Croatia’s sterling report card from the European Commission last week – part of the EC’s annual evaluation of Balkan countries for potential European Union membership – may not have warranted much coverage with the US presidential election and continued bad financial news. So the EC could get away with this mild assessment of a country that has recently seen some of the worst mob-style violence in Europe (one broad-daylight execution, one car bombing, etc): “Concrete results are needed in the fight against organized crime which is a matter of concern.”
Zagreb has addressed neither organized crime, nor the overhaul of its shipbuilding industry, the EC reckoned Croatia could be a member by 2010 or 2011. And never mind the EU ministerial forum hosted by Croatia just one day later– it was a love-in.
(EC vice-president Jacques) Barrot said the European Union was encouraging and helping the authorities of Western Balkan countries in the fight against xenophobia, racism, and discrimination, particularly against Roma or Gypsies.
"We don't want to judge you, but to help you and open the doors of Europe to you," Barrot said.
If the EC is not going to judge Croatia, who will? Now that the US election is over, let’s hope that a few editorials will appear here and there begging the EU not to be completely insane – which it would be by offering Croatia EU membership year after next. The Times of London last week was on the right track when it noted the following – in an article, not an editorial:
The rush to embrace Croatia is causing alarm that the EU will repeat the mistakes it made over Bulgaria and Romania, both of which were allowed in last year despite the continued influence of organised crime that is now holding up millions of euros in development aid.
The sweet assessment of Croatia is also the same tired stuff we’ve seen from the EU in recent years, particularly in the cases of Serbia and Bosnia: Tell a country it must do X and Y or it won’t move closer to the Union; then, when the country doesn’t do X or Y, or even try to appear as though it may one day do X or Y, allow the country to move closer to the Union anyway, thus undermining any and all credibility the EU may have had. Such has been the case with Serbia’s inability to turn in a former general wanted by the UN war crimes tribunal, and with Bosnia’s inability to reform education, public television, the judiciary, the economic sphere, or any other meaningful area.
One bright spot in this is that no matter how far the EU bends over backwards to help usher in Croatia, the Union won’t be able to invite any new members to join until the 27 member countries ratify the Lisbon Treaty – which doesn’t look promising after Ireland’s recent resounding “no” on the treaty’s referendum.
Italian Police Arrest 47
Italy, a founding EU member that has its own problems with organized crime, continues to try to crack down on mobsters. Police last week arrested 47 people on charges of murder, extortion and drug trafficking in and around Naples, and seized bank accounts and assets valued at around €80 million. One of those arrested was Gemma Donnarumma, who is suspected of running the Camorra’s Gionta clan after her husband, Valentino Gionto, was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison.
Italy also made various “news of the weird” lists last week after police arrested a fugitive mob suspect just as he was waking up after liposuction surgery. “He discovered he had lost a lot more than weight,” wrote an AP wag. Dominico Magnoli, 27, was arrested on a year-old French warrant for drug trafficking. Police said he had connections with a clan of the cocaine-dealing ‘Ndrangheta syndicate.
Corruption news
The Russian Duma Monday approved the first reading of an anti-corruption bill submitted by Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, reported the Moscow Times. The bill, if it passes a second reading next month, outlines the changes that anti-corruption crusader Medvedev has clamored for since his election in March: Federal ministers and their families will have to declare their assets and income, officials leaving government jobs will have to have permission from their former bosses to work for companies they dealt with while in government office, and officials who receive gifts worth more than 5,000 rubles ($185) will have to turn the gifts over to the state. Communist Party deputy Viktor Ilyukhin said his committee would push for amendments to the bill that would allow the assets of corrupt officials to be confiscated, and expand the type of relatives of state officials who are to declare their income and assets. That would now include parents, siblings and adult children.
Engineering giant Siemens announced last week that it had set aside €1 billion to settle damages in corruption cases in the US and Germany. The company acknowledged dubious payments to secure contracts in various countries, in a corruption scandal that came to light last year. Also last year, Siemens agreed to pay a €201 million fine that would bring to end the corruption investigation in Germany; this year Siemens is seeking a deal with the US Securities and Exchange Commission and the Justice Department to end a two-year bribery investigation.
In Israel, police questioned Prime Minister Ehud Olmert for the ninth time in connection with several corruption scandals that drove him from office in September. Friday’s two-and-a-half-hour questioning session dealt with allegations that Olmert had double- and triple-billed his travel expenses and pocketed the difference. Olmert remains caretaker prime minister until elections in February. Besides the travel expenses investigation, Olmert is also suspected of illicitly taking tens of thousands of dollars in cash from a Jewish-American businessman and conducting questionable real estate deals.
Russian mob group in US southwest
The Arizona pawn shops may have lacked the glamour of a front company in the Cayman Islands, but police said they were front companies all the same. Tucson police arrested four Russians last week in connection with a string of pawn shops alleged to have been used as fronts for trafficking stolen property. Police said the Russian immigrants were also involved in burglaries, and weapons and narcotics violations, reported the Arizona Daily Star:
The bust was made after undercover officers infiltrated the group and began trading and selling purported stolen merchandise to the owners of the stores, according to Sgt. Mark Robinson, a Tucson Police Department spokesman.
It was determined that the group in Tucson was closely connected to another group of Russian immigrants in Phoenix who were operating a pawn shop there, Robinson said.
Robinson told the Tucson Citizen that the men had been charged with trafficking stolen jewelry and high-value coins worth more than $100,000, and with trafficking marijuana and other narcotics. Police reckoned the crimes had a national and international angle, as the suspects were wiring money to New York and Russia.
Greece: Mobster Shot Dead
A man reported as “one of Greece’s most notorious protection racketeers” was shot dead by two gunmen on a motorcycle that pulled up next to his car at a traffic light last weekend, reported the daily Kathimerini.
Alekos Kosmopoulos, 47, was linked to a high-profile bloody battle between underworld figures in the late 1980s and was convicted of the murder of a former associate a few years later.
Police said that Kosmopoulos resumed his criminal activities after being released from jail, but over the past few years had maintained a much lower profile. In view of this, officers believe that his murder is likely to have been a settling of old scores or a contract killing.
Police said that two gunmen shot Kosmopoulos several times before riding off. No description of the suspects was issued by late last night.
Microsoft: Organized Crime on ‘Net
Software giant Microsoft’s latest research shows that organized crime on the Internet is increasing, reports ITbusiness.ca.
After dryly discussing hackers attacking operating systems versus attacking applications, and making the earth-shattering observation that “the majority of today’s malicious activities are driven by a motive for financial gain,” Microsoft Canada’s national security head Mohammed Akif drops the jargon to talk about the biggest everyday threats, including the Trojan downloader Zlob, which attacks the computer through pop-up boxes.
“These will be boxes like, ‘You have spyware, so click here for free software to get your computer clean,'” he said. “Depending on the intensity and severity of this, your computer can then be breached and compromised. We saw 86,000 variants of Zlob in the last six months and we feel the reason this number is so high is because there's a financial upside to it.”