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Blog, Criminal, Immigration, International, Legal News, Organized Crime

Rocco Morabito: Italian mafia boss held in Uruguay

One of Italy’s most wanted fugitives has been arrested in Uruguay after 23 years on the run from convictions for mafia association and drug trafficking.

Rocco Morabito of the ‘Ndrangheta organised crime gang was detained in the resort of Punta del Este.

Uruguayan police said he had been living there for more than 10 years under a false identity.

He was nicknamed “cocaine king of Milan” for his involvement in shipping the drug from South America to Italy.

The ‘Ndrangheta controls much of the world’s cocaine trade and police say Morabito was behind the smuggling of hundreds of kilos of cocaine from Brazil to Italy.

South American hideaway

Morabito is believed to have arrived in Uruguay in 2002.

Police arrested Morabito in a hotel in the Uruguayan capital, Montevideo. But officials said he had settled in the resort of Punta del Este with false Brazilian identity papers in the name of Francisco Capeletto.

Read Full – http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-41146886

Blog, Business Law, Criminal, Immigration, International, Legal News

Turkey says U.S. indictment of former minister amounts to “coup attempt”

ANKARA (Reuters) – Turkey said on Monday its former economy minister, indicted in the United States for conspiring to violate U.S. sanctions on Iran, acted within international law and that charges against him amounted to a coup attempt through American courts.

Former minister Zafer Caglayan “has protected Turkey’s interests as Turkish economy minister, and has acted within the laws of our country and international laws while doing that,” government spokesman Bekir Bozdag said.

The charges against Caglayan were “a repetition of the December FETO coup attempt … through the American judiciary”, Bozdag said, referring to 2013 leaks about alleged government corruption which were blamed on President Tayyip Erdogan’s opponents.

Caglayan and the ex-head of a state-owned Turkish bank were charged on Wednesday with conspiring to violate U.S. sanctions on Iran by illegally moving hundreds of millions of dollars through the U.S. financial system on Tehran’s behalf.

Read Full – https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-turkey-spokesman/turkey-says-u-s-indictment-of-former-minister-amounts-to-coup-attempt-idUSKCN1BM24A

Blog, Criminal, Immigration, Legal News, Organized Crime

36 Killed in Month-Long Cartel War Near Texas

REYNOSA, Tamaulipas — Raging violence continues to take hold of this border city as rival factions of the Gulf Cartel fight for control claimed 36 deaths–including a bystander and one police officer.

As Breitbart Texas reported, the violence began in late April, shortly after Mexican authorities hunted down and killed regional Gulf boss Juan Manuel “Toro” Loiza Salinas. The death of the ruthless cartel kingpin led to an immediate power vacuum as various factions fight for control of the city and surrounding smuggling routes.

The fight has led to convoys of gunmen driving around Reynosa hunting for rivals. Some of the shooters ride in vehicles with “M-42” spray-painted on the side, indicating former allegiance to Toro. As Breitbart Texas reported, the violence has also led to a spike in crime as cartel gunmen carry out daytime robberies at various establishments and against unsuspecting motorists.

Over the weekend, rival gunmen clashed three separate times, spreading fear among local residents. In one of the clashes, forces exchanged gunfire in the Lopez Portillo neighborhood where neighbors reported that four gunmen died in the clash.

The fighting stopped a few hours after the initial gun battles began as Mexican authorities took to the streets to contain the violence. An official body count has not been released.

Editor’s Note: Breitbart Texas traveled to the Mexican States of Tamaulipas, Coahuila, and Nuevo León to recruit citizen journalists willing to risk their lives and expose the cartels silencing their communities.  The writers would face certain death at the hands of the various cartels that operate in those areas including the Gulf Cartel and Los Zetas if a pseudonym were not used. Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles are published in both English and in their original Spanish. This article was written by “A.C. Del Angel” from Reynosa, Tamaulipas. , “J.A. Espinoza” from Matamoros, Tamaulipas and “J.M. Martinez” from Piedras Negras, Coahuila. 

from – http://www.breitbart.com/texas/2017/06/01/36-killed-month-long-cartel-war-near-texas/

Blog, Business Law, Criminal, Immigration, International, Legal News, Organized Crime, Supreme Court

Russian mafia boss still at large after FBI wiretap at Trump Tower

There, indeed, was an FBI wiretap involving Russians at Trump Tower.

But it was not placed at the behest of Barack Obama and the target was not the Trump campaign of 2016. For two years ending in 2013, the FBI had a court-approved warrant to eavesdrop on a sophisticated Russian organized crime money laundering network that operated out of unit 63A in Trump Tower.

The FBI investigation led to a federal grand jury indictment of more than 30 people, including one of the world’s most notorious Russian mafia bosses, Alimzhan Tokhtakhounov. Known as the “Little Taiwanese,” Tokhtakhounov was the only target to slip away, and he remains a fugitive from American justice.

Five months after the April 2013 indictment and after Interpol issued a “red notice” for Tokhtakhounov, the fugitive appeared near Donald Trump in the VIP section of the Moscow Miss Universe pageant. Trump had sold the Russian rights for Miss Universe to a billionaire Russian shopping mall developer.

“He is a major player,” said Mike Gaeta, the FBI agent who led the 2013 FBI investigation of Tokhtakhounov and his alleged mafia money laundering and gambling ring, in a 2014 interview with ABC News. “He is prominent, he has extremely good connections in the business world as well as the criminal world, overseas, in Russia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, other countries.”

Gaeta, who ran the FBI’s Eurasian Organized Crime unit of the FBI’s New York office told ABC News at the time that federal agents were closely tracking Tokhtakhounov, whose Russian ring was suspected of moving more than $50 million in illegal money into the United States.

“Because of his status, we have kept tabs on is activities, and particularly as his activities truly enter New York city,” Gaeta said. “Their money was ultimately laundered from Russia, Ukraine and other locations through Cyprus banks and shell companies based in Cyprus, and then ultimately here to the United States.”

The FBI investigation did not implicate Trump. But Trump Tower was under close watch. Some of the Russian mafia figures worked out of the 63rd floor unit in the iconic skyscraper –- just three floors below Trump’s penthouse residence — running what prosecutors called an “international money laundering, sports gambling and extortion ring.”

The Trump building was home to one of the top men in the alleged ring, Vadim Trincher who pleaded guilty to racketeering and received a five-year prison term. He is due to be released in July.

“Everything was moving in and out of there,” said former FBI official Rich Frankel, now an ABC News consultant.

Read Full – http://abcnews.go.com/US/story-fbi-wiretap-russians-trump-tower/story?id=46266198

Blog, Criminal, Drug Companies, Immigration, Legal News, Organized Crime

How a Federal Crackdown on Marijuana Could Affect Mexican Cartels

President Donald Trump campaigned on making the United States “great again,” but if his administration follows through on a threat to crack down on legal marijuana, it’s Mexican drug cartels that could be restored to their former glory.

TOM ANGELL – MARIJUANA.COM

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said Thursday that states with legal recreational marijuana will likely “see greater enforcement” of federal laws, which prohibit all use of cannabis. Spicer’s statements echo what Attorney General Jeff Sessions said during his confirmation hearings: “It is not so much the attorney general’s job to decide what laws to enforce. We should do our job and enforce laws effectively as we are able.”

The Department of Justice declined to comment.

Eight states and the District of Columbia currently allow the retail sale of marijuana for recreational use, all thanks to voter referendums.

In Colorado, where in 2012 voters were the first in the nation to back retail sales, the marijuana industry generated over $1.3 billion in revenue last year, adding about $200 million in taxes to the state’s coffers. In California, the first state to legalize the medical use of cannabis, marijuana has become the state’s leading agricultural commodity, according to the Orange County Register, which estimated its value at $23.3 billion — even before voters legalized recreational sales last November.

Most people think that’s a good thing. A poll released Thursday by Quinnipiac University found a majority of the U.S. public now supports marijuana legalization, and 71 percent oppose a federal crack down on states that have legalized it already.

The rise of the homegrown weed industry has come at a cost, though: In 2016, U.S. Border Patrol reported that “marijuana seizures along the southwest border tumbled to their lowest level in at least a decade,” The Washington Post reported. Between 2011 and 2015, seizures dropped 39 percent, according to Fortune.

Read Full – http://www.attn.com/stories/15170/how-president-trump-could-affect-mexican-drug-cartel