Daily

Montenegro’s Kalic questioned in plot, released

An alleged drug lord in northern Montenegro was questioned over the weekend for renting an apartment to 10 men who were later arrested on suspicion of plotting to kill a person police did not name in the capital Podgorica, reported the local press.

Water mafias ruling public water supplies

Health and education may be the public services best known around the world for their susceptibility to palm-greasing for better services and other corruption. But a new report says the water sector is a close third, and that water-related corruption not only makes water systems less efficient and drives up prices, but also puts lives around the world at risk.

Bulgaria loses EU money

For failure to do much about organized crime or corruption, Bulgaria has been punished with the suspension of €500 million in assistance funds from the European Union (EU).

This is the first time the EU has cut off assistance to a member. The freeze affects aid for farmers, road-building and large building projects, and the EU also banned two Bulgarian government agencies from handling EU funds.

Second Wives Expose Chinese Corruption

Corrupt Chinese officials might do well to remember the WWII-era phrase “Loose lips might sink ships” before indulging in pillow talk.

Using information from women who came forward, authorities in the southern city of Dongguan, in Guangdong Province, have been able to root out cases of corruption, graft and high-level fraud.

Colombo Family Busted

Eight suspected mobsters – including the reputed acting head of the Colombo crime family, Thomas “Tommy Shots” Gioeli – were arrested in New York City earlier this month on federal charges accusing them of crimes that ranged from gangland hits and a fur coat heist in New York in the early 1990s to a home invasion by police impersonators in Los Angeles in 2006.

Politkovskaya Arrests

Russian authorities arrested four men on June 18 in connection with the 2006 murder of Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya.

Three suspects – Sergei Khadzhikurbanov, a former policeman with the Moscow Directorate for Combating Organized Crime, and two Chechen brothers, Ibragim and Dzhabrail Makhmudov – were charged with involvement in the murder. The fourth suspect – Pavel Ryaguzov – is an officer of the Federal Security Service (FSB), Russia’s successor to the KGB.

US Medical Fraud

Bilking the U.S. government out of millions of dollars seems never to have been easier, with fraudsters using the federal government health plan for the elderly and disabled as a vehicle for thievery.

One Florida woman, cited in a June story in the Washington Post, sent more than 140,000 fraudulent claims over her laptop to Medicare over four years, and ended up with some $105 million to luxuriate in the two townhouses and Mercedes-Benz that money bought her.