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Blog, Criminal, International, Legal News, Organized Crime

How the Italian mafia’s top mobsters used a five-year-old girl to smuggle secret notes after taking her out for ice cream

  • Matteo Messina Denaro, head of the Sicilian mafia, is Italy’s most wanted
  • He and his right hand man used Attilio Fogazza’s daughter to run memos
  • Notes were shoved in the five-year-old’s backpack and jacket after gelato
  • Cosa Nostra kingpin Messina Denaro on the run for more than 20 years  

By GARETH DAVIES FOR MAILONLINE

PUBLISHED: 10:22 EST, 11 July 2016 | UPDATED: 13:45 EST, 11 July 2016

Italy’s most wanted mobster used a five-year-old girl to run secret messages for him, a mafia informant has revealed.

Head of Sicily’s Cosa Nostra Matteo Messina Denaro used Attilio Fogazza’s young daughter to carry handwritten notes between himself and other mafia top dogs.

Kingpin Denaro has not been seen in public for 20 years, and is considered in the top 10 most wanted men in the world.

Fogazza, who himself is on a murder charge, said Messina Denaro’s second-in-command Domenico ‘Mimmo’ Scimonelli approached his daughter to run the memos, known as ‘pizzini’.

The right-hand man had taken his daughter for an ice cream and put the messages inside her jacket and backpack.

The daughter and the rest of Fogazza’s family have been living in a secret location under police protection while he co-operates with the prosecutors as they attempt to bring down the ‘boss of bosses’ in the Italian mafia scene.

Fogazza, 44, ran a car dealership in south-western Sicily and decided to collaborate with Palermo investigators after he was arrested last December for the murder of Salvatore Lombardo in 2009 who was killed after he stole a van from Scimonelli.

“One day my daughter said ‘Uncle Mimmo’ had taken her for a gelato and put the messages inside her jacket and her backpack,” Fogazza told prosecutors in Palermo according to Italian media reports.

Last year, a Palermo judge sentenced six men including Scimonelli from the hierarchy of the Cosa Nostra – meaning ‘Our Thing’ – to a total of 80 years in prison for racketeering, conspiracy and aiding and abetting the mafia.

Head honcho Messina Denaro, 54, has not been seen in public since the early 90s, but a new e-fit was created in 2014 with the help of another informant.

He is wanted for a string of offences, and a judge found him guilty in his absence in 1993 for his part in the bomb attacks that killed 10 people in Rome, Florence and Milan.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3684773/Matteo-Messina-Denaro-head-mafia-Sicily-used-five-year-old-girl-smuggle-Cosa-Nostra-notes.html#ixzz4EBIyOjwO
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Blog, International, Legal News, Organized Crime

Russian mafia ‘increasingly active’ in Germany

The Russian mafia is becoming “increasingly active” in Germany, with networks recruiting in German prisons and groups bringing in billions of euros each year, Germany’s Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) has warned.

“The Russian-Eurasian organized criminality is very dynamic” BKA President Holger Münch told the Welt am Sonntag newspaper. “They are already expanding in the west.”

One of the most dangerous groups, according to Münch, is the so-called ‘Thieves in law’ (Diebe im Gesetz) gang, founded in Stalin’s labour camps. The group from the former Soviet Union have their own ‘laws’ and a secret language, and is thought to be recruiting from within Germany’s prisons.

The BKA has previously linked 20,000 and 40,000 people in Germany to the group, and authorities believe that its members in Germany today represent “a five-figure number” – only rough estimates are possible due to the clandestine nature of the groups.

“Eight to ten percent of inmates in German penal facilities are Russian-speaking or of Russian origin; about 5,000 people,” explained Münch. “Not all of them are part of ‘Thieves in law’ but this figure shows the large potential for recruitment for these groups in Germany.”

The BKA President emphasized that organized crime may be operating in areas not traditionally associated with the mafia, for example apartment break-ins and shoplifting; Münch mentioned one Georgian shoplifter who had been able to earn €500 per day, and said it could be assumed “with certainty” that in 2015 criminality by these gangs had led to billions of euros worth of damages.

The mafia groups are also thought to operate in drug trafficking, tax fraud, economic offences, protection money and prostitution.

The Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) is working closely with the BKA. Münch said: “When people use the asylum process to commit crimes, care must be taken to ensure that their stay is as short as possible and that they are quickly expelled.”

Full article – http://www.thelocal.de/20160711/russian-mafia-increasingly-active-in-germany

Blog, Legal News, Personal Injury

Plaintiff counsel withdrawing from personal injury case caused by workplace mold exposure

Nicholas Malfitano Jul. 5, 2016, 2:39pm

PHILADELPHIA – Plaintiff counsel in the case of a woman who claims she became disabled after long-term exposure to mold in her workplace has opted to leave the litigation associated with those claims.

Neil I. Mittin of Gay Chacker & Mittin filed a motion to withdraw appearance on May 5, explaining plaintiffs Julie Hice Carter and Ernest Carter of Smyrna, Del. had not responded to numerous attempts at contact, in order to proceed with proper litigation of their claims. Due to this presumed lack of cooperation, Mittin felt he had no choice but to withdraw from the case.

On June 30, Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas ordered Mittin’s withdrawal be permitted.

Hice Carter was hired by the Therapeutic Center at Fox Chase Villa at the Bridge in Ambler, formerly known as St. Mary’s Villa for Children and Families, in December 2012. In July 2013, Hice Carter says she began to notice black spots on the carpet and walls of bedrooms and bathrooms of St. Francis and St. John buildings at her workplace. Hice Carter says she reported this condition to the administrator of the program and the buildings’ maintenance supervisor, to no avail.

In August 2013, Hice Carter says she began to suffer a cough, shortness of breath, headaches and sinus congestion, among other respiratory ailments. The following month, she was allegedly unable to breathe at work and was admitted to the emergency room at Riddle Memorial Hospital – adding her symptoms worsened anytime she was in the aforementioned workplace buildings.

On Sept. 24, 2014, Hice Carter stated she became disabled from her employment due to the respiratory difficulties she developed as a result of prolonged mold exposure.

Hice Carter alleged she suffered reactive airway disease, acute bronchitis, asthma, cough, rhinitis plus damage to her lungs, nerves, nervous system, and other ills and injuries, resulting in a permanent loss of bodily function. Hice Carter added she possessed none of these conditions prior to her employment.

Read Full Article – http://pennrecord.com/stories/510941915-plaintiff-counsel-withdrawing-from-personal-injury-case-caused-by-workplace-mold-exposure

Blog, Business Law, Civil Rights, Family, Legal News, Personal Injury, Supreme Court

Duluth diocese sues insurers to cover abuse lawsuits

Mark Reilly Managing Editor Minneapolis / St. Paul Business Journal

The Diocese of Duluth, which entered bankruptcy proceedings after a $4.9 million verdict in a child sexual abuse case, wants to ensure that its insurance companies help pay the bill.

The Duluth News-Tribune reports that the diocese is suing five insurance companies— Liberty Mutual Group, Catholic Mutual Relief Society of America, Fireman’s Fund Insurance Co., Church Mutual Insurance Co. and Continental Insurance Co. — to compel them to participate in a mediation process between the church and 125 people who have filed abuse claims.

The diocese filed for bankruptcy last December. It’s facing many claims apart from the already-announced $4.9 million verdict and has an annual budget of just $3.3 million.

The lawsuit against insurers is similar to one filed by the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, which is also in bankruptcy and sued its insurance companies in 2014, accusing them of improperly rejecting its claims to cover the cost of the church’s settlement with victims of clergy sex abuse.

Read Full Article – http://www.bizjournals.com/twincities/news/2016/07/05/duluth-diocese-sues-insurers-to-cover-abuse.html

Blog, Civil Rights, Legal News, Supreme Court

Court rejects state’s appeal in KKK highway cleanup case

BY KATE BRUMBACK Associated Press

Dismissing an appeal on a technicality, Georgia’s highest court granted a victory to a Ku Klux Klan group that has been seeking for years to participate in a state-run highway cleanup program

ATLANTA

Dismissing an appeal on a technicality, Georgia’s highest court granted a victory to a Ku Klux Klan group that has been seeking for years to participate in a state-run highway cleanup program.

The Georgia Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected the state’s appeal of a lower court decision that the state had violated the KKK group’s free speech rights. The Department of Transportation filed its appeal incorrectly, leaving the high court without authority to consider its merits, the opinion said.

The state attorney general’s office, which represents the department, is reviewing the decision and considering its options, spokesman Nicholas Genesi said in an email.

The north Georgia KKK group applied to join the state’s Adopt-A-Highway program in May 2012, hoping to pick up litter along part of Route 515 in the Appalachian Mountains. The program was started in 1989 to get volunteers to clean up sections of roads in the state. In exchange, the Department of Transportation posts a sponsorship sign along the road with the program logo and the volunteer group’s name.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/article87664407.html#storylink=cpy