Daily

Suspected Mob Chief Arrested

Russian media is reporting that Russian police have arrested Semion Mogilevich, 61, a Ukrainian businesman who is wanted in the U.S. on suspicion of extortion, racketeering, money laundering and fraud. Mogilevich, known as the "Brainy Don," has long been considered a major figure in Russian organized crime by police worldwide.

Mafia Biz in Italy

The Mafia, involved in everything from food manufacture and construction to tourism and real estate, is a leading business in Italy, with a turnover of $120 billion per year, or seven percent of the country’s economy, according to a new report.

The Italian retailing association Confesercenti warned in an Oct. 22 report that Mafia extortion is spreading from small to larger businesses and that Mafia activity is expanding in the south of the country. 

 

ATPIS Report

A report recently released by an UN-backed agency in Serbia has given new tools to governments wanting to end shadowy transnational weapons shipments.

The South Eastern and Eastern Europe Clearinghouse for the Control of Small Arms and Light Weapons (SEESAC.org) published a report on Oct. 1 that details how arms traffickers work, the principles of detecting and deterring dodgy arms deals, and introduces a never-before-seen system that governments and law enforcement agencies can use to reduce ammunition and arms smuggling.

 

UNMIK corruption

After months of denials, the deputy head of the UN mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) has admitted that he is under investigation by the UN Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS) – the only organization that UN staff are accountable to under the terms of the UN resolution that created the Kosovo mission in 1999.

Speaking to a news conference on Sept. 26, UNMIK deputy head Steven Schook acknowledged that he faces an internal investigation for alleged misconduct.

 

Macedonia op

Eight ethnic Albanians were reported killed in northwest Macedonia on Wednesday, after a police operation to arrest a criminal group on Wednesday morning met with armed resistance.

Macedonian police spokesman Ivo Koteski told Reuters that Wednesday’s dawn raid aimed to bring in a criminal group operating around Tetovo,  a predominantly ethnic Albanian area some 30 miles northwest of the Macedonian capital Skopje. Police reported no police casualties and denied reports from NATO peacekeepers in neighboring Kosovo that a Macedonian police helicopter had been downed in the incident.

 

TI Global Corruption Perception Index

The countries of Central Asia are among the most corrupt in the world and the situation has only worsened in the past year, while several countries in the Balkans and the Caucasus have improved from 2006, according to Transparency International’s annual Global Corruption Perception Index, released in late September.

 

Andrija Draskovic released from Italian jail

Controversial Serbian businessman Andrija Drašković, a suspect in cigarette smuggling and drug trafficking investigations, was released from Italian prison on August 13th due to a lack of evidence, his attorney Veljko Delibašić stated.

Serbian Operation Network-a hunt for cigarette smugglers

In June 2007 the Public District Attorney Office in Belgrade in cooperation with Serbian Police started cracking down on large organized crime groups, known as the “tobacco mafia” involved in cigarette smuggling in the country during the 1990s.

EFT linked to Serbian charges

On April 25, 2007, Serbian police filed criminal complaints against three former officials of Elektroprivreda Serbia (EPS) for deals involving energy trader Vuk Hamović.

According to the Serbian Ministry of Interior (MUP), the officials allegedly signed harmful contracts from 2001 to 2004 between EPS and Energy Financing Team (EFT) and Interface. London-based EFT is owned by Hamović and Interface, which is registered in the Caribbean, by EFT board member James Nye. The contracts gave the companies illegal profits of about 20.7 million KM and cost the Serbian government 3.6 million KM in lost revenues, according to police.