Report: Russian Corruption on Rise

Corruption is still on the rise in Russia, according to a report released last week by a UK-based think tank.

The Ethical Corporation Institute released its report, “Anti-corruption, ethics and compliance in Russia,” on the same day that President Dmitry Medvedev convened a meeting of Russia’s anti-corruption council. The report shows that while the average number of bribes per company annually is down in recent years, the size of the bribes is nearly 13 times larger. The actual percentage of companies giving bribes has stayed steady. Unfortunately, the report is not available free oonline – the Ethical Corporation Institute has to make a buck like the rest of us – but the first eight pages can be found here.

Medvedev himself told Russian television’s Channel One last week that fighting corruption would be difficult. For the first time in its recent history, he said, Russia has the legal foundation to fight corruption, but the difficulty will be in putting the new laws into practice.

"Here, we are going to face various difficulties, including those that have to do with our not being ready to use the authority these laws give us, our not being ready to unveil certain things we have been concealing traditionally," he said noting some progress.

Medvedev said last year 40,000 criminal cases were launched against civil servants against 12 thousand such cases in 2007.

"Corruption starts at the bottom level and goes all the way to the top. We need to get to the root. Otherwise, when people see such things happening everywhere around them, they are discouraged," Medvedev observed.

Two Arrested for Kosovo Espionage

Two men were arrested in Germany last week for allegedly passing sensitive German government information to organized crime figures and foreign intelligence officers in Kosovo and Macedonia.

The Associated Press reported: Anton Robert K., a 42-year-old German, allegedly passed along information while working at the German diplomatic mission in the Kosovo capital Pristina to Murat A., a 28-year-old Macedonian with ties to organized crime and "foreign intelligence," prosecutors said in a statement.

Both men, whose full names were not given, were arrested earlier this month in the Stuttgart area and indicted on the charges Tuesday before a federal judge, prosecutors said. Anton Robert K. faces a possible 10 years in prison if convicted on charges of betrayal of state secrets, while Murat A. faces a possible 5 years if convicted of receiving state secrets.

Murat A., the Macedonian Albanian, had worked for Anton Robert K. as a translator at the mission from 2007 to 2008. So far there’s no word on which organized crime groups or foreign intelligence services are alleged to have been involved, or whether money changed hands. German federal police are still investigating.

Wildlife Smuggling Run by OC

The illegal trade in wildlife and animal parts nets the organized crime groups that run the trade tens of billions of dollars annually, reported the New York-based web paper The Epoch Times last week.

Ivory, songbirds, turtles, tortoises, stingrays and piranha were just a few of the rare or endangered animals or animal parts mentioned in the piece, which cited Interpol as listing this type of smuggling coming in second only to the drug trade as a cash cow for organized crime.

The animals are stolen from their natural habitat by poachers and spirited out, mostly to developed countries where collectors or those who simply want an unusual gift for their kid’s birthday can afford the exorbitant prices charged.

“Some of these rare parrots or deer falcons can fetch up to $100,000,” says Michael O’Sullivan, chairman and CEO of The Humane Society of Canada (HSC).

What can be done? O’Sullivan told the Epoch that laws designed to bring down organized crime – racketeering laws and asset seizure – could be powerful tools for ending the trade.

O’Sullivan says a “useful tool” in existence in many countries for fighting the illegal wildlife trade is conspiracy laws and organized crime laws that can be used to seize assets.“The only way to attack these organized crime networks is to go after their money, throw them in jail, confiscate their homes and the aircraft they use, and smash these networks. Because they are in fact organized crime, I think it’s in everyone’s interest to shut these people down.”

Italy Mob News

In one of the largest annual anti-mafia marches in Naples in recent years, more than 100,000 people marched in the city Saturday, commemorating victims of organized crime and advocating for an end to mob prominence in that part of Italy. Reuters reported:

Relatives of victims, some wearing white gloves and holding pictures of their loved ones, led the demonstration as the names of some 900 people killed by the mafia were read out through loudspeakers. One banner said: "You didn't kill them. They are walking with us." Another read: "Don't turn the other way."

Judges, prosecutors, police, priests, union leaders, journalists and businesspeople have been among those murdered over the years by mob groups in southern Italy.

In other Naples-related news, police last week arrested 28 men suspected of links to the Naples-area Camorra mafia. Pre-dawn raids on the village of Maddaloni netted alleged Camorra boss Antonio Farina and 27 others, who are accused of murder, criminal association, illegal possession of weapons and more than 100 extortion rackets against local businesses. Also last week, the Carabinieri raided various locations in southern Sicily, arresting 15 people.

Italian police last year arrested more than 2,500 people in 200 separate anti-mafia operations. These police raids, and Italy’s larger strategy to get rid of the mob, have meant more mafia families need psychiatric help, according to a new study out of the University of Palermo.

''Psychiatric problems are steadily rising among the families, a sign that the monolithic culture of Mafia society is crumbling,'' said the author of the study, Palermo University psychologist Girolamo Lo Verso, who has studied the increasing frailty of the Mafia mindset for years.

The study, which examined 81 patients affiliated with Italy’s three main mafia groups, found that 20 percent of mob relatives suffer from clinical anxiety, while 17 percent suffer from personality disorders.

''These people are victims of terrible identity crises because they aren't used to seeing their world view challenged,'' Lo Verso says in the study, set for publication in Sicilian magazine S on March 21. ''They're like fundamentalists, but as soon as something happens that brings the security wall down, they have crises.”