TV: Croat, Serb Mafias Connected

Guests on Latinica, Croatia’s longest-running weekly talk show, all agreed last week that one obstacle to catching Croatian and Serbian criminals who wander in and out of both countries is passports. Journalist Sasa Lekovic pointed out that most Serbian mobsters have legitimate, not falsified, Croatian passports, and cited the example of the most notorious criminal Croatian passport holder: Milorad Ulemek Legija, who received a 40-year sentence last year for masterminding the 2003 assassination of Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic.

The English-language site Javno explained the Croatian passport problem in Orwellian terms:

The reason why all members of the mafia have a Croatian passport, including Legija, is the non-selective selection of police staff in the early years of Croatian history, as well as the non-selective choice in who would receive passports.

To put some nouns and verbs in that statement, we have to go back to Croatia’s early days of statehood in the 1990s. The government of autocratic president Franjo Tudjman offered Croatian passports to anyone of Croat ethnicity, whether that person had two Croat parents or a half-Croat great-grandmother on some far branch of the family tree. And Croatian consular authorities were lax or outright criminal. Legija’s passport, for example, was one of 100 Croatian passports that had “disappeared” or were stolen from the Croatian consulate in Mostar, Bosnia, in 1999. Exacerbating the Croatian passport problem is the fact that, generally, neither country allows its citizens to be extradited.

Britain to Overhaul Bribery Laws

British companies that bribe foreign government workers will find themselves on the wrong side of the law if last week’s recommendations from the British Law Commission go into effect.

Britain has been criticized for its weak bribery laws and the lack of political will to investigate companies accused of foreign bribery. Two general bribery offenses -- one related to giving bribes and another to taking them -- are expected to be implemented at the next parliamentary session.

The changes to the outdated laws, one of which dates back to Magna Carta, should also make it easier to pursue cases like the abandoned corruption inquiry into a deal between arms maker BAE Systems PLC and Saudi Arabia.

"Our recommendations will make the law fit for purpose at a time when a great deal of trade takes place in a global market," said Commissioner Jeremy Horder. "It has never been more important for the modern law to deter people from acting on the temptation to resort to bribery to secure business, both nationally and internationally."

Israel: More Alperon Murder Fallout

Purported Israeli mobster Ya’akov Alperon had been dead from the car bombing that took his life for less than 24 hours when a security guard found an unexploded pipe bomb outside the Central Police Unit’s headquarters in the town of Ramle, near Tel Aviv.

The several-kilo bomb had apparently been thrown at the station but failed to go off because of a detonator malfunction, police said. They believe crime families may be involved.

Police investigators are now checking whether the attackers were in fact attempting to target senior police officials. Detectives are looking into the possibility that the attack was meant to convey a message to police officers involved in the war on organized crime.
The Alperon killing, meanwhile, has spawned another round of tough talk in Israel over what should be done about the organized crime wave. Caretaker Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said the police need to be shaken up. It’s unfortunate that Olmert doesn’t have much credibility on this issue – he’s caretaker PM because police are investigating his involvement in several instances of alleged corruption – as he began his political career in the 1970s by going after corruption in sports, and later organized crime. Others, like Ha’aretz editorial writer Ze’ev Segal, say that Israel should apply the laws already on the books and not be so squeamish about the rights of the accused.
Italy: ‘Mafia Banker’ Assets Seized

Sicilian police have seized €700 million in assets from a supermarket chain owner accused of allowing the mafia to launder money through his businesses.

Anti-mafia prosecutor Roberto Scarpinato said the seizure of property and businesses from Sicilian "supermarket king" Giuseppe Grigoli was "one of the biggest anti-mafia operations in recent years."

Mr Grigoli was arrested last year for alleged links to Matteo Messina Denaro, one of the most powerful godfathers at large since the arrest of "boss of bosses" Bernardo Provenzano in 2006 and his heir apparent Salvatore Lo Piccolo in 2007…Mr Scarpinato, assistant prosecutor in the island capital, said Mr Grigoli dominated the supermarket distribution networks in the west of Sicily, allowing him to employ "hundreds of people close to the Cosa Nostra or recommended by the Mafia."

The prosecutor told a news conference that, from evidence discovered on tiny "pizzini" or paper-scrap messages found in the hut where Provenzano was arrested, Messina Denaro "knew to the last comma the accounts of Grigoli's supermarkets."

Anti-mafia magistrates in Sicily and elsewhere in southern Italy have said crime organisations have been using discount chains and supermarkets to launder money.

Others are turning a blind eye to mob money laundering, according to the author of the anti-Camorra best-seller Gomorrah. Roberto Saviano told a conference in Paris last week that European governments have done little to prevent the three Italian mob groups from laundering billions of euros of drug money annually. He singled out the UK as “one of the countries least interested” in stamping out the money laundering. 

Meanwhile, the release of the film version of Gomorrah has opened up a brisk business for the very mob group the book and film excoriate. Pirate copies of the film are for sale on Naples streets and at newspaper kiosks.

"Should there be any surprise? According to our information, the Camorra invests its capital in China, where CDs and DVDs are produced and distributed the world over," (La Stampa) quoted Fausto Zuccarelli, a specialist in the Naples prosecutor's anti-mafia counterfeiting division, as saying.

In other Camorra news, last week Naples police arrested the 20-year-old son of an alleged Camorra leader. Try getting your head round this one:

Anti-mafia police arrested (Gianluca) Bidognetti on Friday for his alleged involvement in the attempted killing of two relatives of an alleged informant inside the suspected Casalesi mafia clan, the Italian news agency ANSA reported.

The younger Bidognetti’s father, Francesco, is already in jail with other suspected Casalesi heads. Police have a warrant for the alleged leader of the clan’s hit squad, but said they’re still trying to flush him out.

Narco-terrorism Threat to top Al-Qaida?

Organized crime from south of the US border is a growing threat that could one day surpass Al-Qaida, a founder of the Los Angeles Terrorism Early Warning group told Wired magazine last week.

LA sheriff department lieutenant John Sullivan said the Mexican drug mafias have expanded and become more violent, and are joined by various other gangs, and in their “quest to dominate the global criminal opportunity space,” they could help terrorists.

Together, the threat they pose is potentially more lethal than Al Qaeda or any other jihadist groups. The gangs and cartels have a ready supply of weapons. Their members are already "radicalized," and accustomed to sowing mayhem. They have deep networks of support both in the U.S. and abroad. And they blend in perfectly into a thousand neighborhoods across America.

What's more, the ungoverned, lawless zones the gangs and cartels leave in their wake provide fertile ground for extremists and terrorists to exploit. Terrorists, gangs, and organized crime can exist as independent threats, but increasingly, they interact in a number of ways. Terrorists or insurgents may exploit organized crime; criminal gangs may act as middlemen in small arms, explosives or human trafficking; drugs may finance operations; and actors on both sides of the house may facilitate or conduct attacks for each other.

While the Mexican terrorism-criminal nexus is hopefully years away, recent news about the implication of Mexican officials in the drug cartels they are supposed to be eradicating has not let up. Last week, Mexico’s equivalent of drug czar was arrested and charged with accepting a $450,000 bribe from a drug cartel. And already the Mexican drug cartels have spread to the US, according to the LA Times.

The footprints of Mexican smuggling operations are on all but two states, Vermont and West Virginia, according to federal reports. Mexican organizations affiliated with the so-called Federation were identified in 82 cities, mostly in the Southwest, according to an April report by the National Drug Intelligence Center, an arm of the Department of Justice.

Elements of the Juarez cartel were identified in at least 44 cities, from West Texas to Minneapolis. Gulf cartel affiliates were operating in at least 43 cities from South Texas to Buffalo, N.Y. And the Tijuana cartel, active in at least 20 U.S. cities, is extending its network from San Diego to Seattle and Anchorage.