Category Archives: International

World News Legal developments from around the world. The following is a collection of the most recent posts from other blogs addressing topics of international law.

Blog, Celebrity, celebrity legal news, Criminal, International, Legal News, Organized Crime

Ex-Mafia Boss Rates 11 Famous Mafia Movie Scenes

If you sat through 3 1/2 hours of The Irishman, you’re going to find this facinating.  Heck, even if you’ve never watched a mafia movie that long…you’re going to like this.

Entertainment Weekly recently sat down with ex-mafia boss Michael Franzese: a former ex-caporegime of the Colombo crime family, and ex-New York mobster.  The task: have Franzese watch a series of 11 movie clips from mafia films, and answer the question, “HOW REAL IS IT?”  Here’s the result.

Blog, Criminal, International, Legal News, Organized Crime

Murder, mafia and Nazis loom over Slovak election

Thousands mark the second anniversary of the murder of journalist Jan Kuciak and his fiancee Martina Kusnirova.

Bratislava, Slovakia – Several thousand people gathered in central Bratislava on Friday evening to mark the second anniversary of the brutal murder of Jan Kuciak. The shooting of the journalist was a watershed for Slovakia – one that is now playing out ahead of elections on February 29.

It was a sombre crowd, estimated at around 8,000, that filled Namestie Slobody (Freedom Square) in the Slovak capital to honour Kuciak and his fiance, Martina Kusnirova, who were gunned down in their home on a cold February night.

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Blog, Criminal, International, Legal News, Organized Crime

Mafia mobster with links to organised crime is found dead in prison cell after suicide

AN ALLEGED Mafia boss has been found dead in his Italian prison cell after apparently committing suicide.

The Mafia boss allegedly had strong connections with the Toronto area in Canada. Giuseppe Gregoraci, known as Pino, from Siderno, Italy was found dead in his prison cell last week, according to an Italian newspaper called il Quotidiano del Sud.

The 51-year-old allegedly hanged himself and was dead by the time first aid got to him.

The Voghera prison is in the Lombardy region.

His cousin, Carmelo Muia, known as Mino, was shot dead in Siderno in January 2018.

Gregoraci arrived in the Greater Toronto area on March 31, 2019 with Muia’s brother.

While they were in Toronto, they met the brothers Cosimo and Angelo Figliomeni of York Region.

The Figliomeni brothers were arrested last August for being in the arm of an operation called Project Sindicato in what York Regional Police have described as the region’s largest ever anti-Mafia operation.

Blog, Criminal, International, Legal News, Organized Crime

Why Italian cinema is starting to glamorize the mafia

For almost a century, American filmmakers have glamorized the Mafia, depicting their ranks as so charismatic and quick-witted that you might want to invite them over for dinner.

Audiences saw this most recently in “The Irishman,” which reunites a star cast of the usual suspects – Robert De Niro, Al Pacino and Joe Pesci – but also in “The Sopranos” and “Boardwalk Empire.”

The Mafia’s glamorized sheen in America’s collective conscience might be due to the fact that the Mafia never attained much power in the U.S. Compared with Italy, fewer lives have been lost and fewer businesses destroyed by the organized crime syndicate. Today many see the Mafia as a relic of the past.

Not so in Italy, where mafias remain as powerful and dangerous as ever. Their menace has been reflected in Italian films and television series, which have long cast mobsters in a negative light.

But as someone who studies media depictions of the Mafia, I’ve noticed a shift: Italian films and TV shows have started to glorify criminality, crafting and portraying mafiosos as alluring antiheroes.

In Italy, a break from tradition

It’s long been common practice in Hollywood to cast conventionally attractive actors as sympathetic criminal antiheroes. Humphrey Bogart in “King of the Underworld,” Al Pacino in “The Godfather” trilogy and Denzel Washington in “American Gangster” are just a few examples.

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Blog, Criminal, International, Legal News, Military Laws, Organized Crime

Global Project Launched to Crack Down on ‘Ndrangheta and Mafia Crime

INTERPOL has launched the Cooperation Against ‘Ndrangheta (I-CAN) project, a joint initiative with Italy to combat the increasingly insidious and global threat of mafia-type crime.

Funded by the Italian Department of Public Security, the project will focus on the ‘Ndrangheta which is the most extensive and powerful criminal organization in the world.

Present in 32 Countries, 17 of which are European, the ‘Ndrangheta is supported by its enormous financial power built mainly on drug trafficking, corruption and the diversion of public funds through fraud and rigged contracts.

“We need a global approach to counter a global threat. We have promoted a targeted project with INTERPOL for a global attack to eradicate it, involving the State Police, the Carabinieri and the Guardia di Finanza,” said Prefect Vittorio Rizzi, Deputy Director General of Public Security.

Whilst the project will initially be focusing on specific countries, the ultimate goal of the I-CAN project is to enhance the ability of law enforcement worldwide to more effectively identify and combat mafia-type organizations.

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