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

The Italian Mafia is Funding Terrorism By Buying Smuggled Hash From ISIS

Italian prosecutor claims that the Italian Mafia is buying hash that was smuggled by ISIS through Libya.

The Italian Mafia and an Islamic terrorist group meet up at a hash-smuggling operation… It sounds like the start of a bad joke, but unfortunately, according to the anti-Mafia and antiterrorism prosecutor, Franco Roberti, it’s the grim reality in the country of Italy. The Italian prosecutor claims that hash is being purchased by the Italian Mafia from Libya, which is being smuggled in by the Islamic terrorist sect ISIS.

The North African hash is being used a major source of income for the Islamic State, and the Italian Mafia is apparently a loyal customer. It’s quite profitable for the Mafia as well, which earns about 32 billion euros ($36.10 billion) a year through their illegal drug trades, a sizable portion of which is made up of hash and cannabis. It’s seems reasonable for Roberti to assume that ISIS is heavily involved. According to Ahmad Moussalli, a political science professor at the American University in Beirut, territorial expansion by ISIS on the Syrian border has put them in control of a vast amount of cannabis fields.

Instead of trying to crack down even more viciously on Italy’s use of cannabis and hash, which the government already spends millions on combating, Roberti has come forth with a much more level-headed approach. Instead, the prosecutor believes that the time has come for Italy to rescind their harsh marijuana laws, citing that decriminalization would negatively affect both the Mafia and the Islamic State.

The decriminalization of marijuana in Italy could help land a potentially critical blow to the funding of ISIS, which according to a recently published IHS Conflict Monitor report, has already dropped from $80 million in monthly revenue to $56 million since the middle of 2015. According to Roberti, a major portion of the terrorist cell’s revenue comes from drug trafficking, and decriminalization of marijuana in Italy could help put a major dent in that.

To Roberti, it makes sense to persecute the Mafia and the Islamic State in a similar manner, seeing as that Italian Mafia families, particularly in the south, have been long proponents of terrorist activities. The Mafia and ISIS could be more intertwined than it would seem at first glance, as both are heavily dependent on drug trafficking as a revenue source. But does Roberti have a sound argument for decriminalization? I would have to argue that he does.

“We spend a lot of resources uselessly. We have not succeeded in reducing cannabinoid trafficking. On the contrary, it’s increasing,” said Roberti. “Is it worth using investigative energy to fight street sales of soft drugs?”

Full Article – https://www.merryjane.com/news/the-italian-mafia-is-funding-terrorism-by-buying-smuggled-hash-from-isis

Blog, Criminal, International, Legal News, Organized Crime

US to turn drug cartel founder over to Mexico

MEXICO CITY –  The U.S. Embassy in Mexico says Sinaloa cartel co-founder Hector “El Guero” Palma will be turned over to Mexican authorities after his release from a U.S. prison.

The U.S. bureau of prisons says Palma will be released Saturday. Palma served five years in a Mexican prison before being extradited to the United States, where he was sentenced to 16 years for transporting 50 kilograms of cocaine.

It is unclear whether Palma still faces any charges in Mexico.

Attorney General Arely Gomez says prosecutors are looking through files for any remaining criminal cases. She said that in some cases the statute of limitations has expired.

Palma was arrested June 23, 1995 in western Mexico.

The embassy said Thursday that “the United States and Mexico enjoy strong cooperation in security.”

Blog, Criminal, International, Legal News, Organized Crime

Mafia Expert Roberto Saviano Denounces London As “The Most Corrupt Place On Earth”

Jonathan Webb ,  

CONTRIBUTOR

Roberto Saviano, the mafia expert, has described London as the most corrupt place on the planet. The investigative journalist made his name by exposing the practices of the infamous Camorra clan centered in the Italian city of Naples.

Saviano has now gone on to describe the British capital as the center of an international network of bribery and crime.

“If I asked what is the most corrupt place on Earth, you might say it’s Afghanistan, maybe Greece, Nigeria, the south of Italy” He said. “I would say it is the UK. It’s not UK bureaucracy, police, or politics, but what is corrupt is the financial capital. Ninety per cent of the owners of capital in London have their headquarters offshore.”

This echoes observations made last week that major Western cities, such as London, New York and Miami harbor illicit funds and launder money through their lucrative property markets. It also directly challenges the David Cameron’s assertions that Afghanistan and Nigeria are “fantastically corrupt” and “possibly the most corrupt countries in the world”.

Saviano is challenging the accepted perspective of corruption in the West. For most governments and indeed members of the public, corruption is a problem of poor countries. Specifically, those that are far away and home to a largely alien culture. Our own frankly superior values would not hold credence to petty bribery schemes or misuse of public funds.

This mythical view is quickly exploded when one sees the eye-watering sums of money that are facilitated by the Western professional classes and businesses in relations with overseas despots and other unsavory characters.

Senior bankers have described London as the “most developed tax haven” available. Its new major has warned the city may grow into the global money-laundering capital. According to Transparency International, 33,000 London homes are owned by overseas shell companies in jurisdictions that are not legally obliged to declare the owner’s name.

This blind eye to dirty money can escalate to more serious crimes. Saviano recognizes this characterization. “In my lifetime, more than 4,000 people have been killed in Naples and the surrounding area by the Camorra.”

After exposing mafia crimes, the 10 years of his life has been accompanied by five body-guards in caravan of two armored cars. He has now turned his attention onto London.

For Saviano, The UK capital is the involved in almost every international crime going. In respect of drugs, “Mexico is its heart and London is its head”.  He claims that the city facilitates international organized crime and is home to the Russian mafia.

London, or, by extension, the West, is not immune to crime or corruption. In many cases, its sophisticated legal and financial systems facilitate it. Given the sums of money involved, where else can we find more corruption?

Sourced From – http://www.forbes.com/sites/jwebb/2016/05/30/mafia-expert-robert-saviano-denounces-london-as-the-the-most-corrupt-place-on-earth/#266f6567111a

Blog, Business Law, International, Legal News

Google faces record three billion euro EU antitrust fine: Telegraph

Google (GOOGL.O) faces a record antitrust fine of around 3 billion euros ($3.4 billion) from the European Commission in the coming weeks, British newspaper The Sunday Telegraph said.

The European Union has accused Google of promoting its shopping service in Internet searches at the expense of rival services in a case that has dragged on since late 2010.

Several people familiar with the matter told Reuters last month they believed that after three failed attempts at a compromise in the past six years Google now had no plans to try to settle the allegations unless the EU watchdog changed its stance.

The Telegraph cited sources close to the situation as saying officials planned to announce the fine as early as next month, but that the bill had not yet been finalised.

Google will also be banned from continuing to manipulate search results to favour itself and harm rivals, the newspaper said.

The Commission can fine firms up to 10 percent of their annual sales, which in Google’s case would be a maximum possible sanction of more than 6 billion euros. The biggest antitrust fine to date was a 1.1 billion-euro fine imposed on chip-maker Intel (INTC.O) in 2009.

The Commission and Google both declined to comment.

($1 = 0.8841 euros)

Full Article – http://www.reuters.com/article/us-google-eu-idUSKCN0Y60J4

Blog, Business Law, Criminal, International, Legal News, Organized Crime

Here are all the notable people we’ve found in the Panama Papers so far

The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) published a huge database on Monday detailing how some of the world’s wealthiest and most powerful people legally hide their cash — dubbed the “Panama Papers.”

The database consists of more than 200,000 companies, trusts, foundations, and funds incorporated in 21 countries and countless names of the wealthy people who shelter their cash there.

The findings of the so-called Panama Papers investigation were first unveiled at the beginning of April.

Over 11 million documents held by the Panama-based law firm Mossack Fonseca had been leaked to the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung. The paper shared the information with the ICIJ, which is made up of 107 media organizations in 78 countries.

The global news outlets examined 28,000 pages of documents, also revealing the full scale of the tax breaks won by 340 companies. The ICIJ published this statement on its website along with the documents:

There are legitimate uses for offshore companies and trusts. We do not intend to suggest or imply that any persons, companies or other entities included in the ICIJ Offshore Leaks Database have broken the law or otherwise acted improperly.

Business Insider scanned the database, which includes data both from the Panama Papers and a 2013 report called “Offshore Leaks,” for newsworthy or prominent people or organizations in the worlds of finance, politics, technology, and others.

We have taken a spider map for the individual’s holdings as an example. Each green dot represents an offshore entity with associations to the individual:

This post is being updated as new information is available.

  • Janie and Victor Tsao, the Taiwanese founders of data-networking company Linksys, had multiple entries in the Panama Papers for a joint trust and individually.

  • Raj Rajaratnam, the billionaire founder of hedge fund Galleon Group, was found in the database. Rajaratnam was sentenced to an 11-year prison sentence in 2011 on nine counts of securities fraud and five counts of conspiracy.

  • The Trustees of Columbia University appear in the database, linked to a corporation in the Cayman Islands. The university has an endowment of over $9.5 billion.

  • New York University School of Medicine appears in the database as the “master client” of several offshore entities.

  • Tiger Global, a New York-based hedge fund, is named in the database.

  • Charles Xue, a Chinese-American investor and social-media commentator, was named in the database. Xue was arrested in 2013 in China on suspicion of soliciting prostitutes in a case many saw as retaliation for his outspoken persona online.

  • Christian Gunnar Sachs, son of photographer and art collector Gunter Sachs, was revealed in the initial Panama Papers leaks to have set up offshore trusts.

  • Neil Gaitely is listed as the owner of Tamalaris Consolidated, which was reported to be a front for an Iranian state-controlled shipping line.

  • Eugene Kashper, entrepreneur and CEO of Pabst Brewing Co., was found in the database.

  • Sanjay Sethi, the owner of San Vision Technologies was found in the database. Sethi plead guilty to conspiring to defraud the US by hiding nearly $5 million from the IRS in 2013.

  • Leonard Gotshalk, former NFL player for the Atlanta Falcons who was later indicted on charges of tech-company stock manipulation.

Will be updated and sourced from – http://www.businessinsider.com/notable-people-named-in-panama-papers-2016-5