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
U.S. Attorney David Hickton said his office is looking into whether a federal civil law on organized crime can be applied to the Roman Catholic Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown in the wake of a state grand jury report that said it had a history of clergy sexual abuse and coverup.
The report found that much of the abuse by diocesan priests dated back several decades, and neither the abuse nor any alleged coverup could be prosecuted under the statute of limitations.
But federal laws allow U.S. prosecutors to bring a civil case against an organization and seek an injunction or a consent decree to shape its future behavior, and such cases do not have a statute of limitations, he said.
Mr. Hickton said his office is looking into the case because it prosecuted one Altoona-Johnstown priest, Joseph Maurizio, who last month was sentenced to 17 years in federal prison for sexually abusing boys at a Honduras orphanage between 2004 and 2009.
U.S. Attorney David Hickton said his office is looking into whether a federal civil law on organized crime can be applied to the Roman Catholic Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown in the wake of a state grand jury report that said it had a history of clergy sexual abuse and coverup.
The report found that much of the abuse by diocesan priests dated back several decades, and neither the abuse nor any alleged coverup could be prosecuted under the statute of limitations.
But federal laws allow U.S. prosecutors to bring a civil case against an organization and seek an injunction or a consent decree to shape its future behavior, and such cases do not have a statute of limitations, he said.
Mr. Hickton said his office is looking into the case because it prosecuted one Altoona-Johnstown priest, Joseph Maurizio, who last month was sentenced to 17 years in federal prison for sexually abusing boys at a Honduras orphanage between 2004 and 2009.
Sourced From – http://www.post-gazette.com/news/state/2016/04/02/Federal-prosecutor-reviews-possible-use-of-RICO-law-for-Altoona-Johnstown/stories/201604020025
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/
Italian Guardia di Finanza police inspect a cocaine refining laboratory, which was raided on Wednesday, in a town on the slopes of the Vesuvius volcano south of Naples, in this still image taken from a Guardia di Finanza video, February 17, 2016.
REUTERS/GUARDIA DI FINANZA/ HANDOUT VIA REUTERS
Italian mobsters make as much money trafficking narcotics in Italy as Fiat does selling cars, but without having to pay taxes, the anti-mafia prosecutors office said on Wednesday.
Citing estimates by the United Nations Office on Narcotics and Crime, anti-mafia prosecutors said that the narcotics trade earns more than 32 billion euros ($34.70 billion) annually for organized crime, which controls Italy’s drug trade.
“It’s as if the main national carmaker together with its suppliers, service providers and dealerships paid all their salaries and suppliers, and produced everything completely off the books and without any regulation, and then sold and reinvested everything without paying any taxes,” the annual report by the anti-mafia prosecutor’s office said.
“The small difference is that the profit margin for the drug traffickers is at least 10 times higher than any industrial manufacturer.”
It said the Calabrian mafia, known as the ‘Ndrangheta, had become Europe’s top supplier of South American cocaine.
Thanks to “privileged” ties with South American criminal groups that “recognize the full trustworthiness of the Calabrian clans”, the ‘Ndrangheta has also set itself up as the main supplier of cocaine to other mafia groups in Italy, it said.
From July 2014 to June 2015, Italy seized almost 4 tonnes of cocaine, a decrease of more than 8 percent from the previous period. In the port of Gioia Tauro in Calabria, 3 tonnes of cocaine have been seized by police in the past three years.
The report was comparing earnings to Fiat in Italy, not the work of the wider Fiat Chrysler group worldwide.
($1 = 0.9221 euros)
(Reporting by Steve Scherer; Editing by Alison Williams)
Sourced From – http://www.reuters.com/article/us-italy-mafia-drugs-idUSKCN0W42H3
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/
