Tag Archives: mafia

Blog, International, Legal News, Organized Crime

Italian police busted a mafia group trying to smuggle over a billion dollars’ worth of cocaine into Europe

Italian anti-mafia police said they busted an international drug ring and arrested 54 people with ties to notorious mafia group ‘Ndrangheta attempting to smuggle cocaine with a street value of $1.7 billion into Europe.

While the ‘Ndrangheta is based in the southern Calabria region, the 54 people arrested were detained in different parts of Italy, the country’s authorities said, according to Reuters.

The group was allegedly conspiring to import about 8 metric tons, or 17,637 pounds, of cocaine from Colombia into Europe via seaports and airports in Calabria, which is at the southern tip of the Italian mainland.

Read Full Article – http://www.businessinsider.com/italy-cocaine-bust-drug-trafficking-ndrangheta-mafia-2017-1

Blog, International, Legal News, Organized Crime

Italy’s anti-mafia squad in overdrive as asylum seekers flood into Europe

By Connie Agius

Updated

Italy’s investigators are ramping up their efforts to stop organised criminal gangs — including the mafia — from smuggling people into the country, in the face of record asylum seeker arrivals.

The number of people who made the hazardous boat journey across Mediterranean Sea from Africa to Italy increased by 17 per cent in 2016.

A record-breaking 180,746 people arrived in the Italian regions of Sicily, Calabria, Apulia and Campania, up from 153,842 in 2015.

Dr Gery Ferrara — the lead anti-mafia prosecutor responsible for investigating the criminal networks that smuggle people to Italy — said authorities started tracking people smugglers as soon as asylum seekers disembarked.

Full Read – http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-01-02/asylum-seekers-flood-into-italy/8157396

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

Venezuela closes border with Colombia ‘to destroy mafia’

Venezuela has closed its border with Colombia for 72 hours in the latest measure to combat smuggling gangs.

President Nicolas Maduro says the “mafia” operating in border areas is causing huge damage to the economy.

Many items subsidised by Venezuela’s socialist government, including diesel and petrol, are sold at a huge profit over the border in Colombia.

On Sunday, he announced that the country’s highest denomination bank note would be taken out of circulation.

‘Destroy the mafia’

President Maduro said the move would stop gangs hoarding the currency.

“Let’s destroy the mafia before the mafias destroy our country and our economy,” he said on national television.

“This measure was inevitable, it was necessary,” he added. “The mafias will go bust.”

Venezuela last closed most border crossings with Colombia in August 2015. The border was partially reopened a year later.

In 2015, the Colombian government complained that it had not been consulted or informed.

Full Read – http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-38297927

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

EU Police Agency: 314 Arrested in Organized Crime Raids

  • By MIKE CORDER, ASSOCIATED PRESS

THE HAGUE, Netherlands — Oct 19, 2016, 8:40 AM

Police and other law enforcement organizations around the world cooperated in a massive weeklong operation targeting organized crime that led to 314 arrests, the seizure or 2.4 tons of cocaine and interception of hundreds of migrants, European Union police agency Europol announced Wednesday.

Law enforcement teams in 52 countries, supported by organizations including Interpol and EU border agency Frontex, took part in the series of interlinked raids and investigations that also focused on cybercrime and airline ticket fraud.

“The results are pretty impressive, I think, in terms of the number of arrests,” Europol Director Rob Wainwright told The Associated Press in a telephone interview. “I’m especially happy with the impact on trafficking human beings and the number of potential victims that we identified.”

Europol said the operation intercepted 745 migrants and identified 529 victims of human trafficking.

Wainwright said that the multi-agency operation involving nations around the world is an effective way of tackling modern organized crime networks.

“Crime is becoming more cross-border and criminal networks are becoming more agile at operating in different criminal markets simultaneously,” he said.

Another focus was airline fraud and police detained 193 people suspected of traveling using tickets bought with stolen or fake credit cards.

Such fraud costs the aviation industry an estimated $1 billion a year, Europol said. Wainwright said that there are vital security implications, too.

“We cannot allow anyone, in particular serious criminals and terrorists, to travel around the world anonymously and to endanger others,” he said in a statement.

Among other raids, Greek police discovered a fake travel agency that was facilitating migrant smuggling and trafficking in human beings, while in Austria police raiding a brothel also discovered a cannabis plantation, triggering a new investigation.

Sourced From – http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/eu-police-agency-314-arrested-organized-crime-raids-42900532

Blog, Criminal, International, Legal News, Organized Crime

Italian Newspaper Claims Mafia Is Trading Weapons with ISIS for Stolen Libyan Artifacts

The Italian newspaper La Stampa claims the Camorra and ‘Ndràngheta mafia groups in southern Italy are giving weapons to the terrorist organization ISIS in exchange for rare cultural artifacts stolen from Libya, writes Hannah McGivern of the Art Newspaper.

The weapons are being smuggled into Italy from Ukraine and Moldova by Russian criminals. The artifacts––taken from Sabratha, Cyrene, and Leptis Magna in Libya, all UNESCO World Heritage Sites—are being shipped from the Libyan city Sirte, a former ISIS presidio, to Gioia Tauro in Calabria, a port that ‘Ndràngheta members have used for pumping cocaine into Europe.

La Stampa journalist Domenico Quirico posed as an antiquities dealer to infiltrate ‘Ndràngheta-controlled trade around Naples. He was offered a carved head from what seemed to be a second-century Roman statue for nearly $66,000 and saw pictures of a Greek god figure available for about $1.1 million. Objects from Italian necropolises were also being sold. The clientele for the mafia groups appear to be located in China, Japan, Russia, and the UAE.

Italy’s interior minister, Angelino Alfano, said in a recent interview, “The criminal turnover of the so-called Islamic state comes from a series of factors, including the sale of works of art that have escaped the iconoclastic fury of the militants.” But Syria’s antiquities chief, Maamoun Abdulkarim, told the Art Newspaper that seventy percent of the artifacts taken from anti-smuggling operations in Lebanon and Syria have proven to be inauthentic.

From – http://artforum.com/news/id=64056