is awaiting sentencing.


“Law enforcement’s campaign against organized crime will continue until our communities are free from its corrupting influence,” said United States Attorney Benton J. Campbell. Mr. Campbell praised the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the agency that led the government’s investigation.


If i come across the table and take your f*****g eyes out ,will you remember

Aniello Dellacroce
__________________________________
TFI 2nd Bday - Dj Topgroove + Mc Domer
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=wN58sasrpYc

TFI Lucky Star
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Happy Hardcore DJ Hixxy
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Re: Real Life Organized Crime News [Re: chopper] #462228
01/09/08 06:27 PM
01/09/08 06:27 PM
Joined: Mar 2007
Posts: 9,228
Sheffield UK
chopper Offline
Gaetano Lucchese
chopper  Offline
Gaetano Lucchese

Joined: Mar 2007
Posts: 9,228
Sheffield UK
For us, rubbish is gold," is how one Italian gangster explained the mafia's involvement in waste trafficking to an investigating magistrate in Naples.

Areas of the southern city have ground to a halt this week because of piles of rotting rubbish and sometimes violent protests about what to do with it, and Italians are questioning whether organized crime is to blame for the emergency.

The Camorra, the Naples equivalent of the Cosa Nostra mafia of Sicily, has been turning filth into cash for decades in the city, says Michele Buonomo, president of environmental campaign group Legambiente Campania.

"Before 1994 they controlled the entire waste cycle," he told Reuters in an interview. He estimates Mafia involvement in crimes against the environment yield a turnover of 6 billion euros ($8.8 billion) a year.

Fourteen years ago, Italy appointed a special commissioner to take charge of waste disposal and pry it away from Camorra-run companies.

By undercutting legitimate operators, these companies won a host of local authority contracts and ended up in charge of the region's then-privately owned landfills.

"The Camorra isn't actually that interested in household waste but it is interested in controlling the waste cycle, controlling the dumps," said Buonomo.

The Camorra filled the dumps, not just with household trash but also with industrial waste trucked in from around Italy. This traffic remains one of organized crime's most lucrative activities rivaling, and possibly exceeding, narcotics for profitability.
state of emergency, declared in 1994, was meant to tackle the problem by taking waste dumps into public hands and defining a coherent waste strategy. But six successive trash tsars have been unable to banish the Camorra from the sector.

The gangsters still make fortunes in waste transport and, as they no longer run the dumps, by dumping and burning toxic refuse in the countryside - a major source of pollution blamed for higher than normal rates of certain cancers in the region.

Camorra gangs have also bought land at knock-down prices from intimidated small landowners and sold it at a huge profit to companies involved in stocking bales of waste, said Buonomo.

These bales are destined to be burned in a giant incinerator which is still being built.

But mafia-watchers are not convinced the current garbage crisis was orchestrated by the Camorra.

Just as much to blame are political opportunism, cronyism and the willingness of many legitimate companies to employ shady, but cheap, operators to handle their waste, they say.

"It absolutely was not the Camorra that created this emergency," said Roberto Saviano, author of "Gomorra", a bestselling book on the Naples mafia.

"The Camorra doesn't like emergencies and doesn't need them. It keeps profiting from waste, come rain or shine."

http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSL0830577220080109?pageNumber=1&virtualBrandChannel=0


If i come across the table and take your f*****g eyes out ,will you remember

Aniello Dellacroce
__________________________________
TFI 2nd Bday - Dj Topgroove + Mc Domer
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=wN58sasrpYc

TFI Lucky Star
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=uw-Uw0DUAGo

Happy Hardcore DJ Hixxy
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=4Pv7H4YkFKs
Re: Real Life Organized Crime News [Re: chopper] #462387
01/10/08 07:05 AM
01/10/08 07:05 AM
Joined: Mar 2007
Posts: 9,228
Sheffield UK
chopper Offline
Gaetano Lucchese
chopper  Offline
Gaetano Lucchese

Joined: Mar 2007
Posts: 9,228
Sheffield UK
Seven firefighters were injured outside Naples in an attack near a toxic dump at the centre of an ongoing waste disposal crisis.

Some 30 assailants, described by the domestic ANSA news agency as hooligans, hurled powerful firecrackers into a firetruck, where they exploded, injuring the seven firefighters.

Masked men also hurled stones at a police car, ANSA said.

Since the waste disposal crisis developed late last month, with more than 100,000 tonnes of uncollected garbage accumulating in Naples' Campania region, protests have turned violent on a nightly basis in and around the Pianura dump in the western suburb of Pozzuoli.

Press reports say small groups of protesters or hooligans have begun gathering at other sites on the outskirts of Naples seeking confrontation with security forces.

Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi yesterday unveiled a campaign to bring a definitive end to a recurring overload of the region's dysfunctional waste disposal system.

Troops will be deployed to help clean up the hardest hit areas, and rubbish will be trucked to landfills in other regions under the four-month plan.

Many of the landfills in Campania are controlled by the regional Camorra mafia, who make a lucrative business out of subverting waste handling procedures and shipping in industrial waste from the north.

Since 1994 when the government decreed an "emergency situation" in the region, several dumps infiltrated by the mafia have been closed and companies investigated, though none has been convicted.


If i come across the table and take your f*****g eyes out ,will you remember

Aniello Dellacroce
__________________________________
TFI 2nd Bday - Dj Topgroove + Mc Domer
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=wN58sasrpYc

TFI Lucky Star
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=uw-Uw0DUAGo

Happy Hardcore DJ Hixxy
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=4Pv7H4YkFKs
Re: Real Life Organized Crime News [Re: chopper] #463342
01/12/08 10:06 AM
01/12/08 10:06 AM
Joined: Mar 2007
Posts: 9,228
Sheffield UK
chopper Offline
Gaetano Lucchese
chopper  Offline
Gaetano Lucchese

Joined: Mar 2007
Posts: 9,228
Sheffield UK
The head of the Sicilian Mafia, Bernardo Provenzano, has been put under tighter security amid suspicion that he is directing the mob from his cell.
Italian prison guards say they suspect he was using his Bible to communicate in code with his men on the outside.

Provenzano was arrested in 2006 after 43 years on the run.

During that time the Cosa Nostra boss had shunned all normal methods of communication, other than coded messages on pieces of paper.

FBI code-breakers brought into help think they were encrypted using a mysterious system of biblical references.

The Bible found in Provenzano's isolated hut at the time of his arrest in 2006 contained dots, arrows and notations.

Communication cut off

Provenzano is subject to the tightest surveillance at the high security Novara prison in Piedmont, northern Italy.

Under rule 41 - the law which governs the imprisonment of Mafia bosses - he is held in permanent isolation.

His letters, his phone calls and any permitted visits are closely monitored.

And yet it appears that the so-called Godfather still exerts his influence over the operations of the Cosa Nostra, the BBC's Christian Fraser in Rome says.

Police think he is communicating via his Bible which he had been given according to basic human rights.

The prison authorities say they are now cutting off all Provenzano's communication, partly to improve morale within the prison where inmates believe he is still in control.

After his arrest Provenzano was believed to have handed the reins of the Cosa Nostra to a younger man, Salvatore Lo Piccolo.

He was arrested in November and police are still not sure where the mantle boss of bosses now lies.


If i come across the table and take your f*****g eyes out ,will you remember

Aniello Dellacroce
__________________________________
TFI 2nd Bday - Dj Topgroove + Mc Domer
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=wN58sasrpYc

TFI Lucky Star
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=uw-Uw0DUAGo

Happy Hardcore DJ Hixxy
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=4Pv7H4YkFKs
Re: Real Life Organized Crime News [Re: chopper] #463420
01/12/08 12:34 PM
01/12/08 12:34 PM
Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 18,238
The Ravenite Social Club
Don Cardi Offline OP
Caporegime
Don Cardi  Offline OP
Caporegime

Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 18,238
The Ravenite Social Club
 Originally Posted By: chopper
Seven firefighters were injured outside Naples in an attack near a toxic dump at the centre of an ongoing waste disposal crisis. Some 30 assailants, described by the domestic ANSA news agency as hooligans, hurled powerful firecrackers into a firetruck, where they exploded, injuring the seven firefighters. Masked men also hurled stones at a police car, ANSA said.......


No doubt doubt in my mind that the Mafia, aka The Camorra in Naples, is behind this.



Don Cardi cool

Five - ten years from now, they're gonna wish there was American Cosa Nostra. Five - ten years from now, they're gonna miss John Gotti.




Re: Real Life Organized Crime News [Re: Don Cardi] #463741
01/14/08 05:14 AM
01/14/08 05:14 AM
Joined: Mar 2007
Posts: 9,228
Sheffield UK
chopper Offline
Gaetano Lucchese
chopper  Offline
Gaetano Lucchese

Joined: Mar 2007
Posts: 9,228
Sheffield UK
I tried to post a link for this as it is so long,but for some reason it wouldnt let me do it,so be prepeared it's a long article


When it came down to business, Cosa Nostra could always count on fear. No more. In a rebellion shaking the Sicilian Mafia to its centuries-old roots, businesses are joining forces in refusing to submit to demands for protection money called "pizzo."

And they're getting away with it, threatening to sap an already weakened crime syndicate of one of its steadiest sources of revenue.

The Mafia has a history of bouncing back from defeat, but this time it is up against something entirely new: a Web site where businessmen are finding safety in numbers to say no to the mob.

At the same time, businessmen ranging from neighborhood shopkeepers to industrialists are being emboldened by arrests of fugitive bosses, and the discovery in raids of meticulous Mafia bookkeeping on who paid the "pizzo" and how much.

"This rebellion goes to the heart of the Mafia," said Palermo prosecutor Maurizio De Lucia, who has investigated extortion cases for years. "If it works, we will have a great advantage in the fight against the Mafia."

These latest gains build on other successes in the fight to break Cosa Nostra's stranglehold on Sicily. In the last two decades, the syndicate has been battered by testimony from turncoats, who helped send hundreds of mobsters to prison in the late 1980s, and a fierce state crackdown a decade later after bombs killed two Palermo anti-Mafia prosecutors.

The number of rebels on the Web site is still tiny compared to Palermo's businesses overall, but their movement has helped to chip away at the Mafia's psychological hold on Sicilians long conditioned to believe that defiance would bring ruin or a death sentence. And any consistent crumbling of that culture of fear could ultimately lead to Cosa Nostra's undoing.

The businesses are openly defying the Mafia by signing on to a Web site called "Addiopizzo" (Goodbye Pizzo), which brings together businesses in the Sicilian capital that are resisting extortion.

The campaign was launched in 2004 by a group of youths thinking of opening a pub. They started off by plastering Palermo with anti-pizzo fliers, reading "An ENTIRE PEOPLE WHO PAYS THE PIZZO IS A PEOPLE WITHOUT DIGNITY," and eventually brought their campaign online where it struck a profound chord with Sicilians fed up with Mafia bullying.

Confindustria, the industrialists' lobby, has also boosted the movement with a threat to expel members who pay protection money. Its Sicilian branch has gone through a list of pizzo-paying companies found in a raid on a top Mafia boss' hideout, and this month began summoning heads of those companies to demand to know if they indeed had been paying and should be drummed out of the politically influential lobby.

one case, the director of a private clinic said her institution wound up on Cosa Nostra's list because a mobster was treated there, although it apparently was unclear during his hospitalization that he was a Mafioso.

At the same time, authorities are ratcheting up the pressure on business owners, aggressively prosecuting those who refuse to testify against the Mafia in clear-cut cases of extortion. Under Italian law, a businessman who denies paying up despite flagrant evidence such as being caught on a surveillance tape can be charged with "aiding and abetting" Cosa Nostra.

"Now it is a bigger risk for us to pay than not to pay," said Ugo Argiroffi, an engineer who recently added his Palermo construction company, C.O.C.I. to Addiopizzo's list (http://www.addiopizzo.org in Italian with an English link).

While the nearly 230 businesses on the list are only a fraction of Palermo's thousands of stores, offices and factories, a similar group has sprouted up in Catania, Sicily's second-largest city.

Perhaps most significant, the rebellion has taken root in strongholds of the most ruthless Mafia clans places such as Gela, a drab, industrial coastal town. Some 80 Gela businessmen in recent months have denounced extortion attempts.

It is a dramatic turn since the early '90s, when a Gela merchant who denounced extortion was slain by the Mafia, and a Gela car dealer, whose showroom was repeatedly torched, had to move his family and change his name after he testified in court.

In another prominent case, Libero Grassi, who had a Palermo clothing business, was gunned down by the Mafia in 1991 after he made a futile public plea for other merchants to join him in denouncing extortion.

Prosecutors trace the extortion rebellion back to the scramble for power after Bernardo Provenzano, the alleged "boss of bosses," was captured last year near his hometown of Corleone.

For years, Provenzano who reputedly took the helm of Cosa Nostra in 1993 had employed an extortion strategy of "let them pay a little but make everyone pay," according to Piero Grasso, a former Palermo prosecutor who is now Italy's national anti-Mafia prosecutor based in Rome.

The Mafia chief feared excessive greed and violence would draw a fierce police crackdown, Grasso said in an interview.

But in the struggle to succeed Provenzano, Palermo area boss Salvatore Lo Piccolo ruthlessly dispensed with the low profile.
Under Lo Piccolo, according to Grasso, the small army of henchmen who shake down merchants was doubled, from 500 to 1,000 men, judging from entries in confiscated extortion ledgers.

The extortionists received monthly "salaries" worth $3,000, generous by Sicily's standards, plus an extra month's pay as a Christmas bonus, Grasso said.

A rash of arson attacks on businesses this past year apparently reflected Lo Piccolo's determination to press extortion demands.

The strategy appears to have backfired: The harder the Mafia squeezed, the more their victims resisted. Crucially, no businessmen or their relatives have thus far been killed for their defiance, although some may have lost Mafia-wary customers.

In one high-profile case, Vincenzo Conticello, owner of Antica Focacceria San Francesco, a landmark Palermo restaurant that specializes in sandwiches stuffed with calf's spleen and lung, spent $1.8 million buying supplies from "friends" of a gangster who had elbowed into his business.

Eventually the restaurateur got fed up and went to police. At the trial, he pointed out the three gangsters who had extorted him and in November they were jailed for 10 to 16 years. Conticello was granted police protection.

When Mafia boss Lo Piccolo was arrested in November outside Palermo, police found a list of hundreds of names of those who paid the "pizzo" plus a breakdown of how the money was divvied up a treasure trove of information on how the mob operates.

In December, police scored another coup when they shot dead Daniele Emmanuello, the reputed boss of the Gela area's extortion rackets, as he fled from a farmhouse hideout.

Emmanuello didn't take time to change out of his pajamas, but he did swallow some handwritten notes. Authorities are examining them for more information on the pizzo racket.

Until now, the money figures had been largely guesswork. But taking advantage of the confiscated Mafia ledgers, Antonio La Spina, a University of Palermo sociology professor, has pieced together the clearest picture for a report given to The Associated Press before its publication this week in a book called "The Costs of Illegality."

His researchers calculate the pizzo payments averaging $1,200 a month add up to nearly $260 million in Palermo province alone.

"For a street vendor, 'pizzo' ranges from 50 to 100 euros a month, a neighborhood bread store 150-250 euros, a simple clothing store 250 euros, a jewelry store, 1,000 euros, your local mini-mart 500 euros," said Attilio Scaglione, one of the researchers. A euro is worth roughly $1.50.

These days, the Mafia appears to be trying to pick symbolic targets rather than punish the pizzo-refusers en masse.

At Rodolfo Guajana's company, a wholesaler for hardware stores across Sicily since 1875, attackers this summer punched a hole in the roof, poured in gasoline and torched the warehouse.

Guajana believes the Mafia attacked him because it was known that his family had a history of refusing to pay.

"What happened here was the Mafia was saying to all merchants: `What happened to Guajana can happen to you if you don't pay,'" said Guajana.

Across the island in Agrigento, industrialist Salvatore Moncada described himself as proof businessmen can stand up to mobsters.

He has repeatedly refused demands made of his 180-employee company, Moncada Costruzioni Srl, Italy's fifth-largest producer of wind energy. In one case, Moncada's testimony helped jail a mobster who demanded $7,500.

At one point, Moncada wore a wire to a meeting with a mobster. "I was sweating a little bit," he recalled. But no threats were made and the gangster wasn't arrested.

But Moncada said he can understand why some businessmen decide it pays to pay off the Mafia.

A pizzo of 2 percent of a contract's value is a lot less than the price of a 24-hour guard, he said. "In the end you say, 'Sorry, I'll pay and that's that.'"



By FRANCES D'EMILIO Associated Press Writer
PALERMO, Sicily Jan 13, 2008 (AP)


If i come across the table and take your f*****g eyes out ,will you remember

Aniello Dellacroce
__________________________________
TFI 2nd Bday - Dj Topgroove + Mc Domer
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=wN58sasrpYc

TFI Lucky Star
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=uw-Uw0DUAGo

Happy Hardcore DJ Hixxy
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=4Pv7H4YkFKs
Re: Real Life Organized Crime News [Re: chopper] #464050
01/15/08 06:40 PM
01/15/08 06:40 PM
Joined: Mar 2007
Posts: 9,228
Sheffield UK
chopper Offline
Gaetano Lucchese
chopper  Offline
Gaetano Lucchese

Joined: Mar 2007
Posts: 9,228
Sheffield UK
NEW YORK (AP) — Actor Steven Seagal and his former business partner have agreed to settle a long-running legal battle, a lawyer and a spokeswoman said Wednesday.
The dispute between Seagal and movie producer Julius R. Nasso included allegations of contract breach and Mafia extortion.

Seagal and Nasso had worked together for years, forming Seagal/Nasso Productions and producing movies including Marked for Death,Out for Justice and On Deadly Ground.


Then the two had a falling out. Nasso sued Seagal for $60 million, accusing the actor of backing out of a four-movie deal.

Beginning in 2004 Nasso served one year in federal prison after admitting he plotted to have the mob shake down Seagal.

Anthony "Sonny" Ciccone was convicted of racketeering in the case along with Peter Gotti, brother of the late mob boss John Gotti. At a New York steakhouse, Ciccone and other Gambino crime family enforcers demanded that Seagal keep working with Nasso and pay him $150,000 a film, Seagal testified at Peter Gotti's trial.

Afterward, Nasso told Seagal, "If you would have said the wrong thing, they would have killed you," the actor said.

Surveillance tapes later captured Ciccone's crew chuckling over how "petrified" the actor looked.

"I wish we had a gun with us," one said. "That would have been funny."

The out-of-court settlement included Nasso dropping the suit and Seagal agreeing to pay Nasso an undisclosed amount of money and write a letter supporting Nasso's application for a pardon, said Nasso's lawyer Robert Hantman.

"After six years of litigation, any misunderstandings between Mr. Seagal and Mr. Nasso have been resolved and (Nasso) looks forward to his future and making movies," Hantman said.

Nasso spokeswoman Emma Rosenbloom said in a statement that the men had resolved the dispute.

Neither Seagal nor his lawyer could be reached by telephone for comment Wednesday evening.

Seagal and Nasso, a former Brooklyn pharmacist, once lived next door to each other in Staten Island.

http://www.usatoday.com/life/people/2008-01-09-seagal_N.htm


If i come across the table and take your f*****g eyes out ,will you remember

Aniello Dellacroce
__________________________________
TFI 2nd Bday - Dj Topgroove + Mc Domer
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=wN58sasrpYc

TFI Lucky Star
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=uw-Uw0DUAGo

Happy Hardcore DJ Hixxy
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=4Pv7H4YkFKs
Re: Real Life Organized Crime News [Re: chopper] #464066
01/15/08 06:50 PM
01/15/08 06:50 PM
Joined: Mar 2007
Posts: 9,228
Sheffield UK
chopper Offline
Gaetano Lucchese
chopper  Offline
Gaetano Lucchese

Joined: Mar 2007
Posts: 9,228
Sheffield UK
From mob mouthpiece to livery cab driver.

That's the sad trajectory of 62-year-old attorney Larry Bronson's professional career - his disgrace complete yesterday after pleading guilty in Brooklyn Federal Court to illegally structuring money transactions for a client, then begging the judge to release him from house arrest so he can earn some money driving a cab.

"I just want to be able to put some money on the table for my wife," Bronson said.

But prosecutor Roger Burlingham argued for keeping the defendant under electronic monitoring, expressing skepticism that the only work a lawyer could find would be driving a cab.

"You don't want him to go back and practice law, do you?" shot back Judge Nicholas Garaufis.

Bronson was indicted in 2005 on racketeering and money-laundering charges in which he was accused of using his status as an attorney to assist the Mafia and obstruct justice.

He allegedly hosted meetings in his lower Manhattan law office where Bonanno gangsters Louis (Louie HaHa) Attanasio and James (Big Louie) Tartaglione could secretly meet to discuss organized crime business in violation of court orders, according to court papers.

The government agreed to drop the racketeering charges in exchange for yesterday's guilty plea.

"Larry is very pleased that this nightmare is finally coming to an end, pursuant to a deal that is far fairer than were the original allegations against him," Bronson's lawyer, Lawrence Lustberg, said.

Bronson says he is struggling financially. He completed a real estate course, but the market slowdown has limited those prospects.

He told the judge that he has lined up a job with a car service that appears promising, if he could only get rid of his ankle bracelet.

The judge agreed to give Bronson a chance, as long as he would be working for a reputable car service approved by the government.


http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/broo...wyer_turns.html


If i come across the table and take your f*****g eyes out ,will you remember

Aniello Dellacroce
__________________________________
TFI 2nd Bday - Dj Topgroove + Mc Domer
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=wN58sasrpYc

TFI Lucky Star
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=uw-Uw0DUAGo

Happy Hardcore DJ Hixxy
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=4Pv7H4YkFKs
Re: Real Life Organized Crime News [Re: chopper] #464286
01/16/08 09:59 AM
01/16/08 09:59 AM
Joined: Mar 2007
Posts: 9,228
Sheffield UK
chopper Offline
Gaetano Lucchese
chopper  Offline
Gaetano Lucchese

Joined: Mar 2007
Posts: 9,228
Sheffield UK
A scheme to turn waste paper into green paper resulted in two Fairfield County men going to prison.
Senior U.S. District Judge Alan H. Nevas sentenced Ronald A. Lupica, 63, of Norwalk, to 15 months in prison followed by three years of supervised release. Lupica also agreed to repay ARC $1.4 million as well as $249,111 plus interest to the IRS for taxes on unreported income made through the fraud.

Last month, Nevas sentenced Daniel Arciola to a year and a day in prison for tax evasion.

Lupica and Arciola, a former quality control specialist for ARC, diverted waste paper collected by ARC to paper mills for recycling. Lupica created Empire Trucking, a nonexistent company. From mid-1999 to August 2002, the pair issued invoices to the mills claiming the nonexistent Empire Trucking was an ARC subsidiary. The mills paid Empire $1.4 million during the time.

To conceal this income, neither man reported it to the IRS.

Lupica received $323,727 from the scheme in 2000 but failed to file a tax return that would have required him to pay $104,124 in taxes. He pleaded guilty to tax evasion, mail fraud and bankruptcy fraud.

ARC is owned by James Galante, the Fairfield County trash magnate, who is under federal indictment for violating racketeering laws. That case involves evidence that the Genovese Crime Family helped Galante control trash hauling in Fairfield and Westchester County.

Galante has maintained his innocence.


http://www.connpost.com/ci_7937900?source=most_emailed

Last edited by chopper; 01/16/08 09:59 AM.

If i come across the table and take your f*****g eyes out ,will you remember

Aniello Dellacroce
__________________________________
TFI 2nd Bday - Dj Topgroove + Mc Domer
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=wN58sasrpYc

TFI Lucky Star
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=uw-Uw0DUAGo

Happy Hardcore DJ Hixxy
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=4Pv7H4YkFKs
Re: Real Life Organized Crime News [Re: chopper] #464287
01/16/08 10:00 AM
01/16/08 10:00 AM
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Posts: 9,228
Sheffield UK
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Gaetano Lucchese
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Palermo, 16 Jan - Thirty-nine leaders and members of the mafia organization under Salvatore Lo Piccolo were arrested over the night in a police operation in Palermo. The name Addio Pizzo was given to the raid which dismantled the leadership of the San Lorenzo and Porta Nuova groups and led to the identification of the heads of the Partanna Mondello, Cruillas and Altarello "families". Over 200 members of the flying squad took part in the sweep-up operation, which also led to the bringing to light of many members of the Brancaccio, Pagliarelli, Noce, San Lorenzo and Partanna Mondello families.
Some of those arrested are being held in jail, whereas others have been formally arrested. The charges range from mafia-related criminal association, extortion and arms possession. The investigation was for the most part based on the deciphering of 'pizzini' (small slips of paper used by mafia-type groups to communicate) and other documents seized from Salvatore Lo Piccolo and his son Sandro at the time of their arrest on 5 November in a Giardinello villa about thirty kilometres from Palermo. Investigators also made use of 6 former criminals who collaborated with the justice system.
During investigations, those behind the August burning down on a large hardware and paint warehouse owned by the entrepreneur Rodolfo Guajana were identified, as well as all the shopkeepers and entrepreneurs who paid protection money to Lo Piccolo. The investigation was coordinated by associate prosecutor and Alfredo Morvillo and deputy prosecutors Domenico Gozzo, Gaetano Paci, Francesco Del Bene and Anna Maria Picozzi.

http://www.agi.it/italy/news/200801160939-cro-ren0001-art.html


If i come across the table and take your f*****g eyes out ,will you remember

Aniello Dellacroce
__________________________________
TFI 2nd Bday - Dj Topgroove + Mc Domer
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=wN58sasrpYc

TFI Lucky Star
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Happy Hardcore DJ Hixxy
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=4Pv7H4YkFKs
Re: Real Life Organized Crime News [Re: chopper] #465226
01/19/08 11:31 AM
01/19/08 11:31 AM
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Gaetano Lucchese
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MONTREAL - Five alleged leaders of the Montreal Mafia who have been detained since November 2006 are going directly to trial.

Nicolo Rizzuto, Paolo Renda, Rocco Sollecito, Francesco Arcadi and Lorenzo Giordino have chosen to skip their preliminary hearing. The five men, who were arrested in a widespread police crackdown in Quebec, will have their trial date set Feb. 25.

Crown prosecutor Yvan Poulin said at the Montreal courthouse today that 105 additional charges have been laid against the five men.

The charges include extorsion, illegal bookmaking, and importing drugs and weapons

http://canadianpress.google.com/article/ALeqM5hPOYx5x43fhz_W_RLjnMElBzR0CA


If i come across the table and take your f*****g eyes out ,will you remember

Aniello Dellacroce
__________________________________
TFI 2nd Bday - Dj Topgroove + Mc Domer
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=wN58sasrpYc

TFI Lucky Star
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Happy Hardcore DJ Hixxy
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=4Pv7H4YkFKs
Re: Real Life Organized Crime News [Re: chopper] #465230
01/19/08 11:34 AM
01/19/08 11:34 AM
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Gaetano Lucchese
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A court in Palermo convicted the governor of Sicily, Salvatore Cuffaro, of helping a Mafia boss by providing him with confidential investigator’s information, sentencing him to five years in prison and banning him from holding public office. Mr. Cuffaro, who was re-elected two years ago, while his trial was under way, said he would continue as governor while an appeal is in progress. In Italy, convictions are not considered final until all appeals are exhausted; the process can take years.


http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/19/world/europe/19briefs-mafia.html?ref=world


If i come across the table and take your f*****g eyes out ,will you remember

Aniello Dellacroce
__________________________________
TFI 2nd Bday - Dj Topgroove + Mc Domer
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=wN58sasrpYc

TFI Lucky Star
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Happy Hardcore DJ Hixxy
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=4Pv7H4YkFKs
Re: Real Life Organized Crime News [Re: chopper] #465317
01/19/08 08:28 PM
01/19/08 08:28 PM
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Gaetano Lucchese
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Bronx gangster Vincent Basciano must remain in strict solitary confinement because there is evidence he tried to conduct criminal activity - such as murder - while in jail, a federal judge ruled yesterday in Brooklyn.

The decision by Judge Nicholas Garaufis to keep Basciano under tight security at the federal detention center in Sunset Park was another blow against the Bonanno crime captain in his long-running attempt to get free of the restraints.

Under the "special administrative measures" first imposed on Basciano in September 2006, he is now allowed one telephone call a week with his lawyers and two family visits a month. Originally Basciano, known as "Vinny Gorgeous," didn't have family phone privileges or visits under the order.

Basciano, 48, was placed under the tight conditions after federal prosecutors alleged that while in jail he prepared a "hit list" that contained the names of Garaufis, Assistant U.S. Attorney Greg Andres and three witnesses. Basciano contended that the list was actually part of a Santería ritual designed to get him good luck at his criminal trials.

Recently Basciano's attorneys disclosed that two additional lists had been found, which contained more than 20 names and a magical incantation - evidence the lawyers said that the Santería explanation was true. Yesterday, defense attorney Ephraim Savitt said he will ask Garaufis to reconsider the ruling.

Savitt said Basciano's solitary confinement was preventing him from helping the defense team prepare for his August death penalty trial.

Garaufis was sympathetic regarding difficulties the jail conditions posed for his access to his attorneys and legal mail.

"If problems persist, defense counsel should so advise the court," said Garaufis.

http://www.newsday.com/news/local/newyork/ny-nymob165539672jan16,0,6439874.story


If i come across the table and take your f*****g eyes out ,will you remember

Aniello Dellacroce
__________________________________
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TFI Lucky Star
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Happy Hardcore DJ Hixxy
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Re: Real Life Organized Crime News [Re: chopper] #465318
01/19/08 08:30 PM
01/19/08 08:30 PM
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Gaetano Lucchese
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As many as 100 new charges have been laid against people accused of belonging to the Montreal Mafia, including alleged boss Nicolo (Nick) Rizzuto, who is still in police custody after a major crackdown in 2006.

The charges were filed in the Montreal Courthouse on Thursday against Rizzuto, 83, and four others accused of belonging to the Mafia.

The additional counts include extortion, bookmaking and possessions of proceeds of crime, specific indictments that are more precise than the first round of charges laid in the 2006 police operation dubbed Operation Colisée, explained Crown prosecutor Yvan Poulin.

"What we did in November 2006 is lay a general account [of charges]," he told reporters outside the courtroom Thursday morning. "Today, we focused on specific events that occurred during the investigation."

More than 100 people were arrested after multiple pre-dawn raids across the greater Montreal region in November 2006, including several people alleged to be high-ranking members of the Rizzuto clan.

Suspects taken into custody were charged with offences ranging from drug trafficking, conspiracy and money laundering to gangsterism.

The new round of charges include 12 counts against Nick Rizzuto, who renounced his right to a preliminary inquiry on Thursday.

His alleged associates — Paolo Renda, Rocco Sollecito, Francesco Arcadi and Lorenzo Giordino — also chose to skip their preliminary hearing.

All five suspects chose trial by jury instead, to be scheduled at a hearing on Feb. 25.

More than 1 million taped conversations: prosecutor
The case is subject to a publication ban, but Poulin said the volume of evidence is extraordinary, with police submitting more than one million taped conversations obtained by wiretap.

Not all of them will be used in the trial, he said.

"I can tell you that many — about 5,000, 6,000 conversations — have been singled out as pertinent to the eventual trial," he told CBC News. "But in total, throughout the four-year investigation, police officers intercepted more than a million conversations."

A separate trial for several other suspects arrested during the 2006 sweep is scheduled to start Feb. 4 at the Gouin courthouse in Montreal.

Those suspects, all former airport employees, are accused of importing and smuggling cocaine through Montreal-Trudeau International Airport.

Rizzuto and son Vito also wanted in Italy
Nick Rizzuto is also wanted by Italian police, who issued an international warrant for his arrest in October 2007, after they broke up an alleged Italian-Canadian Mafia clan reportedly involved in major drug-trafficking and money-laundering operations.

Italian police allege Rizzuto and his son Vito managed the operations from their respective prisons.

Vito Rizzuto, 61, is currently serving a 10-year sentence in the United States after he was extradited there to face racketeering charges in connection to the murders of three suspected gang leaders at a Brooklyn club in 1981.

Vito Rizzuto, who is alleged to be a member of the Bonanno crime family in New York, pleaded guilty to the charge in May 2007 in exchange for a reduced sentence.

Italian authorities want to extradite both Rizzutos to face charges in that country but they'll have to wait until the father and son finish serving any time owed in North America.

Nick Rizzuto was taken from the Bordeaux detention centre in Montreal to hospital in April 2007 after experiencing chest pains.

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/ottawa/story/2008/01/17/qc-rizzutonewcharges0117.html

Last edited by chopper; 01/19/08 08:31 PM.

If i come across the table and take your f*****g eyes out ,will you remember

Aniello Dellacroce
__________________________________
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TFI Lucky Star
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Happy Hardcore DJ Hixxy
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=4Pv7H4YkFKs
Re: Real Life Organized Crime News [Re: chopper] #465819
01/21/08 06:14 AM
01/21/08 06:14 AM
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Gaetano Lucchese
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Mafia bosses do not come much more brutal than Giuseppe and Filippo Graviano. Among the crimes, for which the brothers have been serving life sentences since 1994 are involvement in the murder of two anti-Mafia judges, the killing of an anti-Mafia priest, the bombing of the Uffizi Gallery in Florence and another in Rome that killed 10 people and injured 93.

Yet both have shown an unexpected aptitude for turning their brainpower to a higher purpose: academic study. They recently gained first-class degrees — Giuseppe in mathematics and Filippo in economics.

Prison authorities said that a growing number of imprisoned Mafia killers are taking degrees, and that their motives may not be entirely to do with academic achievement.

“A favourite subject is law,” Giuseppe Giustolisi, an expert on the Mafia, said. “Either they want to find out where they went wrong, or they hope they will get out one day and that detailed knowledge of the law will help them to evade prison in future.”


He said that another motive was that they were allowed to travel to the university where they had enrolled to take exams — and the universities were often in their home towns.

“I am worried that this loophole in the high-security system enables them to somehow communicate with their local henchman,” Sebastiano Ardita, the former head of the Italian prison service, said.

Mafia bosses with first-class degrees include Pietro Aglieri — convicted for killing the judges Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino — who graduated in theology. Aglieri was a lieutenant of Totò Riina, who was arrested after the murders of Falcone and Borsellino in 1992, and Bernardo Provenzano, who was arrested near Corleone in Sicily.

Neither Riina nor Provenzano are known for their interest in reading, apart from the Bible, which Provenzano used as a codebook for cryptic messages to subordinates. Aglieri was known in the Cosa Nostra as 'U Signurinu (the Little Gentleman) for his love of the Greek and Latin classics.

Other mafiosi with degrees include Antonio Libri, convicted of extortion and kidnapping in Reggio Calabria, who studied sociology, and Giuseppe Gullotti, convicted for murdering a journalist, who studied law.

Mr Ardita said: “I do not believe they have changed their ways. There is something more to it.” He said that a display of intellectual superiority helped Mafia bosses to maintain their “supremacy” over clans, and travelling to their home turfs to take exams offered “a loophole in a system that is supposed to isolate them”. Antonio Ingroia, an anti-Mafia prosecutor in Sicily, said: “It does seem absurd to relax a high-security regime intended to ensure they have no contact with the criminal underworld.”

However, Emilio Santoro, a professor at Florence University, said that even Mafia bosses deserved a chance to better themselves. He cited the case of Carmelo Musumeci, a mafioso from Catania, who gained a law degree with a dissertation on “the experiences of prisoners serving life sentences”.

Mafia prisoners are held under a security regime known as 41b, which the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg has criticised as excessively harsh. They are allowed only two visits a month and open-air exercise for up to four hours a day.

There is a picture of the two men on the times site if you care to look the link below will take you there.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article3221232.ece


If i come across the table and take your f*****g eyes out ,will you remember

Aniello Dellacroce
__________________________________
TFI 2nd Bday - Dj Topgroove + Mc Domer
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=wN58sasrpYc

TFI Lucky Star
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=uw-Uw0DUAGo

Happy Hardcore DJ Hixxy
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=4Pv7H4YkFKs
Re: Real Life Organized Crime News [Re: chopper] #466182
01/22/08 12:01 PM
01/22/08 12:01 PM
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Sheffield UK
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Gaetano Lucchese
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Gaetano Lucchese

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Naples is a nice place to visit if you don't have to smell it. There is a lot of old (and new) rubbish in the southern Italian state of Campania of which Naples is the capital.
And it stinks, both literally and in terms of organised crime.

Apart from the increasing piles of refuse, a feature of the city is the Camorra, one of the most powerful of the five principal Mafia groups in Italy.

The two problems are linked. (The garbage problem has been going on for over 14 years. The Camorra much longer). The connection is that the Camorra make a perfumed profit from the business of disposing waste in illegal dumps. (Regardless of what the republican police attempt to prevent the rottenness ).

This is only an adjunct to the global activity of the Camorra. They provide loans at exorbitant rates to sweatshops that provide many of the the lucrative garments Italy sells abroad.

The import of arms from eastern Europe is also an earner. Associates launder money through businesses from Taiwan to Brno, from Miami Beach to New South Wales and back again. (Call it globalisation.)

Their open-air drug market in Segondigliano in Campania is a side show in terms of revenue.

The group would be worth hundreds of millions of euros if it were listed on the Milan stock exchange.

It is not just the hapless government of prime minister Romano Prodi in Rome that is upset. It is the remaining, aged, godfathers of Sicily who are witness to, and envious of, such an impressive performance.


http://eursoc.com/news/fullstory.php/aid/2233/Something_Rotten_In_The_State_Of_Campania.html


If i come across the table and take your f*****g eyes out ,will you remember

Aniello Dellacroce
__________________________________
TFI 2nd Bday - Dj Topgroove + Mc Domer
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=wN58sasrpYc

TFI Lucky Star
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=uw-Uw0DUAGo

Happy Hardcore DJ Hixxy
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=4Pv7H4YkFKs
Re: Real Life Organized Crime News [Re: chopper] #466221
01/22/08 01:59 PM
01/22/08 01:59 PM
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I read the new book, "Gomorrah," recently, and it spells out just how pervasive and powerful the Camorra is in Naples and surrounding areas. And violent--no holds barred, no "civilians," no restraints.


Ntra la porta tua lu sangu � sparsu,
E nun me mporta si ce muoru accisu...
E s'iddu muoru e vaju mparadisu
Si nun ce truovo a ttia, mancu ce trasu.
Re: Real Life Organized Crime News [Re: Turnbull] #466313
01/22/08 06:15 PM
01/22/08 06:15 PM
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Gaetano Lucchese
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So did you enjoy the book Turnbull? Is it worth buying?


If i come across the table and take your f*****g eyes out ,will you remember

Aniello Dellacroce
__________________________________
TFI 2nd Bday - Dj Topgroove + Mc Domer
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=wN58sasrpYc

TFI Lucky Star
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=uw-Uw0DUAGo

Happy Hardcore DJ Hixxy
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=4Pv7H4YkFKs
Re: Real Life Organized Crime News [Re: chopper] #466538
01/23/08 07:42 AM
01/23/08 07:42 AM
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Gaetano Lucchese
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A Palermo Court handed out sentences worth a total of over 400 years on Monday to 38 Sicilian Mafia figures.

The majority of convicts were linked to Cosa Nostra boss Bernardo Provenanzo who was captured in 2006.

A total of 52 suspects were arrested during the same year, including the heads of the 13 Sicilian Mafia families.

The heaviest sentences, at 20 years, were handed out to Antonino Rotolo and Franco Bonura, respective heads of the Pagliarelli and Uditore clans.


http://www.makfax.com.mk/look/novina/art...62&NrSection=30


If i come across the table and take your f*****g eyes out ,will you remember

Aniello Dellacroce
__________________________________
TFI 2nd Bday - Dj Topgroove + Mc Domer
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=wN58sasrpYc

TFI Lucky Star
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=uw-Uw0DUAGo

Happy Hardcore DJ Hixxy
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=4Pv7H4YkFKs
Re: Real Life Organized Crime News [Re: chopper] #466539
01/23/08 07:43 AM
01/23/08 07:43 AM
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Gaetano Lucchese
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Palermo, Jan.22 - Gaspare Pulizzi, one of the chief henchmen of Mafia boss Salvatore Lo Piccolo, arrested on 5 November in Giardinello (Paleromo) along with the chief henchman of Tommaso Natale and his son, has started to cooperated with the anti-mafia investigators. Pulizzi is the third boss of the Lo Piccolo clan who decided to cooperate, after Francesco Franzese and Antonino Nuccio.
Pulizzi's relatives have taken away from Carini, the town he lives in. Police had to resort to firmness when taking them away, because the boss' relatives, who clearly didn't support Pulizzi's decision, didn't want the officers to take his wife and kids away

http://www.agi.it/italy/news/200801222022-cro-ren0116-art.html


If i come across the table and take your f*****g eyes out ,will you remember

Aniello Dellacroce
__________________________________
TFI 2nd Bday - Dj Topgroove + Mc Domer
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=wN58sasrpYc

TFI Lucky Star
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=uw-Uw0DUAGo

Happy Hardcore DJ Hixxy
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=4Pv7H4YkFKs
Re: Real Life Organized Crime News [Re: chopper] #466875
01/24/08 09:12 AM
01/24/08 09:12 AM
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Gaetano Lucchese
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In the 1970s, he was "Sonny," the mobster with a penchant for blowing things up.

In 1980, a judge called Sonny "rotten to the core" and shipped him off to prison for his role in a bombing spree that killed a prominent mob leader and leveled local gambling parlors.

On Wednesday, Dominic "Sonny" Celestino was a very different man from the one involved in the 1970s bloodbath in which two Rochester Mafia factions fought a violent turf battle. A wilting wiseguy, Celestino, 77, is now hobbled by poor health and is nearly deaf and blind.

Nevertheless, he was in federal court again, admitting to yet another crime. Now somewhat more stagger than swagger, Celestino was a far cry from the rebellious hoodlum of a different era.

On Wednesday, Celestino pleaded guilty to a crime that was either breathtaking in scope or just plain goofy. Celestino admitted that he and others plotted almost a decade ago to try to illegally move almost $100 million through bank wire transfers.

However, even federal prosecutors acknowledged that Celestino's role was "minimal," and questions had been raised during past court hearings about how aware he was of the criminal goings-on.

Also part of the scheme, prosecutors say, was former Rochester mobster Francesco Frassetto, who in 2006 admitted to a cocaine-trafficking conspiracy and was sentenced to 10 years in prison. Prosecutors dropped charges against him that were connected to the wire transfer allegations.

The wire transfers never occurred, and federal authorities have said little about the likelihood that the crime could have been pulled off. Assistant U.S. Attorney Charles Wydysh, who prosecuted the case, said the criminal participants clearly thought they could pull off a $100 million crime.

Celestino's plea agreement alleges involvement by several co-conspirators who have not been charged. The statute of limitations has expired for most charges that could be associated with the crimes, which authorities allege occurred in 1998 and 1999.

Celestino was indicted in 2004, before the statutory time limit was reached.

"I would think this concludes the investigation," Wydysh said after Celestino's plea Wednesday.

In the plea, Celestino acknowledged that he and several other men, including Frassetto, had planned to move almost $100 million in wire transfers reminiscent of the baseball double-play combination known as Tinker to Evers to Chance. The money was to be routed to the Bahamas, then to a bank in Miami, the plea says.

Celestino said in the plea that he and others knew the money had been "stolen from a bank in New York City." Prosecutors say the initial theft never happened.

Celestino was among people who met with an FBI informant in Rochester in November 1998 to "discuss the execution of the illicit wire transfer," the plea agreement states.

Among others mentioned in the plea are Anthony Lepardo Jr. of Boston, who in 2006 admitted to a role in the scheme and was sentenced to 18 months in prison, and another co-conspirator named E. Dawson Roberts.

The plea alleges that the money was to be routed through an account in the Bahamas "associated with" Roberts.

Under federal sentencing guidelines, which are advisory, Celestino faces between 18 and 24 months in prison. The judge could sentence him to less, and Celestino might even avoid prison. Prosecutors agreed that they would recommend that federal parole officials not revoke Celestino's parole and jail him because of his plea.

Celestino's attorney, Lawrence Andolina, said after the plea that he was surprised authorities pursued a case against Celestino, given his health and the small role he had in the crimes.

"This is one of the dumbest cases I've been involved with," Andolina said.

Celestino is scheduled to be sentenced on May 8, and his latest journey through the court system could well be the last such trip for a former Rochester mobster. Some have died, some have committed new crimes and been jailed again, and others are now walking the straight and narrow.

"How are you feeling today?" U.S. District Judge David Larimer asked Celestino after the guilty plea.

"I feel all right," Celestino said. "I'm tired of all this, if you know what I mean."

"Well, yes, I do," Larimer said.


http://www.democratandchronicle.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080124/NEWS01/801240356/1002/NEWS


If i come across the table and take your f*****g eyes out ,will you remember

Aniello Dellacroce
__________________________________
TFI 2nd Bday - Dj Topgroove + Mc Domer
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=wN58sasrpYc

TFI Lucky Star
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=uw-Uw0DUAGo

Happy Hardcore DJ Hixxy
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=4Pv7H4YkFKs
Re: Real Life Organized Crime News [Re: chopper] #467062
01/25/08 06:00 AM
01/25/08 06:00 AM
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Gaetano Lucchese
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A purported member of the Gambino crime family and five other men have been charged in a 42-count grand jury indictment with fraud involving telemarketing and real estate deals, federal prosecutors said Thursday.

The indictment charges that Vincent Artuso, 63, is a member of the New York-based Mafia organization and supervised the others in various fraud and money-laundering transactions.

Some of the charges involve a Deerfield Beach-based telemarketing firm that allegedly sold fraudulent magazine subscriptions nationwide in a scheme to obtain credit card numbers and steal from the victims.

The men also allegedly set up a scheme involving the sale and lease of several buildings that defrauded ADT Security Services Inc. of at least $7 million over five years, according to the indictment.

All six were scheduled to make initial appearances on the charges today in federal court.

The suspects each face at least 20 years in prison if convicted of mail fraud, wire fraud, money laundering and violation of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations conspiracy law.

http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20080125/NEWS/801250386/-1/newssitemap


If i come across the table and take your f*****g eyes out ,will you remember

Aniello Dellacroce
__________________________________
TFI 2nd Bday - Dj Topgroove + Mc Domer
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=wN58sasrpYc

TFI Lucky Star
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=uw-Uw0DUAGo

Happy Hardcore DJ Hixxy
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=4Pv7H4YkFKs
Re: Real Life Organized Crime News [Re: chopper] #467313
01/26/08 08:04 AM
01/26/08 08:04 AM
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Gaetano Lucchese
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Sheffield UK
Here is some more news on Vincent Artuso,


Reputed Gambino crime family member Vincent Artuso found himself in a familiar uniform Friday morning — blue jail scrubs, handcuffs and leg chains — for an appearance before a federal magistrate.

Artuso, 63, who has served federal prison time for heroin and cocaine distribution, now faces a 42-count indictment unsealed Thursday alleging he supervised a South Florida organization involved in various fraud and money-laundering transactions — allegations his attorney called false on Friday.

Some of the charges involve a Deerfield Beach-based telemarketing firm — Atlantic Magazine Service — that allegedly sold fraudulent magazine subscriptions nationwide in a scheme to obtain credit card numbers and steal from the victims. At various times, the marketing firm also was based in Delray Beach and Pompano Beach.

The men also allegedly set up a scheme involving the sale and lease of four buildings in Broward and Palm Beach counties, Illinois and Pennsylvania that defrauded ADT Security Services Inc. of Boca Raton of at least $7 million over five years, according to the indictment.

Coral Gables attorney Michael Tein, who represents Artuso, said there was no merit to the allegations.

"Mr. Artuso is innocent, he will be pleading innocent and he looks forward to proving his innocence at trial," Tein said.

Tein also denied allegations in the indictment that Aruso is a member of the "Gambino Organized Crime Family of La Cosa Nostra."

Mafia turncoat Sammy "The Bull" Gravano testified at John Gotti's 1992 murder and racketeering trial that Artuso was one of four gunmen tapped by the ambitious Gotti to hit then Gambino boss Paul Castellano so he could take over the crime family.

Castellano and his underboss died in a hail of bullets on Dec.16, 1985, in front of Sparks Steak House on East 46th Street in midtown Manhattan, but Gravano testified Artuso's gun jammed and that he didn't fire any shots.

When the Dapper Don died in prison of cancer in 2002, New York newspapers reported the names of some of the more notorious mobsters — including Vinnie Artuso — who paid their tributes during Gotti's two-day wake.

Tein said Artuso was not involved in the Castellano killing. "That's 100 percent ridiculous and false," he said.

Artuso was the first of the defendants to appear Friday morning before U.S. Magistrate Anne Vitunac.

Assistant U.S. Attorney J. Brian McCormick told the judge that prosecutors were initially willing to let Artuso be released on $750,000 bail. But since Artuso wouldn't give federal probation officials any information on his finances, McCormick asked that Artuso be detained at Palm Beach County Main Jail until a bail hearing can be held.

Another defendant is a former vice president of ADT who allegedly sold the buildings for prices well under market value to companies set up under Artuso's direction, which then leased the buildings back to ADT, according to the indictment.

The suspects each face more than 20 years in prison if convicted of mail fraud, wire fraud, money laundering and racketeering charges.

Vitunac set bail hearings at 10 a.m. Wednesday for Artuso and four other defendants — Artuso's son, John Vincent Artuso; Gregory Orr; Robert M. Gannon; and William L. Horton, the former ADT vice president. A sixth defendant, Philip E. Forgione, is in custody in Pennsylvania, where he also faces charges in two separate federal indictments.


http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/palmbeach/sfl-flpgambino0126pnjan26,0,2376851.story


If i come across the table and take your f*****g eyes out ,will you remember

Aniello Dellacroce
__________________________________
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Re: Real Life Organized Crime News [Re: chopper] #467314
01/26/08 08:06 AM
01/26/08 08:06 AM
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Gaetano Lucchese
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Salvatore Battaglia, a/k/a “Hotdogs,” former president of Local 1181 of the Amalgamated Transit Union has pleaded guilty to racketeering based on the extortion of two bus company owners whose employees were members of the union and a third bus company owner whose employees were not union members.

During the guilty plea before United States Magistrate Judge Andrew Peck, Battaglia admitted that, as president of Local 1181, he engaged in a pattern of racketeering activity including extorting three different bus company owners whose employees were members of the union.

Battaglia faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. Sentencing is scheduled for May 16.

From approximately 2002 to 2006, Battaglia was president of Local 1181, a union that represents approximately15,000 school bus drivers and school bus escorts who work for companies that contract with the New York Department of Education to provide school bus transportation to public schools throughout New York City.

Prosecutors say the Genovese Organized Crime Family of La Cosa Nostra has influenced and controlled Local 1181 since the 1970s, and Battaglia was proposed for membership in the Genovese Organized Crime Family in 2000. Battaglia allegedly collected and received illegal payments of tens of thousands of dollars from bus company owners and operators whose employees were members of Local 1181,using both his union status and his organized crime status to induce payment.

The indictment against Battaglia was the product of along-term investigation, and charged a total of 20 defendants– all of whom were named as members or associates of the Genovese Organized Crime Family or of other LCN crime families -with wide-ranging racketeering crimes and other offenses spanning more than a decade, including extortion, labor racketeering, loan sharking, illegal gambling, and obstruction of justice.

Battaglia is the third high-ranking union official to be convicted for crimes committed during their times in office. On Aug. 31, 2006, Julius Bernstein, a/k/a “Spike”, who was an employee and officer of Local 1181 for over 30 years, during which time he rose to the position of secretary/treasurer, pleaded guilty to participating in the affairs of the Genovese Organized Crime Family from the 1950s to 2006, and committing crimes during that period including labor racketeering, extortion, robbery, gambling, and obstruction of justice.

On Aug. 11, 2006, Anne Chiarovano, an employee of Local 1181 for over 40 years, during which time she rose to the position of director of the Employees’ Pension and Welfare Fund, pleaded guilty to the obstruction of the FBI’s investigation into the connection between Local 1181 and the Genovese Organized Crime Family. 1-24-08


http://www.northcountrygazette.org/news/2008/01/24/bus_company_extortion/


If i come across the table and take your f*****g eyes out ,will you remember

Aniello Dellacroce
__________________________________
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Happy Hardcore DJ Hixxy
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Re: Real Life Organized Crime News [Re: chopper] #468041
01/28/08 03:58 AM
01/28/08 03:58 AM
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Gaetano Lucchese
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This really suprised me \:o

Aberdeen revealed as the British power base for Italy's most deadly crime family.

THE prospect of waking up with a severed seagull's head on your pillow may not be as chilling as the grizzly equine warning issued by the Corleone clan.

But Aberdeen has been revealed as the UK power base of the deadly Neapolitan mafia.

Undercover journalist Roberto Saviano infiltrated the all-powerful Naples-based Camorra and his account of his time with the mob has sold more than one million copies in Italy alone.

His book, Gomorrah: Italy's Other Mafia, has now been translated into English and makes the sensational claim that the Granite City was – and may still be – the focus of the crime clan's British operations.

Saviano alleges that from the 1980s, Italian gangsters ran a network of lucrative businesses in the oil-rich city as well as many illegal rackets.

The 29-year-old, who now lives in hiding under police protection, also claimed that a native Scot was the first non-Italian to become a kingpin of the criminal fraternity – said to have killed more people than any other terror group in Europe.

But the suggestion that the city remains in the grip of mobsters has been strongly denied by Italians in Aberdeen, who say it is an insult to the city's 600-strong Italian community.

Saviano claims he went to Aberdeen and worked in a restaurant run by Camorra crime lord Antonio La Torre, who was arrested in 2005 and jailed in Italy for extortion and racketeering.

Former Aberdeen restaurateur Michele Siciliano, who is said to have looked after La Torre's finances following his extradition, reportedly gave himself up to anti-mafia prosecutors the following year.

Another city restaurant boss Ciro Schiattarella is facing 26 years in jail after being extradited to Italy to face mafia- related charges.

Saviano said Scotland's third city, with no history of organised crime, was seen as an attractive safe haven away from the violent inter-gang blood-letting that had engulfed their Italian stronghold of Mondragone, north of Naples. "Aberdeen is the door to Great Britain," he said. "Before the Italian clans arrived, Aberdeen didn't know how to exploit its resources for recreation and tourism. It was dark, dirty and grey with people packed into pubs once a week.

"The Italians infused the city with economic energy, revitalised the tourist industry, inspired new import-export activities and injected new vigour in the real-estate sector. Aberdeen became chic, an elegant address for fine dining and important dealings."

The hub of La Torre's UK empire, Pavarotti's restaurant, now under different ownership, was even feted at Italissima, a prestigious gastronomic fair held in Paris.

Back in Aberdeen, it is claimed the Camorristas operated a system known as "scratch" where they used to step up illegal activities if their legitimate ventures were struggling. He said: "If cash was short they had counterfeit notes printed; if capital was needed in a hurry, they sold bogus treasury bonds. They annihilated the competition through extortions and imported merchandise tax-free."

The young Italian investigator claims that a native Scot, who is not named in the UK edition for legal reasons, made history by becoming the first foreign affiliate.

"La Torre's trustworthy ally, the Scottish Camorrista, effortlessly dissolved any residual relations in order to join the Mondragonesi.

… (He was] unquestionably the number one foreign Camorrista in Italian criminal history."

Saviano claims the tartan mobster continues to receive a monthly salary, legal assistance and protection from the crime clan.

The Camorra, a loose affiliation of family crime networks, is believed to be responsible for more than 3,600 deaths since 1975 – more than the IRA, ETA or their Sicilian counterparts La Cosa Nostra.

But one Aberdeen restaurant worker, who declined to be named, stressed that the Doric dons never resorted to such violence. He said: "

They were able to run all sort of deals because the police here had virtually no experience in dealing with organised crime. Although they broke the law there was never any guns or serious violence. Because they had no real rivals they could concentrate on making money."

Giuseppe Baldini, the Italian government's vice-consul in Aberdeen, said Saviano's exposé was being widely read there.

"His version of events may or may not be true, but it reads like the plot of a crime novel written by John Grisham or Ken Follet," he said. "But what is for sure is that there is no longer, if there ever was, any mafia involvement in Aberdeen. They are gone now. The most painful thing for me is that the entire Italian community in Aberdeen has been labelled as criminals and gangsters.

Why do the rest of us, who are hard-working, law-abiding citizens, have to suffer because of this?

"In other cities the Muslim community is treated with suspicion because of the actions of a tiny minority and I sympathise with them because that is what has happened to us."

Saviano, dubbed Italy's Salman Rushdie for the price on his head, stands by his work and remains unrepentant for standing up to the mob. "I'm not afraid of what could happen to me and I believe that what I've done in writing this books has been worth it," he said.

"I'm nostalgic for all the things that I can no longer do, but I would write it all over again if I were given the choice."

http://scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com/scotland/Dons-on-the-Don.3715394.jp


An offer you cannae refuse

The top 10 Aberdeen-based mobster classics:

• The Codfaither

• Mock Chop and Two Smoking Kippers

• Raging Gull

• Oil Capone

• Don-nie Brasco

• Mean Streets

• Coldfellas

• Buttery Malone

• The Lang Guid Fry-day

• Sairface


If i come across the table and take your f*****g eyes out ,will you remember

Aniello Dellacroce
__________________________________
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TFI Lucky Star
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Happy Hardcore DJ Hixxy
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Re: Real Life Organized Crime News [Re: chopper] #468272
01/28/08 07:03 PM
01/28/08 07:03 PM
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Gaetano Lucchese
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Dunmore man arrested and jailed last week for allegedly extorting money from the company that cleaned pigeon droppings from the Lackawanna County Courthouse has been indicted by a federal grand jury in Florida with racketeering, money laundering and fraud.


In a 42-count indictment that also names a man identified by prosecutors as a member of the Gambino crime family, prosecutors say Philip Forgione, 65, 1315 N. Webster Ave., and others participated in a scam that bilked at least $7 million from ADT Security.

The Florida indictment, filed last week and unsealed Thursday, put an end to Mr. Forgione’s fight for release from prison while awaiting trial in Scranton.

A detainer has been filed that would send him back to southern Florida should he be released from Lackawanna County Prison. He was jailed last week after being charged with conspiracy, money laundering, and aiding and abetting interference with commerce by threats or violence.

For now, though, Mr. Forgione is a patient at Mercy Hospital. He was admitted Tuesday night for a heart condition, just hours after he told U.S. Magistrate Judge Thomas Blewitt he could no longer take his heart medication because his blood pressure had dropped significantly.

His attorney, Paul Walker, had no further information on his condition Thursday.

The Florida indictment involves numerous allegations of fraud by Vincent Artuso, who prosecutors say is a member of the Gambino crime family, and William Larry Horton, identified in court paperwork as a vice president of planning and development at ADT Security Services Inc.

According to the indictment, Mr. Horton sold “several properties owned by ADT across the country — including one in Lancaster County — for “far below market value” to Mr. Artuso, Mr. Forgione and others named in court papers. They then leased the properties back to ADT “at a cost substantially above fair market value,” the indictment says.

“The monthly lease payments made by ADT were made to limited liability companies formed by the defendants for the purpose of concealing their ownership interests, including Horton’s,” the indictment reads. “In this way, the defendants defrauded ADT of at least $7 million in a period of five years.”

Prosecutors say the money to buy the properties was obtained through another scam Mr. Artuso and others named in the indictment were involved in, though Mr. Forgione was not a participant. This scam, the indictment says, involved a company that sold magazine subscriptions over the phone and used the credit card information they obtained to make unauthorized charges.

Mr. Artuso is accused of using “his position and reputation as an organized crime member to unlawfully influence and intimidate (people) doing business” with them.

Mentioned in the indictment was CAE Enterprises Inc., a business investigators say Mr. Forgione owned and operated from his home.

That business also came up in the local indictment. Mr. Forgione and Charles Costanzo, the county’s former workers’ compensation fund administrator, are accused of extorting more than $300,000 from Alicon Environmental Inc., which was paid $1.8 million by the county for removing 20 tons of pigeon dung.

From Dec. 14, 2004 to April 4, 2006, Alicon paid Mr. Forgione $94,550, which he deposited into a CAE Enterprises bank account, according to the indictment.

Earlier this week, Mr. Forgione was indicted on federal firearms violations after investigators with the Lackawanna County district attorney’s office searched his North Webster Avenue home and found three guns in the attic.

Mr. Forgione is a convicted felon, and by law cannot possess a gun.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Lorna Graham said Thursday the federal charges in Scranton will be handled before Mr. Forgione is returned to Florida to face the charges there.

http://www.thetimes-tribune.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=19231418&BRD=2185&PAG=461&dept_id=415898&rfi=6


If i come across the table and take your f*****g eyes out ,will you remember

Aniello Dellacroce
__________________________________
TFI 2nd Bday - Dj Topgroove + Mc Domer
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TFI Lucky Star
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Happy Hardcore DJ Hixxy
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Re: Real Life Organized Crime News [Re: chopper] #468658
01/29/08 06:27 PM
01/29/08 06:27 PM
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Gaetano Lucchese
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STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- An Eltingville man who was the co-owner of a Brooklyn pharmacy raided by authorities in connection with a multistate probe into illicit drug use, was found shot dead last night on a floor above the Bay Ridge store.

The body of John Rossi, 56, part-owner of Lowen's Pharmacy, 6902 Third Avenue, was discovered shortly before 7 p.m. by a store employee.

Rossi had a single gunshot wound to his head. However, police believe Rossi took his own life using a .380 caliber handgun found near his body. The medical examiner planned to perform an autopsy today.

Authorities recovered a suicide note at the scene that sources said mentioned the high-profile steroid investigation.

At the time of Rossi's death, police were investigating who his customers were and his level of involvement in dispensing steroids, according to a report in today's Newsday. The report also said the Brooklyn district attorney's office was close to bringing the case to a grand jury.

The Advance reported last fall that a Staten Island doctor, a local gym chain and a wellness center were targets of an ever-widening probe into the shadowy underworld of illegal steroid trafficking.

A massive, multistate investigation -- which began with Orlando, Fla.-based Signature Pharmacy -- began to turn in the Island's direction in October with a raid of Lowen's Pharmacy in Bay Ridge that netted $7.5 million worth of human growth hormone and anabolic steroids, and a list of prescriptions for the illicit muscle-bulking drugs.

A common name on those scripts: Dr. Richard Lucente, an osteopath with medical offices in Dongan Hills and Bay Ridge, and a wide range of clients, including NYPD officers, bodybuilders and local high school athletes, several sources familiar with the ongoing investigation said. It was Dr. Lucente who wrote the prescriptions for muscle-bulking drugs for several of the six cops who are under investigation by the Police Department, sources said.

Dr. Lucente has not been charged with a crime and has not been disciplined by the state Health Department.

Lowen's Pharmacy took on a greater role in the illegal steroids market after Signature Pharmacy was shut down in February, according to Albany District Attorney P. David Soares, who began the investigation into Internet prescription drug sales.

It is not illegal in New York for pharmacies to dispense steroids and human growth hormone for valid medical purposes, but their activities are tightly regulated and it is a crime for a doctor to prescribe drugs without examining the patient.

Lowen's is housed in a building co-owned by Rossi and Julius Nasso, a pharmacist-turned-movie producer who was sentenced to prison in 2003 for conspiring with Gambino crime family members to extort money from actor Steven Seagal. Nasso's attorney said his client has nothing to do with the drugstore or its day-to-day business.

In May, the state Bureau of Economic Enforcement raided the Bay Ridge drugstore and seized medical records and nearly $200,000 worth of steroids and human growth hormone. The state Health Department's Bureau of Narcotic Enforcement seized several million dollars more last October.

In a statement sent to the Advance at that time, however, Lowen's law firm rebutted that information.

The law firm added that Lowen's continues to cooperate with state officials. A representative of the Brooklyn district attorney's office said the case will be presented to a grand jury.


http://www.silive.com/news/advance/index.ssf?/base/news/1201611609285291.xml&coll=1


If i come across the table and take your f*****g eyes out ,will you remember

Aniello Dellacroce
__________________________________
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Re: Real Life Organized Crime News [Re: chopper] #468915
01/30/08 06:33 PM
01/30/08 06:33 PM
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Police charged a reputed international crime boss with tax evasion Wednesday, pursuing prosecution of a man wanted in the U.S. and suspected of playing a key role in Russia's lucrative natural-gas trade with Europe.

Semyon Mogilevich, long sought by the FBI, had been living freely near Moscow until his arrest last week on a street outside the city's World Trade Center.

Some observers say that, by removing Mogilevich, the Kremlin may be seeking to strengthen the hand of President Vladimir Putin's chosen successor, Dmitry Medvedev, who chairs the board of Gazprom, the state gas monopoly.

Police investigators charged Mogilevich in the Moscow jail where he is being held, according to his lawyer, Alexander Pogonchikov.

The charges are connected to alleged tax evasion at a Russian cosmetics store chain, whose majority owner was arrested with Mogilevich on Jan. 23. Mogilevich, who denied the charges, has no interest in the business, his lawyer said.

"He is acknowledged as a financial genius all over the world and never deals with fake companies," Pogonchikov said.

U.S. officials have accused Mogilevich, 61, a Ukrainian-born Russian citizen, of running an organized crime ring in the 1990s, initially headquartered in Budapest, Hungary.

FBI Director Robert Mueller said in a speech in 2005 that Mogilevich's organization engaged in "drug and weapons trafficking, prostitution and money laundering, and organized stock fraud in the United States and Canada in which investors lost over $150 million."

Mogilevich was considered such a key figure that the FBI for several years operated a task force in Budapest to investigate his organization.

He has been wanted by the FBI since 2003, accused of manipulating the stock of a Pennsylvania-based company, YBM Magnex Inc., which collapsed in 1998.

The U.S. Justice Department's Organized Crime and Racketeering Section has been investigating Mogilevich's suspected ties to the trading company that has a monopoly on gas sales to Ukraine and supplies gas to Europe, a Justice Department official confirmed this week.

Russia has no plans to hand over Mogilevich for prosecution in the U.S., said Anzhela Kastuyeva, a police spokeswoman. "He is a Russian citizen and we do not intend to extradite him," she said.

The Swiss-registered company, RosUkrEnergo, which is owned jointly by Gazprom and two Ukrainian businessmen, has come under growing scrutiny since it was formed four years ago.

The company played a controversial role in the settlement of a dispute between Russia and Ukraine over gas prices, which led to a brief shutdown of supplies to Ukraine in January 2006. The cutoff was also felt in Western Europe.

The arrest of Mogilevich came after Yulia Tymoshenko was named Ukraine's prime minister in December. She has called for Russia and Ukraine to scrap the gas deal, charging it is corrupt.

"I stress my position once again — Ukraine and Russia don't need any kind of intermediaries," she said Wednesday at a news conference in Kiev, the Ukrainian capital.

Tymoshenko said she believed Mogilevich was linked to RosUkrEnergo, although she acknowledged she had no hard evidence.

Ukrainian law enforcement officials investigated possible ties between RosUkrEnergo and Mogilevich in 2005, during an earlier period when Tymoshenko was prime minister. But the case was closed after Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko fired her later that year.

Vladimir Milov, president of the Institute of Energy Policy, said Mogilevich's arrest most likely was linked to Tymoshenko's planned visit to Moscow in February and Medvedev's bid to win the Russian presidency on March 2.

"I think that the goal ... most likely was to protect Medvedev, to remove an undesirable witness to all the various suspicious operations connected to RosUkrEnergo," Milov said in a radio interview.

Some others observers said they saw the arrest as part of a power struggle among Kremlin factions, with supporters of Medvedev pursuing the case against Mogilevich to weaken hard-liners who oppose his candidacy. Mogilevich's removal could also strengthen Medvedev's control over Gazprom, they said.


http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hk7C9xrwYQ0-V88kTdkgK4tqaA2AD8UGCP0O0


If i come across the table and take your f*****g eyes out ,will you remember

Aniello Dellacroce
__________________________________
TFI 2nd Bday - Dj Topgroove + Mc Domer
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=wN58sasrpYc

TFI Lucky Star
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=uw-Uw0DUAGo

Happy Hardcore DJ Hixxy
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=4Pv7H4YkFKs
Re: Real Life Organized Crime News [Re: chopper] #468917
01/30/08 06:36 PM
01/30/08 06:36 PM
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Gaetano Lucchese
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Few insiders bet against Scranton-area businessman Louis DeNaples when he bought the shuttered and decaying Mount Airy Lodge resort for $25 million and declared his intention to enter Pennsylvania's budding slot-machine casino industry.



DeNaples, 67, had just about everything going for him: He was powerful, wealthy and a household name in northeastern Pennsylvania. He had given lavishly to politicians of all stripes. And his main competitor for a highly coveted slots license was an interloper from New Jersey.

So it was hardly unexpected when the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board gave its unanimous approval to DeNaples in December 2006, awarding him a license after what it called an "extensive investigation" into his background.

But now that a grand jury has accused DeNaples of lying to the board about his relationship with a pair of reputed mobsters, the owner of the $412 million Mount Airy Casino Resort is under fresh scrutiny _ as is the process by which Pennsylvania was supposed to shield its newest industry, slots, from organized crime.

"This particular license has been fraught with problems from the very beginning," said Rep. Doug Reichley, R-Lehigh, a slots critic. "It has raised a lot of concerns about the manner in which the license was awarded."

The gaming board has said that its background investigation of DeNaples turned up nothing to indicate he was of "unsuitable character" to own a casino.

Indeed, he came with a sparkling resume.

From humble beginnings (his family couldn't afford to send him to college), DeNaples built an empire that includes two landfills, an auto parts store, and interests in banking, real estate, garbage disposal, heavy equipment and scores of other businesses.

He has said he owns and operates nearly 100 businesses. His land holdings are vast. He's held seats on a number of boards, including Blue Cross of Northeastern Pennsylvania.

DeNaples is also a philanthropist, donating large sums to Scranton Preparatory School _ where he sent his seven children _ the University of Scranton, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Scranton, the United Way and many other charitable and nonprofit institutions.

The lone blemish on his record, a felony conviction from 1978, did not disqualify him from getting a casino license under state gaming law because it was more than 15 years old. Gambling regulators did not even take note of it when they filed their official "adjudication" explaining their reasons for giving DeNaples a license.

But that case has long provided fodder for speculation about DeNaples' alleged ties to the underworld.

Prosecutors said DeNaples, who supplied heavy equipment to Lackawanna County to clean up damage from Tropical Storm Agnes in 1972, plotted with three county employees to falsify records to obtain $525,000 in federal reimbursements.

DeNaples was tried for fraud, but the trial ended in a hung jury when one juror _ whose husband had been bribed by a reputed mobster _ held out for acquittal. DeNaples subsequently pleaded no contest to a conspiracy count, paid a $10,000 fine and spent three years on probation.

An FBI investigation later revealed that James Osticco, alleged underboss of the Bufalino crime family of northeastern Pennsylvania, bribed the holdout juror's husband with $1,000, a set of tires and a pocket watch to influence his wife's vote.

Osticco was convicted and sentenced to eight years in prison. DeNaples himself was never accused of wrongdoing and he denied having any knowledge of jury tampering.

DeNaples told The Times-Tribune of Scranton in June 2006 that he "got caught up" in a bad situation in the Agnes case, but that he decided to enter a plea on the advice of his lawyer.

"I didn't have a choice," he said. "I was 30 years old. I had kids at home. I had no money. The lawyer wanted another $10,000, and I didn't have it."

DeNaples' supporters say he has long since redeemed himself for a 30-year-old mistake.

Sal Cognetti Jr., the former assistant U.S. attorney who prosecuted DeNaples, recently acted as a character witness on his slots application.

"Mr. DeNaples has, since 1978, been a magnificent community activist for the betterment of all people in northeastern Pennsylvania," Cognetti said.

"You judge a man by his whole life, not something that happened 30 years ago and I think when you judge Mr. DeNaples by his whole life, he is an honorable person," Cognetti told the gaming board in October.

But while DeNaples has been able to put his Agnes woes behind him, he has been less successful at shaking persistent rumors about the mob.

Some of the information connecting DeNaples to the Mafia is contained in old reports by the Pennsylvania Crime Commission. The state agency investigated organized crime and public corruption, but wielded no prosecutorial power and was disbanded in 1994 amid criticism that it treated rumor and hearsay as fact.

Commission reports from the 1980s said that William D'Elia, a reputed member of the Bufalino crime family of northeastern Pennsylvania, sold space at DeNaples' Keystone Sanitary Landfill. Informants later alleged that DeNaples paid "protection money" to D'Elia to keep other mobsters away from the landfill.

According to a 2001 federal affidavit, one informant claimed that DeNaples and D'Elia met weekly for many years and that "DeNaples has become a rich man through D'Elia's contacts in New York and New Jersey."

While under law enforcement surveillance, D'Elia was twice spotted visiting DeNaples Auto Parts in Dunmore, according to the affidavit, which was filed in support of a search warrant for D'Elia's car and home. DeNaples was not charged, nor were his properties targeted for searches.

DeNaples' spokesman, Kevin Feeley, has said the claims in the affidavit about DeNaples and organized crime are "flat wrong."

DeNaples told the gaming board that he did not have any ties to D'Elia, who is in federal prison awaiting trial on charges of money laundering and solicitation of murder. That denial, made under oath, formed the basis of the perjury charges filed Wednesday.

Prosecutors said DeNaples also lied to the gaming board when he denied any connection to the late Russell Bufalino, a notorious mob boss from Scranton who died in 1994 at age 91.

Bufalino was said to have helped organize the infamous 1957 summit of Mafia bosses in Apalachin, N.Y., which was broken up by police. A Senate subcommittee once called him "one the most ruthless and powerful leaders of the Mafia in the United States." D'Elia, who once served as Bufalino's driver, allegedly took control of the remnants of Bufalino's organization in the early 1990s.

Beyond what DeNaples told gambling regulators about D'Elia and Bufalino, he has consistently denied any involvement in the Mafia, and he has never been charged with a mob-related offense.

While declining to comment on the grand jury's work, regulators have said they awarded DeNaples a license based strictly on the merits of his application.

Rep. Paul Clymer, R-Bucks, minority chairman of the House Gaming Oversight Committee and an outspoken gambling critic, suspects there is more to it.

Campaign finance reports show that DeNaples has given heavily to Republicans and Democrats alike, pouring more than $500,000 into Pennsylvania politicians' coffers in 2004 and 2005 alone. DeNaples, who as a casino owner is barred from giving to politicians, has likened his campaign contributions to "building a customer base and spreading goodwill."

Among the recipients of his largesse was Senate Democratic Leader Robert J. Mellow of Lackawanna County, who twice appointed people to the gaming board with at least indirect ties to DeNaples.

"I always thought that this was a done deal, that the politics behind the closed doors had already made a determination that Louis DeNaples was going to be the recipient," Clymer said.

The gaming board said it weighed every applicant equally, and that DeNaples' proposal was superior to a competing proposal from New Jersey developer Greg Matzel.

But there's no denying that DeNaples himself was confident about his chances. He began construction on his glitzy new casino in July 2006 _ a full five months before gambling regulators announced their decision to award him a license.

http://www.timesleader.com/news/ap?articleID=366097


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Aniello Dellacroce
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Re: Real Life Organized Crime News [Re: chopper] #469009
01/31/08 05:16 AM
01/31/08 05:16 AM
Joined: Mar 2007
Posts: 9,228
Sheffield UK
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Gaetano Lucchese
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Gaetano Lucchese

Joined: Mar 2007
Posts: 9,228
Sheffield UK
The RICO Act isn't just for mob bosses anymore. The U.S. attorney's office has used it to charge 14 members of a Miramar-based chapter of the Bloods gang

Last spring, Miramar police picked up career criminal Earnest Copeland on felony gun charges.

Ever since, Copeland, 36, has been in jail awaiting trial, but investigators said it hasn't slowed his business.

Using his wife as an intermediary, Copeland has continued to run the Miramar chapter of the notorious Bloods gang, which is responsible for dozens of violent offenses, including attempted murder, kidnapping and extortion, the U.S. attorney's office said Tuesday.

Copeland and 13 other high-level members of the Bloods have been charged with racketeering under the RICO Act, which is a tool created more than three decades ago to battle the mob.

A FIRST

This is the first time U.S. Attorney R. Alexander Acosta has used RICO -- the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations statute -- to go after alleged gang members.

''RICO is used to go after criminal enterprises,'' Acosta said at a press conference announcing the indictment Tuesday. ``A gang is just that. It is a criminal enterprise. It has a hierarchy. It operates like a business.''

The joint operation, which included help from Miramar police, the Broward Sheriff's Office, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the U.S. Coast Guard, also resulted in the arrest of other high-level operatives of the Bloods' Miramar chapter, or set.

The indictment named Earnest and Sharlene Copeland, 33; Raymond Edward Desinor, 24; Alfred Jerome Allen, 23; Alden Bert Budhoo, 29; Randolph Dercival Barrow, 20; Michael M. Petty, 19; Omeal Anthony Lee, 22; Willie Lee Ellis, 18; Jeffrey Byrd Jr., 20; Amr Kahlil Ramson, 24; Linus S. Bridgelal, 19; Tyrone Doolam, 21, and Daquan Thomas, 20.

Additionally, alleged gang member Raeshoun Lavi Washington was charged with robbery and conspiracy to commit robbery. It is unclear if he is a member of the Bloods or some other gang in South Florida.

The RICO Act allows authorities to prosecute any person who commits multiple crimes with a similar purpose or results -- more specifically, for money. The penalty is up to 20 years in jail and a $250,000 fine per count.

While the influence of La Cosa Nostra has waned in recent years, gang activity -- particularly in South Florida -- has been on the rise.

Last year, federal authorities in South Florida prosecuted 307 alleged gang members, up from 224 in 2006.

''Almost every day in South Florida, we witness the deadly consequences of gang and gang-related violence,'' Acosta said. ``Gang violence spills into our neighborhoods, killing innocent victims, destroying entire families and poisoning the future and the welfare of our children.''

OTHER CASES

While this is the first time Acosta's office used RICO against gang members, his counterparts across the country have employed it with relative success.

Last September, the leader of the notorious MS-13 gang in Maryland was sentenced to life in prison after he was convicted in federal court on racketeering charges.

Likewise, members of the Vineyard Boys -- a San Fernando Valley, Calif., gang believed to be responsible for the shooting death of a police officer -- also went to prison on RICO charges.

In this particular Bloods gang, Miramar police began noticing a pattern in their investigation of various crimes and felt reaching out to the U.S. attorney's office was the best approach, said Chief Mel Standley.

''I would love to be able to say that we took down the entire Bloods gang organization, but I can't say that,'' Standley added. ``There are others in South Florida and others around the state.''

It is believed the Bloods' rival street gang, the Crips, also have a presence in South Florida.


http://www.miamiherald.com/news/broward/story/398977.html


If i come across the table and take your f*****g eyes out ,will you remember

Aniello Dellacroce
__________________________________
TFI 2nd Bday - Dj Topgroove + Mc Domer
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=wN58sasrpYc

TFI Lucky Star
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=uw-Uw0DUAGo

Happy Hardcore DJ Hixxy
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=4Pv7H4YkFKs
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