Kazakhs Eye Crime Insurance

In other neighborhood news, Russia last week closed every single casino in the country, saying it was cracking down on organized crime. While some say the move will push gambling underground and strengthen organized crime, at least two casino moguls have said they’ll move their operations to friendlier Serbia, Croatia and Montenegro. For an in-depth look at southeastern Europe’s own already-shady gambling industry, check out The Big Bet on this site.

Also last week, a Russian journalist who’d covered crime and corruption died last week of injuries sustained in April. Colleagues said Vyacheslav Yaroshenko was attacked outside his home by an assailant who hit him in the temple before fleeing. Police say Yaroshenko fell down the stairs while drunk, and will not be investigating.

Beeb on BiH Divisions

Radio 4’s The World Tonight was in Bosnia recently, producing two segments on the country’s post-war divisions. While one of the pieces used the time-worn example of Bosnian Serbs rooting for the football team of neighboring Serbia as a way to show the divided country, the other segment began with a high-ranking Bosnian cop saying that the country’s 14 fragmented police agencies are no match for serious organized crime.

And according to (state police director Mirko) Lujic, it is hard to get them to co-operate, and take on the major-league criminals.

"Organised crime is always connected with the government," he claimed. "That's the problem."

The Beeb also notes, “It was not supposed to be this way,” when discussing the Dayton agreement that ended the war. The agreement, once thought of as a blueprint, has since evolved into a straitjacket. Other recent stories on how Bosnia doesn’t work can be found here and here. 

Bulgaria Ousts Socialists

A rightist party running on an anti-corruption ticket won Bulgaria’s parliamentary elections on Sunday, and likely will oust a Socialist-led government that had lost €600 million in European Union subsidies last year over its failure to address corruption and crime. Sofia Mayor Boiko Borissov, who leads the GERB party, has promised to restore EU aid.

Borissov, a karate black belt who was once a bodyguard of Communist dictator Todor Zhivkov, has a reputation that precedes him, the Independent wrote in a short profile on Sunday.

Mr Borisov's track record shows he is an uncompromising man of action. He personally headed raids against drug traffickers and criminals when he was the interior ministry's chief secretary, and received the rank of general in the previous government.

As mayor of the capital, he has fired numerous officials from city contractors and agencies and prosecuted them on suspicion of fraud. Ordinary people like him because they say he is the only one at the top who does something and is not afraid to confront anyone. Always accompanied by his bodyguards, he has won hearts with his down-to-earth, often coarse, language…

But some EU diplomats express scepticism about Mr Borisov's resolve for deep change because of alleged past links with Bulgaria's underworld. Borisov, who was a firefighter before founding a private security firm in the 1990s, reacts with outrage to such allegations, rejecting them as propaganda. But critics say his party has so far failed to produce concrete ideas about how to reform the judiciary. The depth of change will depend to a large extent on whether GERB is forced into a broad coalition.

Meanwhile, two suspected crime bosses who ran for seats in parliament lost their bids on Sunday. But Plamen Galev and Angel Hristov, who were charged with running an organized crime group before their parliamentary bids gave them immunity, will not be returning to jail, according to a Sofia prosecutor.

When they were freed by the court they were granted bail. Only if they break bail conditions can they be sent back to jail, (prosecutor Nikolai) Kokinov said, noting that failing to appear in court or committing another crime would constitute such an infringement.

"However, I expect that they will do everything possible not to break their bail terms, so that they can remain free," said Kokinov.

SA: Prepaid Mobiles Law

Prepaid mobile phone users in South Africa will have to show identification to keep their numbers, according to a new law passed last week.

On Wednesday, legislation regulating tapping of telephones and intercepting emails will come into force, making it necessary for anyone buying a prepaid SIM card to provide proof of address and identification.It further requires current prepaid SIM owners to provide their details to their service providers or face the termination of their number…

The new act will force cellphone operators, including Internet and email service providers, to keep SMSes, emails and voice calls in an archive to allow for access by authorities. Anyone selling cellphones or SIM cards is required by the act to keep records of the buyer's address, cellphone and handset number and keep a copy of the person's identity document. However, only a judge can unlock access to the archive by giving security agencies such permission.

By requiring information from prepaid mobile customers, South Africa has joined a handful of other countries – including Australia and Thailand – that have realized these phones are a boon to criminals. Privacy advocates, meanwhile, say that the laws are intrusive and that there are plenty of legitimate reasons people want to have anonymous cell phones,

And in other could-this-be-a-model-for-elsewhere news, the US state of Connecticut passed a law last week that

targets money managers who defraud Connecticut investors and puts in place protections for victims by establishing the groundwork for a restitution fund. The law expands the state’s organized crime law to include securities fraud and ensures that those white collar criminals face significant jail time and steep penalties.

There’s been a bit of talk lately about expanding RICO laws and their ilk to cover white-collar crime of the Madoff variety. Let’s see how Connecticut fares with it.

Italy, Sicily Mob News

The Italian mobster dubbed the Mafia’s “foreign minister” arrived in Italy last week after his extradition from Venezuela. Salvatore Miceli, a Sicilian mob heavy who allegedly brokered deals with South American drug cartels, was taken to jail immediately upon landing at Rome’s Leonardo da Vinci airport.

An Italian organized crime expert, meanwhile, welcomes Germany’s tougher new asset seizure laws. “It’s not a good day for the Mafia,” said Laura Gravini, a German-based member of the Italian parliament’s anti-mafia commission. Germany’s parliament recently adopted measures that make it easier to seize the assets of criminals convicted in other EU member countries. Before, complex procedures gave criminals time to divest themselves of cash from drug deals and contract killings; the new measures apparently cut down on the time it takes to seize the ill-gotten gains.

And finally, the Sunday Telegraph reports that Italy’s crime groups, which are based in the south of the country, are getting into the game up north.

Milan's chief anti-Mafia judge, Alberto Nobili, has revealed in an interview with The Sunday Telegraph that 1,000 'Ndrangheta operatives and their collaborators are already in and around the city, flooding the streets with cocaine, muscling in on public works contracts, and investing some of the proceeds in the city's famous fashion business.

"They're already here,' said Mr Nobili, "and we've got fight on our hands." What was more, he added, the Mob's biggest prize was yet to come. It has set its sights on the €15 billion government investment fund designed to upgrade Milan's infrastructure as it prepares to host the Expo World Fair in 2015.