Dame Helen Mirren is an award-winning British actress.
I am passionate about Italy – in particular the people and places of South Italy – and I have a much-loved home there.
Italy has a dark history of mafia violence and political corruption. But it also has many incredibly brave and brilliant public servants – police, magistrates and politicians – who risk their lives and careers day in, day out to fight this enemy within. The threats they receive also put their family life under terrible strain.
These largely unsung heroes need to be recognised and supported.
At the heart of the documentary A Very Sicilian Justice is the astonishing and shocking story of one man – a public servant – who lives in fear and whose freedom is severely restricted simply because he is doing his job.
I also have a personal connection to the events described in the documentary. A close friend – the architect we employed to build our house in Italy, Brizio Montinaro – lost his brother in 1992 in the explosion of mafia violence described in the film.
Antonio Montinaro was a police bodyguard who died alongside the famous anti-mafia prosecutor, Judge Giovanni Falcone, in a bomb attack as he escorted the judge along the Palermo motorway. Falcone’s wife and two other bodyguards were also killed.
Today, almost 25 years later, Judge Antonino Di Matteo is investigating the criminal and political context behind these and other killings and, incredibly, finds himself under tremendous threat for doing so.
The murder plot and threats against Judge Di Matteo show that these events from the past are still very much alive today.
As Di Matteo says in the film, unless Italy faces up to and uncovers the truth behind this tragic period in its recent history, the events of this terrible “season of terror” will continue to poison and polarise Italy’s body politic for ever.
In Italy, the ongoing trials and investigations into this period are little reported. Internationally, this story is virtually unknown.
I hope that A Very Sicilian Justice, by bringing these important events to a worldwide audience, will give added support and recognition to Judge Di Matteo and his colleagues.
Many think Italian organised crime and corruption are confined somehow within Italy’s borders, but this is a dangerous misunderstanding of what “mafia” is.
The proceeds of crime are not only invested abroad and hidden in international tax havens. According to Italian investigators, mafias worldwide have changed their modus operandi. They are increasingly sophisticated, work together and operate more quietly than before through political corruption and by infiltrating the business and financial worlds.
Despite the recent referendum result in the UK and the potential knock-on effect of a severely divided Europe, I passionately believe countries, now more than ever, need to be vigilant, cooperate and unite if we are to win the battle against organised crime and political corruption.
Full article – http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2016/07/helen-mirren-mafia-connection-160706080712820.html
By Rowan Scarborough – The Washington Times – Wednesday, June 29, 2016
The Islamic State is steering followers to a “dark web” mafia site that offers murder and other mayhem for hire at a price of thousands of dollars in Bitcoins, the online currency.
The problem for the world’s most vicious terrorist army is that hackers in recent weeks have exposed the “Besa Mafia” destination as an elaborate fraud. It is likely run not by the real-life Besa Albania Mafia and its criminal networks in Europe and the United States, but by a guy living in Romania.
This means the Islamic State, also known as ISIL and ISIS, is sending its followers on a money-wasting venture that is not likely to get anybody killed.
The Islamic State’s endorsement of the Besa Mafia site was discovered by the Middle East Media Research Institute.MEMRI, which monitors jihadi traffic, found Islamic State’s June 14 message on the channel Cyber Kahilafah, which is carried on the encrypted messaging app Telegram.
Telegram is its own story. Invented by an exiled Russian technocrat as a way for dissidents to escape the wrath of Vladimir Putin, Telegram has become the go-to platform for jihadis’ planning and commanding terrorist attacks, according to its detractors.
The Besa Mafia location is one of the more intriguing stops on the mysterious dark web. Users can reach this sinister-sounding world anonymously via special browsers, such as The Onion Router, or TOR, that do not leave an IP address — no electronic fingerprints.
Read Full Article – http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/jun/29/isis-duped-by-besa-mafia-dark-web-site-offering-mu/
Herald Sun Insight Editor Keith Moor’s fifth true crime book, Busted, is being released by Penguin next week.
It reveals the inside story of the world’s biggest ecstasy haul and how the Australian Calabrian mafia nearly got away with it.
This is an extract from it.
AS police involved in the world’s biggest ecstasy bust waited for the order to kick down the door they were as confident as they could be that those occupying the Carlton apartment would be asleep.
Those about to execute the raid had the element of surprise in their favour so meeting resistance was much less likely, which further boosted their confidence.
And they were aware from a major surveillance operation the day before that the five people inside had only been in bed for a few hours after hitting the bottle hard the previous night.
But Australian Federal Police bosses — who had had been waiting for more than a year to arrest those responsible for importing 4.4 tonnes of ecstasy into Melbourne — didn’t want to risk any of the suspects getting away, or their agents being harmed, so they brought in the big guns for the pre-dawn operation.
The apartment the AFP’s elite Operations Response Group (ORG) was preparing to raid was rented by Australian Calabrian Mafia boss Pasquale Barbaro for his Melbourne mistress, Sharon Ropa.
While Barbaro’s home was his mansion in Griffith, New South Wales, he spent a lot of time shacked up with Ropa in Victoria — unbeknown to his dutiful Italian wife and four children.
Heavily armed AFP agents threw in flash grenades, which set off loud bangs and flashes of light to mimic a hail of bullets, as they smashed their way into the Little Palmerston Street unit through the front and back doors about 4am — which must have done wonders for the hangovers those inside the flat were suffering after attending a funeral and the inevitable wake the night before.
One funeral goer, Aldo Taddeo, no doubt still regrets deciding to spend the night at Barbaro and Ropa’s place after the wake; he wasn’t wanted by police and no charges were laid against him.
Not only did he get the shock of his life when the flash grenades went off, but he got another form of shock when he struggled with police and was zapped with a stun gun to stop him wrestling with one of the AFP agents.
Another of those arrested in the love nest that day, Severino Scarponi, was so scared by the dramatic entrance of the AFP agents that he literally shat himself — a bad start to what became a very crap day for him.
Barbaro’s cousin Pasquale Sergi, who came down from Griffith for the Melbourne funeral, was also arrested during that early morning raid.
He tried to hide in a bedroom cupboard, which, strangely enough, didn’t fool the AFP agents responsible for searching and securing the premises.
Ropa was naked in bed with Barbaro in the master bedroom when AFP agents burst in. The shocked couple were ordered to lie on the floor.
Police raided Barbaro’s Griffith mansion at the same time as they were smashing their way into his love nest.
Ever tactful, officers who spoke to Barbaro’s wife in Griffith that day didn’t mention the naked circumstances of her husband’s arrest in Carlton.
The AFP agents who arrested Barbaro were surprised at how unflappable and calm he remained. Despite being dragged out of bed and his whole world crumbling around him, Barbaro even found time to flirt outrageously with one of the female AFP agents.
It’s difficult to imagine that little old Melbourne is where the world’s biggest ecstasy haul was made, but it’s true.
It’s also difficult to imagine there are still people in Australia who doubt the existence of the Calabrian Mafia here — but that’s true too.
I have had access to several confidential reports prepared by Australian and Italian law-enforcement agencies, ASIO spies and US Federal Bureau of Investigation agents that should convince even the most ardent of doubters that the Calabrian Mafia is a major organised crime player in Australia.
Those documents have never been released, but their contents are revealed in Busted and they paint a graphic picture of the history of the Calabrian Mafia in Australia.
Calabria is in the toe of southern Italy and is the world headquarters of the Italian organised crime gang, ’Ndrangheta.
’Ndrangheta is known by some Italians as L’Onorata Societa (the Honoured Society) or La Famiglia (The Family).
It is simply called the Mafia by most in Australia, or the Calabrian Mafia to differentiate it from the traditional Sicilian Mafia.
’Ndrangheta eclipsed the Sicilian Mafia in the late 1990s to become the most powerful crime syndicate in Italy.
The Calabrian Mafia has a tight clan structure, often involving members marrying relations and sons taking over from ageing fathers to ‘keep it in the family’, which has made it difficult for law enforcement to penetrate.
The secret society has cells all over the world and has had a strong presence in Australia since at least the 1930s.
It is particularly prevalent in Melbourne, Mildura and Shepparton in Victoria, Griffith and Sydney in New South Wales, and Adelaide and Canberra.
It has been responsible for growing and distributing much of Australia’s marijuana for decades. It also got involved in heroin importations in 1979, through now-dead crime boss Robert Trimbole, and is known to have been involved in massive cocaine and ecstasy importations into Australia since at least 2000.
Just as it is important to have knowledge of the Calabrian Mafia to better understand the inside story of the world’s biggest ecstasy bust, it is equally important to know the backgrounds of the main players charged over the 4.4-tonne shipment.
Those players include Barbaro, Ropa, Saverio Zirilli, Rob Karam, John William, Samuel Higgs and Francesco Madafferi.
Easily the biggest of those players — and the undoubted leader of the gang responsible for importing tonnes of drugs into Australia — was Barbaro.
By the time of his 2008 arrest over the world’s biggest ecstasy bust, Barbaro was a senior Calabrian Mafia boss of international standing in the worldwide Italian secret society, and one of the biggest drug dealers Australia has ever produced.
It was Barbaro, through his senior role in the Calabrian Mafia, who had the international connections to give him access to tonnes of drugs through the Belgium-based Aquino Calabrian Mafia syndicate.
Barbaro was in regular contact with senior members of at least three of the world’s biggest international drug smuggling syndicates.
One of Barbaro’s contacts was an English criminal based in Asia who had strong connections to Chinese triad gangs; another was a Belgium-based Calabrian Mafia syndicate responsible for shipping tonnes of cocaine, ecstasy and other drugs around the world; and a third was a syndicate that specialised in making the world’s best-quality ecstasy in super labs near the Belgium — Netherlands border.
Each of the international syndicates also had something other than large scale drug dealing in common with Barbaro: a propensity to threaten and use violence.
Senior players in each of the three gangs treated Barbaro with incredible respect, a clear indication the international syndicate members considered Barbaro to be a major player on the world drug smuggling stage.
Full Article – http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/law-order/true-crime-scene/worlds-biggest-ecstasy-haul-and-the-australian-calabrian-mafia-in-keith-moors-new-book-busted/news-story/2d9bc42c77fad464d2e9c38b4d11750d
A suspected Connecticut mobster may be in on the largest art heist in U.S. history — a $500 million mystery that has remained unsolved for 26 years.
FBI agents returned to the Manchester home of Robert Gentile Monday, marking the third time they’ve raided the 79-year-old alleged mob member’s house.
Federal prosecutors believe Gentile — who is currently behind bars for illegally selling prescription drugs and possessing guns — knows about the 1990 theft at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston.
Thirteen pieces of art worth an estimated $500 million were stolen and never recovered. The swiped haul included the only seascape legendary Dutch painter Rembrandt ever painted, several paintings by Edgar Degas and one by Johannes Vermeer, a Dutch artist who left behind just 31 known works.
No one was ever arrested.
Federal officials declined to say why FBI agents went to Gentile’s home Monday. Gentile’s lawyer, A. Ryan McGuigan, also declined to comment.
“The FBI is conducting court-authorized activity … in connection with an ongoing federal investigation,” said Kristen Setera, a spokeswoman for the FBI in Boston. “We will have no further comment at this time.”
Gentile has told authorities that he doesn’t know anything about the stolen paintings, and McGuigan has denied prosecutors’ allegations that Gentile is a made member of the Philadelphia Mafia.
But prosecutors said that locked-up Gentile has bragged about his knowledge of the paintings: He talked about the stolen works with at least three fellow prisoners at his Rhode Island jail, giving them information on who to call about the art and what code name to use.
Read Full Article – http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/fbi-searches-mafia-home-bid-crack-1990-art-heist-article-1.2623304
An alleged mafia chief’s appetite for pizza has cost him his freedom.
Roberto Manganiello, 35, an alleged boss in Naples’ notorious Camorra mafia in southern Italy, has been arrested by detectives disguised as pizza boys who delivered food to his home as he was watching a football match.
Mr Manganiello, one of Italy’s most-wanted crime bosses, had been on the run since 2013.
He was watching the Naples-Inter soccer match on Saturday with his girlfriend when the operation took place this weekend in Caserta, near Naples.
He has been sought since 2013 for two killings in 2004 that launched a clan feud. Police said he also ran a drug and extortion ring and he has been listed as one of “Italy’s 100 most dangerous criminals”.
Mr Manganiello was unarmed and did not resist arrest. A 30-year-old Neapolitan woman was arrested with him.
Angelino Alfano, the interior minister, said on Sunday the arrest was “the result of a high-level investigation” with coordination across several agencies.
It was reported by Germany’s Deutsche Welle that the investigation included at least 50 people working in a team tracking his movements.
Adding to Mr Manganiello’s humiliation, Milan defeated his home team 2-0, all but crushing Naples’ hopes of a first Serie A title in 26 years.
In the past, there were more than 100 semi-independent clans within the Camorra, often at war with each other.
In August 2011, Italian and Spanish police swooped on Salvatore D’Avino, then one of Italy‘smost wanted fugitives, as he was filling his car with petrol in a town on the Costa del Sol.
D’Avino, 39, alleged to be a member of the Camorra mafia, had been on the run for four years.
Sourced From – http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/04/18/how-an-alleged-mafia-chiefs-appetite-for-pizza-led-to-his-arrest/
