IN December 1985, the National Gallery of Victoria became the proud owners of the Picasso masterpiece Weeping Woman.
It was the most expensive artwork acquired by an Australian art gallery and cost Victorian taxpayers $1.6 million.
Eight months later it was gone.
When the painting was first acquired in 1985, gallery director Patrick McCaughey said the painting would “haunt Melbourne for the next 100 years”.
He wasn’t wrong. The biggest art heist in Victoria’s history has never been solved and the culprit (or culprits) never caught.
On Monday, August 4, 1986 The Age newspaper received a letter addressed to then-arts minister Race Mathews that read: “We have stolen the Picasso from the National Gallery as a protest against the niggardly funding of the fine arts in this hick State.”
The paper phoned the gallery and indeed the most expensive painting in the nation was gone.
“Confronting the bare wall and the fake label, I was aghast. I excused myself from the committee meeting and began a search of the gallery, desperately hoping that it was a prank and that the painting had been hidden in the building,” McCaughey said in his book The Bright Shapes and the True Names.
After extensive investigation, our specialized team, the F.B.I. New-Media Task Force, has determined that organized-crime syndicates are being increasingly hampered by an inability to communicate effectively through text messages and e-mails. Agents have found that the Mafia and other large criminal groups are having difficulty planning crimes as a result of overly long strings of messages that are derailed by unrelated jokes and gifs. Our investigators are pleased to report that this pattern has led to a decrease in crime and an increase in criminal organizations’ cellular overage charges.
The bulk of this investigation involved the interception and analysis of Mafia members’ text messages. It was observed that poor texting habits led to many issues. For instance, unrecognized abbreviations often had to be explained (LOL = Lots of Larceny, CSP = Cement Shoes Please, BHK = Break His Knees, etc.). Mobsters who own different brands of phones were inadvertently left out of group texts, and as a result crimes were understaffed and failed. Winking emojis that were meant to subtly imply something illegal were often interpreted as flirtatious, and vice versa.
Combing through Mafia conversations has revealed an organization that is overly chatty, unable to make basic criminal decisions in fewer than fifty logistical messages. Consider this transcript from a group text chain labelled “Legitimate Businessmen”:
Joey Three Snaps: did you get it? Hambone Harry: yah, where can I can hand it off? Joey Three Snaps: Tito’s? Hambone Harry: eh I don’t feel like that, had mexican last night Gus Gus: we don’t have to eat for this meeting Joey Three Snaps: wat do you feel like? Hambone Harry: not Tito’s Gus Gus: guys what about just Starbucks Joey Three Snaps: nah I need to eat Gus Gus: they have muffins n stuff Hambone Harry: guys come on, pick something Gus Gus: sidebar: where’s a good place to start with don delillo?
This particular text conversation continues for another sixty-four minutes until its participants decide to abandon the plan altogether, and to start with “White Noise.” We believe that, in this instance, inept texting combined with numerous long-winded tangents about what constitutes a “low-key date spot” prevented or delayed a serious crime.
The late mob boss John Gotti must be spinning in his grave after NYPD cops raided his iconic home in Howard Beach early Thursday to arrest his namesake grandson on drug charges.
The raid marked the first time ever that members of law enforcement crossed the Gotti threshold armed with a search warrant.
“They destroyed the house,” claimed Gerard Marrone, the lawyer representing John Gotti, the grandson. His father is mob scion Peter Gotti.
Detectives seized $40,000 and 500 Oxycodone pills inside a safe in Gotti’s bedroom where he was shacked up with girlfriend Eleonor Gabrielli, who was also busted, officials said.
Retired FBI supervisor Phil Scala said the 23-year-old grandson’s reckless behavior in the House of Gotti violated a sacred rule. The Dapper Don never conducted mob business in his home because he wanted to protect his family from exposure to his criminal activities, according to Scala, who headed the Bureau’s Gambino squad for years.
“If John was still alive he would be spewing every pejorative he could, knowing that somebody did something so stupid to besmirch his home and his family,” Scala told the Daily News.
Queens District Attorney Richard Brown said Gotti and a crew of dope dealers were peddling Oxycodone pills on the streets of Howard Beach and Ozone Park for $23 to $24 per painkiller pill.
Just like his grandfather was brought down by a bug planted in an elderly woman’s apartment above the mob boss’s Ravenite Social Club in lower Manhattan, investigators secretly installed a listening device in Gotti’s Infiniti sedan as part of their drug probe dubbed “Operation Beach Party.”
Gotti was recorded on a wiretap stating that he sold more than 4,200 pills a month and the illicit business pulled in $100,000 a month.
Undercover cops allegedly made 11 buys from Gotti, purchasing $46,000 worth of Oxycodone from him. He faces up to 25 years in prison if convicted.
Investigators also executed a search warrant at the Rebel Ink Tattoo Parlor where Gotti is a part-owner.
“He’s lucky his grandfather is not alive,” said Lewis Kasman, the deceased Gotti’s so-called adopted son. “John Sr. would have killed the kid himself.”
He also said the elder Gotti never brought business home.
“No wiseguy was allowed in that house and the only non-blood family member permitted inside was me,” Kasman said. “That was his (Gotti’s) palace, so to speak. This is a desecration of everything that John stood for in terms of the family house being sacred.”
The bedroom of Gotti’s son Frankie, who was killed in a tragic car accident, was maintained as a shrine in the house, Kasman said.
Also charged are Shaine Hack, 37, Edward Holohan, 50, Steve Kruger, 57, Justin Testa, 41, Michael Farduchi, 24, Melissa Erul, 23, and Dawn Biers, 46.
Investigators seized $200,000 from Hack’s home in Howard Beach — allegedly drug proceeds he was holding for Gotti.
The feds never sought a search warrant for the home in the past although there were unproven suspicions the “Gotti legacy,” — a massive stash of cash reaped from Gambino family rackets — was possibly hidden somewhere inside, Scala said.
NEW YORK — More than 40 alleged mobsters were charged Friday in a broad-based organized crime bust, according to the FBI.
The FBI says members of reputed mafia crime families, including the Genovese, Gambino, Luchese and Bonanno families, were arrested in New York and Florida. The suspects allegedly operated as a part of a massive East Coast syndicate known as the “East Coast Enterprise.”
The families allegedly formed an unusual alliance and joined forces or conducted overlapping business, CBS New York reported. Members reportedly used coded language to arrange meetings at highway rest areas and restaurants.
Federal prosecutors say members operated along the East Coast including in New York, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Florida and were involved with firearms trafficking, extortion, illegal gambling, health care fraud, credit card fraud, assault and other offenses.
An indictment in Manhattan federal court said the criminal activities were mostly based in New York.
The suspects included reputed old-school mobsters in New York and Philadelphia. Among those charged were Joseph “Skinny Joey” Merlino, the reputed boss of a Philadelphia crime family. Also named in the indictment was Pasquale “Patsy” Parrello, identified as a longtime member of the Genovese organized crime family in New York City.
Diego Rodriguez, head of the FBI’s New York office, said in a statement that the indictment “reads like an old school Mafia novel, where extortion, illegal gambling, arson and threats to ‘whack’ someone are carried out along with some modern-day crimes of credit card skimming.”
The indictment lays out a organizational structure made famous through generations of mafia movies and high-profile criminal trials: each “family” was organized into “crews” or “regimes” of suspected mob members, each with a leader known as a “caporegime,” “capo,” “captain” or “skipper.” Each crew member or “soldier” allegedly carried out criminal activities for the enterprise and received protection from their “capo.”
The highest-ranking members of the family were dubbed “the administration,” the indictment says — the head of the family, or “boss,” would be assisted by an “underboss” or “consigliere.”
A local focus of the investigation was an apparent gambling operation known as the Yonkers Club where poker and dice tournaments were held, reports CBS New York. One count accuses the 72-year-old Parrello of ordering a beatdown of a panhandler he believed was harassing customers outside his Bronx restaurant, telling a cohort to “break his … knees.” The panhandler was “located and assaulted with glass jars, sharp objects and steel-tipped boots, causing bodily harm,” the court papers say.
The enterprise allegedly sought to gain power, cash and territory through intimidation, violence, and threats of physical and financial harm. In some cases, the indictment alleges, suspected members assaulted or destroyed the property of people they thought jeopardized the enterprise’s activities.
The indictment charges 46 people. By 10 a.m., some 41 of those charged were in custody, according to CBS New York.
sourced from – http://www.cbsnews.com/news/fbi-arrests-alleged-mobsters-in-east-coast-mafia-sweep/
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Arrested For Buying or Selling Steroids
Dealing With Steroids and HGH Charges
We handle all types of steroid criminal defense issues and cases in from the distribution of steroids to buying anabolic steroids to buying and selling human growth hormones (HGH) . We have handled major steroid drug distribution cases as well as successfully defended illegal steroid manufacturing and distribution steroid houses.
About Our Felony Steroid Defense Lawyers
Wise Laws has federal criminal defense lawyers who specialize in steroid defense cases ranging from minor possession to large-scale steroid distribution rings. Our experience includes federal drug cases of all types form steroids to meth to cocaine but he spends a lot of time practicing with cases dealing in the realm of performance enhancing substances and anabolic steroids as well SERMs, SARMS, Sermorelin Acetate, GHRP-6, GHRP-2, IGF-1 LR3, Pramipexole HCL, Isotretinoin, Tamoxifen Citrate, Clomiphine Citrate, AROMATASE INHIBITORS, Anastrozole, Letrozole, Exemestane, GW-501516, BETA AGONISTS, Liothyronine Sodium, Clenbuterol HCL, 5-ALPHA REDUCTASE BLOCKERS, Finasteride, ENZYME INHIBITORS, Sildenafil Citrate, Tadalafil Citrate. Steroid distribution / selling cases raise unique questions, issues, laws, and approaches that other types of drug cases do not raise. Wise Laws federal criminal defense lawyers have a distinct knowledge of those unique features and it is what separates them from other criminal defense attorneys that handle steroid and HGH distribution and manufacturing cases as if they were normal drug cases. Not every criminal defense lawyer can offer the experience and knowledge to defend you in a steroid selling, manufacturing and distribution case with steroid charges.
Felony Steroid Possession vs Felony Steroid Trafficking
The main difference from being charged with anabolic steroid possession versus being charged with possession of anabolic steroids with intent to distribute steroids can be the difference from getting probation compared to many years in jail or prison. With general drugs like cocaine and weed, it is easy to determine the use for personal versus selling based upon the weight amount, but steroid users do not follow the same sets of weights that those users do, so many steroid users get charged with selling rather than simple possession.
Steroid possession of what seems like large quantity of HGH and or anabolic steroid allows the prosecutors to determine that you were engaging in distribution and selling steroids as well when the reality it may have been just personal use. This is a mistake that can be pointed out by an experienced defense attorney regards steroid cases. Steroid users purchase in large amounts as opposed to cocaine users. This pertains to other chemicals besides steroids such as SERMs, SARMS, Sermorelin Acetate, GHRP-6, GHRP-2, IGF-1 LR3, Pramipexole HCL, Isotretinoin, Tamoxifen Citrate, Clomiphine Citrate, AROMATASE INHIBITORS, Anastrozole, Letrozole, Exemestane, GW-501516, BETA AGONISTS, Liothyronine Sodium, Clenbuterol HCL, 5-ALPHA REDUCTASE BLOCKERS, Finasteride, ENZYME INHIBITORS, Sildenafil Citrate, Tadalafil Citrate (research chemicals).
Many lawyers believe that, under the Federal Sentencing Guidelines for steroid cases, there is not much room for the defense lawyer to advocate for his client that is charged with steroid distribution. These ineffective steroid defense lawyers approach sentencing in federal court, not as an opportunity to affect the outcome in a positive way for his client; but, rather, as an exercise in arithmetic. Their approach goes no further than to explain the sentencing guideline calculation to the client. Nothing could be less helpful to the defendant in a steroid distribution case.
What Federal Penalties Will I Face In A Steroid Distribution Case?
The Below Are The Federal Penalties For Steroid Distribution and Possession:
Simple possession of steroids with no prior offenses
Up to a year in federal prison; and/or
Minimum fine of $1,000.
Simple possession of steroids with certain prior convictions
Minimum 15 days in prison, and up to two years prison; and/or
Minimum fine of $2,000.
Possession of steriods with intent to sell
Up to five years prison; and/or
Minimum fine of $5,000.
What State Penalties Will I Face For Steroid Distribution?
Simple steroid possession can be defined
As either a misdemeanor or felony, and one may face jail time of up to 2 years if in a state where steroid possession is deemed a felony. A fine will usually be assessed in states that list steroids as a misdemeanor.
The distribution and sale of steroids is a felony in every state, and in some states, the penalty for the sale of steroids can be up to 7 years in prison according to law.
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