The singing ban is part of Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s plan to toughen up on convicted leaders of organized crime. Informants told officials that jailed bosses had literally serenaded their footsoldiers with messages and orders, often in Sicilian or Neapolitan dialects incomprehensible to other Italian speakers, particularly the guards and wardens of the northern Italian prisons in which most Mafia convicts serve time.
Other measures include a ban on socializing, and a dramatic reduction in the number of visits from families, friends and lawyers. The 570 convicts affected – including bosses such as Toto Riina and Bernardo Provenzano, both serving life sentences – will be afforded one hour per day of outdoor exercise. They’ll spend the other 23 hours of the day alone in their cells.
OLAF heads to
Officials from Europe’s anti-fraud office will head to Bulgaria to pressure its officials to do more about organized crime and corruption.
The European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) played a role in the European Union (EU)’s recent decision to suspend €500 million in aid to
At the same time, the local press reports that more than 50 police officers have resigned from Bulgaria’s anti-mafia police department in the past month. Radio Darik reported that most of those submitting resignation letters are from the Main Directorate for Combating Organized Crime’s drugs unit.
Swiss police raid French electric company in corruption probe
Swiss police investigating alleged corruption and contract bribes last week raided a unit of Alstom SA, a French company whose power stations generate one-fifth of the world’s electricity.
One person was arrested on suspicion of abuse of duty, and a company retiree was questioned, but no other information has come out about the investigation other than that the Swiss attorney general has said that it is unrelated to other allegations involving the company.
Those include French prosecutors investigating whether the Paris-based company paid hundreds of millions of dollars in bribes to secure contracts in Asia and
US, Dutch seize cocaine in Caribbean
A U.S.-Holland raid on a ship in the Caribbean last week seized 4.6 tons of cocaine, the biggest-ever cocaine haul for the Dutch.
The Olympics are over, but this raid involved a similar parade of nations: The Dutch Navy received a tip-off at its Curacao office and sent a vessel with a US Coast Guard squad inside to intercept a Panamanian ship that had left
After stopping the ship outside Puerto Rico, the half-dozen strong US Coast Guard attachment boarded her and later found bales of cocaine in hidden compartments in the engine room.
The Coast Guard’s law enforcement detachments have been embedding with its allies’ militaries and police to seize drug shipments in the major drug trafficking corridor that is the
And in more parade-of-nations crime news, an Iowa woman trying to make money from home found herself working for the Russian mafia.
Alexis Duncan starting working for Lithuania-based Lithutronics several months ago, receiving $20 apiece for re-shipping packages sent to her
Authorities say the items, mostly high-grade electronics, were purchased online with stolen credit cards. The items were shipped to Duncan, who then sent them to various locations in
Polk County Sheriff's detectives executed a search warrant and recovered about $5,000 in electronics. Some of the credit card fraud victims were from the
These and other high-profile cases, including a recent
According to the report, wireless technology allows fraud artists to steal payment card information without ever entering a store -- they can gather the information from a point-of-sale terminal inside while sitting in a car nearby. The information is then transferred to illegal debit card factories worldwide within seconds. The potential for profits is huge, making it very attractive to well-established organized crime groups traditionally involved in activities like drug trafficking.
Organized crime, said the head of
Brown to Karzai: Get rid of corruption
At least