Tag Archives: mafia news

Blog, Criminal, International, Legal News, Organized Crime

War of words between Turkish mafia leaders escalates following legal reform bill

Supporters of Turkish mafia leaders have entered into a war of words following a penal reform that would release a large number of people held in Turkish prisons.

Prisoner releases have begun in Turkey after a law was passed that will see as many as 90,000 inmates set free to reduce the coronavirus pandemic’s threat to the country’s overcrowded prisons.

A notorious convicted mafia leader Alaattin Çakıcı, known for his close ties to Nationalist Movement Party, is among those who will enjoy the parole, according to Turkish media.

Following the reports, supporters of Çakıcı took to Twitter to threaten his rival Sedat Peker, a hard-line Turkish nationalist convicted of crimes including establishing a criminal organisation.

Çakıcı, who was a household name in the 1980s as a mob boss, was indicted in 1995 for contracting the killing of his wife in front of their son before fleeing abroad. Following his 1998 extradition from France, Çakıcı was released from prison in 2002. In 2004 Çakıcı was extradited again, this time from Austria, and has been in prison ever since, convicted of various charges including organising and leading a crime syndicate, instigating murder, and insulting President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

Read Full

Blog, Criminal, Family, International, Legal News, Organized Crime

Mafia-linked funeral investigated amid coronavirus lockdown

Sicilian procession for brother of Cosa Nostra boss Luigi Sparacio claimed to have broken Covid-19 safety laws

Italian prosecutors are investigating the funeral of the brother of a former Sicilian mafia boss for allegedly breaching Italy’s coronavirus lockdown.

Photographs showed a funeral procession in Messina attended by dozens of people. Family and friends gathered on the streets to accompany the coffin carrying Rosario Sparacio, 70, the older brother of Luigi Sparacio, who was considered one of the most important heads of the Cosa Nostra in the 1990s and who eventually turned supergrass.

The news, first reported by the newspaper La Gazzetta del Sud, has sparked a row in Italy where since the beginning of March a government decree has banned all religious gatherings, including funerals and weddings, in order to contain the spread of Covid-19.

In the cities hit hardest by the coronavirus pandemic, coffins are awaiting burial, held in churches, and the corpses of those who have died at home are being kept in sealed rooms.

Read Full

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

Mafia distributes food to Italy’s struggling residents

Organised crime groups offer support to quarantined families who have run out of cash

As Italy struggles to pull its economy through the coronavirus crisis, the Mafia is gaining local support by distributing free food to poor families in quarantine who have run out of cash, authorities have warned.

In recent weeks, videos have surfaced of known Mafia gangs delivering essential goods to Italians hit hard by the coronavirus emergency across the poorest southern regions of Campania, Calabria, Sicily and Puglia, as tensions rise across the country.

“For over a month, shops, cafés, restaurants and pubs have been closed,” Nicola Gratteri, antimafia investigator and head of the prosecutor’s office in Catanzaro, told the Guardian. “Millions of people work in the grey economy, which means that they haven’t received any income in more than a month and have no idea when they might return to work. The government is issuing so-called shopping vouchers to support people. If the state doesn’t step in

Read Full

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

Mafia primed to feast on Italy’s virus devastation

Desolation for Italy, an opportunity for the mafia

As Italy mourns thousands of coronavirus dead, and survivors brace for life in an economic wasteland, one rung of society looks to win big: organised crime.

“The Italian mafia can turn threats into opportunities,” top government anti-mafia investigator Giuseppe Governale told AFP.

Over 10,000 people have died in Italy of the flu-like disease, which has forced the country into a lockdown that is devastating the eurozone’s third largest economy.

From the historic Cosa Nostra in Sicily, to the immensely powerful ‘Ndrangheta in Calabria and trigger-happy Camorra in Naples, Italy’s mafias were “caught on the back foot (by the virus), but are now organising themselves,” Governale said.

The Economist Intelligence Unit said Thursday it expected Italy’s GDP to contract by a colossal seven percent for the year. Italian experts say some 65 percent of Italian small and medium businesses are at risk of bankruptcy.

Read Full

Blog, Criminal, Legal News, Organized Crime

New York’s Last Bigtime Mafia Boss, Gets Sendoff From His ‘Spark Plug’

There were no flower cars outside the funeral of 103-year-old John ‘Sonny’ Franzese—but gospel music, funny stories, and eulogies from his loving grandkids made it much grander.

No cops or FBI agents were waiting outside with cameras.

No flower cars accompanied the hearse and the three black limousines that pulled up to Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church.

And unless you knew otherwise, you would not have imagined that the bronze coffin borne up the steps contained the mortal remains of New York’s last bigtime Mafia boss.

The first hint to someone not in the know only came when the priest, Monsignor David Cassato, offered a joke.

“There’s an expression, there’s two things in life you’re sure of, right?” Cassato said. “Death and…

“Taxes,” a number of the roughly 75 mourners joined him in saying.

“If you’re smart, Sonny told me, you can avoid some of those taxes,” Cassato said, drawing laughter even from those who appeared to be feeling the loss most keenly.

John Franzese, known as Sonny, had been the federal prison system’s oldest inmate and its only centenarian when he completed his last stint behind bars in 2017. He died in a Queens nursing home at the age of 103, having lived long enough to become known as the Nodfather for dozing off in court.

Read Full