Category Archives: Organized Crime

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

Former Mafia capo has doubts about CT gambling expansion

Connecticut leaders announced late last month they’d reached a deal with members of the state’s tribal nations that would allow both online gambling and sports betting.

But one former member of the New York mob who’s said he had a hand in rigging sports betting on Wednesday suggested expanding the state’s gambling options might not be such a good idea

“Look, you know I’ve always been against legalized gambling, online especially,” said Michael Franzese, who was the keynote speaker for a virtual discussion hosted by the center for sports integrity at the University of New Haven.

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Blog, Criminal, International, Legal News, Organized Crime

‘Ndrangheta: Hunting members of the mafia that’s bigger than La Cosa Nostra

In Southern Italy, a herculean effort is underway to bring down a crime syndicate that’s less famous, but more powerful than the Cosa Nostra. Seth Doane reports for 60 Minutes+, now streaming on Paramount+.

It may not look like “The Godfather” or “Goodfellas,” but Southern Italy is in the grips of a crime syndicate much bigger than the Cosa Nostra, the inspiration for those movies. It’s called the ‘Ndrangheta and its members keep a much lower profile while controlling an estimated 50% to 80% of Europe’s cocaine trade.

That more modest lifestyle was on display when 60 Minutes+ went with law enforcement into the forest in Calabria, a region the ‘Ndrangheta has in a stranglehold. Members of an elite hybrid military-police force called the Cacciatori – which in Italian translates to, “the hunters”- showed Seth Doane a small hideout covered in earth that blended into the side of a mountain. An ‘Ndrangheta member on the run had been captured there while making his morning coffee.

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

Inside the Sinaloa Cartel’s Move Toward Europe

Police agencies have long known that Mexican drug cartels help supply Europe’s nearly US$10 billion annual cocaine habit, but acknowledge they have little idea about the workings of these highly organized and well-financed operations.

But now, a recent Italian police investigation, code-named Operation Halcon, has provided the most in-depth look yet into how Mexico’s leading drug traffickers, the Sinaloa Cartel, do business in Europe. IrpiMedia, OCCRP’s Italian partner, obtained access to police files and surveillance reports that show the cartel’s methods in unprecedented detail.About This ReportThis article was produced in collaboration with “The Cartel Project,” an investigation coordinated by Paris-based Forbidden Stories. It involves 60 journalists from 25 organizations in 18 countries and involves various aspects of Mexican cartel violence, including the murders of journalists in Veracruz state. Forbidden Stories is a nonprofit group dedicated to continuing the work of journalists silenced by homicide.Read more

Operation Halcon started in early 2019, at a time when Europe was being flooded with cocaine from Latin America. The Sinaloa Cartel, a global leader in cocaine sales with operations in at least 50 countries, was looking for new routes into Italy as a way to

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

Biggest mafia trial in 30 years sees 350 mobsters and corrupt politicians packed into call centre converted into court

SECRETS of Italy’s richest mafia are about to be revealed as hundreds of suspected gangsters are to face justice in the biggest mob trial in more than 30 years.

Alleged members of the ‘NDrangheta – including corrupt politicians – will be locked in cages during hearings, due to take place at a huge call centre in Calabria that has been converted into a courtroom.

It will now seat almost 1,000 lawyers, judges, prosecutors and spectators taking part in the trial which will expose the inner workings of Italy’s most secretive mafia – due to start on Wednesday.

Investigators will reveal 24,000 wiretaps and bugged conversations to back up charges of murder, extortion and drug dealing.

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Blog, Criminal, International, Legal News, Organized Crime

Italian mafia sees German justice system as ‘a joke’

The Italian mafia has hundreds of members in Germany pulling strings in the international drug trade. The latest major trial shows how lengthy legal procedures and lenient verdicts are no match for organized crime.

Fourteen defendants face an array of charges in court in the western German city of Düsseldorf, and the main ones pertain to the trafficking and sale of cocaine. Well over half a ton of cocaine: 680 kilograms (1,499 pounds) all told, being sold at prices of up to €36,000 (roughly $43,000) per kilo.

Five are suspected members of the Calabrian ‘Ndrangheta syndicate and all 14 reside in Germany’s most populous state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW). Their passports reveal NRW’s ‘Ndrangheta as an international employer: Italian, German, Dutch, Turkish, Moroccan, Portuguese. Translators from Italy, the Netherlands, and Turkey are on hand in court.

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