ROME – A Mafia drug-smuggling network moved millions of dollars worth of stolen Lindt chocolate across Europe and into Canada, Italian prosecutors say.
About $17.6 million worth of wrapped Lindor chocolate balls were stolen from a transport hub near Lodi in Italy between April and August 2014.
But the thieves were stuck with the logistical problem of how to move the 175 tonnes of illicit treats.
So they reached out to a flower-seller previously busted with drug trafficking. He in turn got in touch with his friend, Mob boss Vincenzo Crupi, according to transcripts of conversations contained in court documents.
When Dutch police raided Crupi’s Fresh BV offices in March of last year, they found chocolate stored there, but did not let on that they suspected it had been stolen.
Instead, they watched.
In December, as a truck left Fresh BV carrying some 15 tonnes of the stolen chocolate, police stepped in.
A further 20 tonnes of chocolate were seized south of Rome.
Investigators also say refrigerated containers carrying 25 pallets of the stolen Lindt chocolate were sent to Canada.
Giuseppe Belcastro, one of Crupi’s lawyers, said his client denies having tried to sell stolen goods. The case is still under investigation and no trial has yet been sought.
Lindt & Sprungli, the maker of the chocolate balls, confirmed the theft when it happened, but had no comment on the continuing investigation.
Sourced From – http://www.torontosun.com/2016/04/11/hot-chocolate-did-a-mafia-drug-network-smuggle-tonnes-of-stolen-lindor-into-canada
Cement supplier Vincenzo Artale, 64, had publicly denounced efforts by local mobsters to extract protection money and had even helped founded an anti-mafia association a decade ago in Alcamo, the town between Palermo and Trapani where he had a small business.
But in the decade that followed, prosecutors allege Artale began using his anti-mafia façade as a cover for keeping shady local deals quiet, while doing business with some of Sicily’s biggest mafia bosses on the side.
“Yet again wiretappings have revealed that pretending to be anti-mafia is the perfect shield to mask businesses operating in the shadow of the mafia,” Teresa Principato, one of the prosecutors working on the case, told La Repubblica.
In 2006, Artale was lauded for his courage after he reported local Mafiosi who he said had tried to extort protection money from him. He was compensated €250,000 from a state-run victim’s solidarity fund and founded a local anti-racket association.
But not long afterwards, prosecutors say Artale began working for a local mobster thought to be one of the key associates of the fugitive Cosa Nostra leader who is Italy’s most wanted man: Mattia Messina Denaro.
According to Italian reports, the gangsters struck a deal with Artale – he would shield them from exposure and in return they would force local construction companies to buy his cement.
His cement business boomed. But Artale’s sudden wealth triggered suspicion among the townsfolk and soon his anti-mafia double agent game was up. Local builders joined forces to denounce that they were being intimidated to buy his cement, triggering the two-year-long investigation that led to his arrest Wednesday.
He is the latest of several high-profile Sicilian businessmen caught privately working with the mafia while publicly decrying organised crime.
Last year, the head of the Palermo chamber of commerce Roberto Helg, who had publicly denounced the mafia’s extortion practices, was secretly filmed taking a €100,000 bribe in exchange for a pastry shop’s retail space in the airport.
Sourced From – http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/03/31/anti-mafia-campaigner-in-sicily-arrested-on-mafia-charges/
The mobsters have the weapons, and they’re making a killing selling them off to Islamic radicals.
CASTEL VOLTURNO, Italy — By the time Aziz Ehsan, a 46-year-old Iraqi, was arrested near Naples on Tuesday, local anti-mafia police had already been trailing him for days to determine just why he was in the heartland of the Camorra crime syndicate’s territory. He was well known by both the French and Belgian secret services, which list him as a suspected ISIS contact. The Neapolitan cops were also aware of an international arrest warrant for him in Switzerland, where he was wanted in connection with a variety of offenses, including forgery, assault, and possession of illegal weapons.
He was apparently just the type of person Italian authorities thought might provide a valuable clue as they work to piece together the details of the complex relationshipbetween Jihadist fighters and Italy’s various mobs.
But when the attacks took place in Brussels, the authorities decided it was time to move in and get him. He was arrested as he slept in a car with Italian license plates registered to a deceased man on Tuesday and is awaiting extradition to Switzerland, France, or Belgium.
He claimed that he was in the area to scout out luxury hotels for rich Iraqi tourists, but the police didn’t buy it; he appeared to have been living in the car for days. They also pointed to an absence of notebooks, a laptop, or tablet—items you’d think to bring on a research trip. His no-frills, no contract “burner” cellphone, like the kind favored by Western jihadis, was another sign that Ehsan wasn’t in the region to see which five-star hotels offered the best glass of Limoncello.
“We executed a European arrest warrant near Naples and arrested an Iraqi citizen known to the Belgian and French secret service,” Italy’s interior minister Angelino Alfano declared after his arrest. “He was in contact with terrorists.”
Ehsan’s presence in Italy very likely posed no imminent threat to anyone in this country, but it may be extremely significant in Europe’s losing battle against ISIS-motivated terrorism. Authorities now want to know if Ehsan was here on business, especially if he was working with the Camorra to secure false documents or illegal arms—both big moneymakers for the Neapolitan clans.
Since the Charlie Hebdo attacks in Paris in January 2015, Italian anti-mafia and anti-terrorism officials have been unraveling long-standing connections between Jihadi fighters and the Camorra in Naples. They have also uncovered ties to the Sicilian Cosa Nostra Mafia and the Calabrese ‘Ndrangheta gang, tracing weapons being trafficked in from the former Yugoslavia and several African nations which allegedly arrive easily in Neapolitan ports.
Italian anti-mafia police have made three major arrests in the last 12 months, during which they have confiscated major weapons arsenals that included Kalashnikov rifles, submachine guns, body armor, and hundreds of rounds of ammunition that were ready to be sold to terrorist connections. They even found a price list for a wide variety of weapons available for prices ranging from €250 to €3,000 that was printed in Arabic, French, and Italian.
“Naples has been, for many years, a central logistics base for the Middle East. The Camorra is also active in the world of Jihadist terrorism that passes through Naples,” Franco Roberti, a prominent anti-mafia prosecutor, told The Daily Beast before the Brussels attacks. “Naples lends itself to this type of activity. In the past there have been contacts between Jihadi militants and the Camorra clans.”
He says that Italy’s mafia-fighting forces have “thwarted plots and synergies” between the terrorists and the mobsters. What’s not known, of course, is how many plots they’ve missed.
It is certainly a well-known fact that the Camorra runs a highly successful enterprise in the lawless Neapolitan hinterland running drugs, illegal arms and forged documents that make it especially easy for anyone entering Europe illegally to pass through even the tightest borders. It is just as well-known that the main client base has never been strictly Italian.
“We have evidence that groups of the Camorra are implicated in an exchange of weapons for drugs with terrorist groups,” Pierluigi Vigna, Italy’s national anti-mafia prosecutor, said before he passed away in 2012.
Vigna’s words were quoted in a variety of Wikileaks cables that imply that the United States government has been well aware of the terrorist-mafia connection for some time. “Criminal interaction between Italian organized crime and Islamic extremist groups provides potential terrorists with access to funding and logistical support from criminal organizations with established smuggling routes and an entrenched presence in the United States,” according to one cable on Italy penned by the FBI.
Investigators say logistics help in moving Jihadi fighters through Europe is one of the hardest rackets to crack. Last summer, Salah Abdeslam, who, until last week, was the most wanted man in Europe for his role in the deadly terrorist attacks in Paris, traveled freely through Italy with the help of a network of what could be referred to as mafia-sponsored terrorism travel agents.
Authorities in Italy say he boarded a ferry in Bari headed for Greece last August, and that he used a pre-paid Italian debit card until the Paris attacks. Authorities say he used his real name tied to fake Italian documents in both instances.
The idea of Europe’s most wanted man running free is concerning enough. But what is at least as worrying is that the weapons being trafficked into Italy will end up being used in European capitals. Michele del Prete, an Italian counter-terrorism official who has been focusing on the links between organized crime and violent jihadists, warns that the two forces of evil have found a comfortable partnership. “It is established and proven that the lawless climate in Naples has often created favorable conditions for logistical support, exchange of weapons, and false documents,” he said. “There are specialized groups we have tracked in various municipalities and prefectures that we know are facilitating terrorism.”
Investigator Roberti takes it a step further. “Campania, especially the province of Caserta and Castel Volturno, is one of the main gateways into Europe for those who want to become a terrorist,” he said. “It has been demonstrated by numerous investigations. On this now, there are no doubts.”
Read Full Article – http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/03/24/inside-the-mafia-isis-connection.html
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has downplayed his connection to a reputed mob figure, whose daughter said gambled millions at Trump’s casino, partied on the billionaire mogul’s yacht and flew in his helicopter, Yahoo News reported.
However, Trump’s casino was fined $200,000 by the state of New Jersey Casino Control Commission after an investigation by the state attorney general’s office found that Trump Plaza in Atlantic City violated anti-discrimination laws to please high roller Robert LiButti — who was reported to have close ties to mafia boss John Gotti.
After the incident in 1991, Trump told the media he didn’t really know LiButti. However, LiButti’s daughter, Edith Creamer, told Yahoo News reporter Michael Isikoff that was not the case.
“He’s a liar,” Creamer told Yahoo. “Of course he knew him. I flew in the [Trump] helicopter with [Trump’s then wife] Ivana and the kids. My dad flew it up and down [to Atlantic City]. My 35th birthday party was at the Plaza and Donald was there. After the party, we went on his boat, his big yacht. I like Trump, but it pisses me off that he denies knowing my father. That hurts me.”
Trump told Yahoo News in a written response, “During the years I very successfully ran the casino business, I knew many high rollers. I assume Mr. LiButti was one of them, but I don’t recognize the name.”
The report comes as Trump is fending off calls to release his tax returns. Trump’s leading GOP opponent, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, said Trump might be trying to hide evidence of mafia connections in the tax returns.
Trump was not held personally liable for the discrimination charges against his casino, nor did state officials ever question him personally about the matter.
At the time, New Jersey state regulators had launched an investigation into allegations by nine employees of one of Trump’s Atlantic City casinos, the Trump Plaza, that the hotel had repeatedly removed African-Americans and women from craps tables after LiButti, one of the highest-rolling gamblers in the city’s history, loudly complained about their presence when he was playing.
The probe resulted in a $200,000 fine against the Trump Plaza by the New Jersey Casino Control Commission for violating state anti-discrimination laws. Investigators found that LiButti had, on multiple occasions, berated blacks and women using what one state official described as the “vilest” language — including racist slurs and references to women in obscene terms — and that the Trump Plaza, in order not to lose his substantial business, sought to accommodate him by keeping the employees away from his betting tables, according to commission documents recently obtained by Yahoo News under the New Jersey Open Public Records Act.
Cramer’s account of direct dealings between her father and Trump corroborate a 1991 book, “Trumped: The Inside Story of the Real Donald Trump, His Cunning Rise and Spectacular Fall,” written by John R. Donnell, former president of the Trump Plaza casino. The book also talks about a meeting between Trump and LiButti aboard Trump’s helicopter and claims Trump agreed to pay $500,000 for a racehorse named Alibi from LiButti, a horse breeder.
Sourced From – http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2016/03/07/report-accusations-of-trumps-ties-to-mafia-associate-gain-steam-as-candidate-withholds-taxes/
Hitman says mob planned ambush with men who had rifles and explosives
Cosa Nostra called off attack when scale of his security detail became apparent
Mario Cuomo, the former governor of New York, was targeted for assassination by the Sicilian mafia during a trip to Italy in 1992, according to an imprisoned Cosa Nostra hitman.
The attack was only called off when the scale of Cuomo’s security detail became apparent, he said.
Avola said that after the assassinations of prominent anti-mafia judges Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino in 1992, Cosa Nostra bosses decided to escalate their war against the Italian state and its allies.
“The aim was to target politicians or members of institutions in order to send out a clear message,” he said, in an interview via messages carried by his lawyer.
When Cuomo’s visit to Italy was announced, Avola’s godfather, Aldo Ercolano, told him that the New York governor would be an “excellent target”.
Targeting a prominent American would also send a warning to the law enforcement agencies who had allowed several prominent mafia turncoats to start new lives in the US under assumed identities, Avola said.
“Cuomo was a symbol of America which during those years hosted collaborators who wanted out of Cosa Nostra and then got their bosses arrested. His death would have sent a strong signal to New York. It would have made them understand what happens to those who stand in the Mafia’s way,” he said.
Cuomo arrived in Rome on 19 November 1992 for a week of meetings. Soon after his arrival, a journalist from Corriere della Sera asked whether having an Italian surname was damaging for an American politician.
Cuomo replied: “Of course, any Italian American politician risks being associated with the mafia, not least because the media continuously plays on this image.”
Meanwhile, according to Avola a much more immediate risk was taking shape in the city of Messina, where a mafia hit squad was planning a daylight attack on Cuomo in the main square.
Around a dozen gunmen armed with Kalashnikov assault rifles and explosives were to carry out the ambush, while accomplices were ready to block potential escape routes, said Avola.
But just a few days before Cuomo was due in Messina, Ercolano called off the attack.
“The American politician arrived with extremely tight surveillance, lots of bodyguards and a bulletproof car. It made the execution impossible,” Avola said. “Reluctantly, Aldo Ercolano ordered the ‘men of honour’ to withdraw.’’
Born in Catania in 1962, Avola is believed to have killed about 80 people, including journalists, lawyers, politicians and mobsters, before becoming apentito, or informer.
Known as “Occhi di Ghiaccio” or Ice Eyes because of his cold-blooded blue gaze, he was recruited as a hitman by the Santapaola family, one of the most feared and powerful in the Sicilian criminal underworld.
He was arrested on a tip-off in 1993, the day after killing a former friend and fellow mafioso. Avola concluded that he had been betrayed by his boss, and a year later, he decided to cooperate with police, revealing details that led to the opening of new investigations and the arrest of more than 100 ‘men of honour’.
Just a few days before Cuomo was due in Messina, the attack was called off.
He is currently serving a life sentence for his murders and 40 armed robberies in a special prison for mafia informers in northern Italy – but will be freed in 2019 because of his cooperation with authorities. For security reasons, the Guardian is not naming the prison where he is being held.
A senior source at Palermo magistrate’s court confirmed that an investigation into Avola’s allegations of a plot to kill Cuomo was still open, but said that details of the case were confidential.
Avola’s lawyer, Ugo Colonna, said that his client’s allegations may help shed some light on the history of that period of Cosa Nostra.
“Understanding why the mafia wanted to eliminate the governor of New York, in 1992, could also help us to understand the violence of the bosses who, in those years, were waging a real war against the state,” he said.
Ignazio De Francisci, a Palermo prosecutor who worked alongside Falcone and Borsellino, said that in the early 1990s, mafia bosses had already spread their actions beyond Sicily.
