Slovakia: Mob's a Hit

Bulgaria may have been the it destination this year for reporters wanting to write about a (non-Italian) mafia-encrusted society in the heart of Europe, but now reporters are moving on to sniff out the mob in other former Eastern Bloc countries.

Bulgaria is apparently not the only country in the region ravaged by thick-necked, black-clad mobsters heavy with gold chains. Slovakia has also fallen under their spell, reports the Chicago Tribune:

Just how comfortable have mob figures become? Mob dons now list themselves as bosses of companies in Web-site listings. Pito, a hulking mobster who sports a machete scar across his face and goes by only one name, has become a cultural icon in recent years since starring in a televised music video. Across the capital, young men have adopted the mob dress code—shaved head, black clothes, lots of gold chains—and kids have posted videos of themselves posing as mobsters on YouTube.

"Mob Story," a satirical sitcom about the mob, is a favorite in Slovakia, and a major telephone company recently ran an ad featuring mobsters plastering one of their victims into a statue as an old mob don described the scene, via telephone and in obscure mob jargon, to a puzzled young mobster. Thanks to the company's low rates, the ad explained, "you have all the time you need to get your message across."

Slovakia's mob—like those in other central European nations—feeds on a generalized culture of corruption that has emerged since the end of communism and has proved hard to combat, despite substantial efforts under the former government of Prime Minister Mikulas Dzurinda, who left office in 2006.

Colorful, engaging stuff – but for the last bit. Corruption in the region is not a cancer that metastasized after communism. It was a way of life well before the Berlin Wall crumbled. Political and economic power lay with the Party, and Party membership and connections meant the good things in life – money, power, travel, education – not public service or accountability to the people who voted you in, as should be the case in a democracy. The "democratic" parties that took over after communism saw power similarly – it's a means to enrich themselves and their friends, not a responsibility to constituents. (Certain politicians in Western democracies are not immune to this thinking – Google "Blagojevich" for more information.) On a more practical note, high employment under communism created enormous bureaucracies that are largely still in place. Anyone who wants to start a business or buy property or get any type of permit has to navigate a complicated path through the bureaucracy, where every counter or desk is a place for a potential bribe. Two things could help: A change in mindset (see last few paragraphs) and getting rid of the bureaucracy.

Bulgarian Prime Minister Sergei Stanishev, however, told the Times of London that what will help his country is more time.

Mr Stanishev argued that rules were being bent in Brussels for countries to enable them to stay in the single currency. His implication is that Bulgaria should be given more time to solve corruption, even if it means relaxing strict financial safeguards.

The response from (European Commission President Jose Manuel) Barroso has been implacable. "We need concrete and convincing results in judicial reform, the fight against high-level corruption and the fight against organised crime," he said. "Bulgaria is treated like every other member state. There are no second-class members."

Croatian MP Under Investigation

A Croatian member of parliament is under investigation for a "business contract" that he and a powerful industry mogul signed four years ago, reports Jutarnji List.

Ante Djapic, who heads the right-wing Croatian Party of Rights (Hrvatska stranka prava, HSP), put a deal in writing with Kamen Ingrad quarry owner Vlado Zec in 2004: Zec would pay for an HSP convention and buy Djapic an apartment in the Croatian capital Zagreb and renovate Djapic's family home. Djapic would find Zec a senior party position, cancel Zec's debt to the state and fix various problems with the quarry.

The you-scratch-my-back-I'll-scratch-yours deal came to light this year when another HSP leader filed a complaint with Croatia's anti-corruption and organized crime body, but a prosecutor with the organization rejected it as evidence in August. The prosecutor was suspended. A district attorney's office in the region is now investigating; officials in another town are also investigating Djapic's assets via the local tax authority.

Djapic's reputation has been tarnished in the past – the Croatian media have reported that he obtained his law degree by cheating, and that he faked injuries to be awarded war veteran's status. Quarry owner Zec was fined $15,000 for abuse of power as chairman of a bank earlier this decade and has been investigated for false profit declarations, tax evasion and abuse of power stemming from the quarry's business dealings. Zec's company has also come under fire from environmental groups that oppose quarrying near an ancient forest.

Director: Italy's Army Can't Beat Mob

Using the military to defeat the Italian mafia is a bad idea, said the director of an anti-mob film tipped to win the Best Foreign Film Oscar in a few months' time.

Matteo Garrone, who directed the film adaptation of journalist Roberto Saviano's anti-mafia book "Gomorrah," said the deployment of Italian troops around Naples earlier this year would not break the back of the Naples-based Camorra mob.

"The idea of bringing the army to fight them is, for me, superficial," Garrone told AFP. "It's good for the image of the Italian government, but it won't do anything to fix the problem.

"You have to work from the inside, to create a relationship between citizens and the institutions of power. The Camorra is very strong because they live there, they grew up there, they are close to people.

"If you don't work from the inside it will be very difficult. Bringing the army won't fix it. It may take a generation because the problems are deep -- education, unemployment -- many, many reasons."

Author Saviano, in a Q&A with Bloomberg last week, warned that the mob is likely to thrive in the current financial crisis.

Saviano: During a crisis, people lower their guard. Studies show that two markets never suffer during a crisis: the criminal market and the art market. I'm convinced that this crisis is bringing huge advantages to criminal syndicates.

Organized crime is a capitalist force that is restructuring the free market. European authorities will notice what criminal capital is doing only when it's too late. Not just capital coming from Italy, but also from Serbia, Russia, Albania and Nigeria. Several investigations demonstrate that criminal cartels are investing in Romania, in Poland. They're buying sovereign bonds. Half of Europe is already in their hands.

Police in Naples last week arrested one suspected Camorra member and said they were closing in on his boss, Giuseppe Setola, the alleged organizer of the murders of six African immigrants in the region earlier this year. Police in Calabria also arrested a suspected Calabrian mafia hit man who'd been on the run for 11 years. A prosecutor described the man as a "hired assassin who washes his hands in his victims' blood."

UK: Death Records to Fight Fraud

Britain has released around 140,000 death records since autumn in an attempt to prevent identity fraud, reported the BBC last week. Good news for anyone fighting identity fraud, which more and more criminals, big and small, seem to be committing.

The Home Office said that four credit reference firms have now been accredited for the record release scheme and will be receiving about 12,000 records each week. They can check the data against loan and credit card applications, insurance payouts and pensions to guard against fraud.

$1B Drug Ring in Arizona, US

Arizona's attorney general last week announced the break-up of a $1 billion drug cartel operating between Mexico and the US border state. Though this type of drug-running is more than a little out of our Eastern European geographical focus, and the following section from the press release is more than a little long, the operations of the group illustrate exactly how marijuana, cocaine, human beings, or any other illicit item is smuggled over porous borders anywhere in the world. One note: Americans love acronyms – DTO stands for "drug trafficking operation."

Each shipment occurred in two stages. The first stage consisted of transporting the bulk marijuana from Mexico to Pinal County. The DTO allegedly loaded the vehicles in Sonoyta, Mexico, and crossed covertly into the U.S. through the desert of the Tohono O'Odham Nation's reservation. The movement of each load vehicle from Mexico to its final destination at a stash house in Phoenix involved no fewer than 20 people.

Investigators describe the DTO's movement through the desert as methodical. The organization went to great lengths to remain undetected, driving load vehicles through dry washes and dirt roads in barren parts of the desert. Drivers were outfitted with night vision equipment to enable the vehicles to travel in the dark of night without any illumination. The load vehicles also carried tarps in the event they needed to stop and cover up so as not to be visible from the air. After being used, load vehicles were dumped in open areas of Pinal County's Hidden Valley.

The DTO also deployed scouts in the high ground of the U.S. desert to act as counter-surveillance against law enforcement. Scouts were outfitted with electronic equipment to communicate with the load trucks and would advise the load drivers when to move. The scouts were deployed in the hills with scout coordinators dropping off food and supplies, enabling scouts to stay in place for as long as a week at a time.

Once in Pinal County, the bulk loads were broken down into smaller loads. The second phase of the shipment involved transporting the marijuana from Pinal County to the Phoenix metro area. This was done by a separate group of drivers using inconspicuous SUVs and pickup trucks.
Once the drivers from the second stage brought the marijuana to the Phoenix metro area, it was turned over to the first level of customers.

These customers allegedly took their share to their respective stash houses. Throughout this operation, investigators took enforcement actions at numerous stash houses throughout the Phoenix metro area and Pinal County.

Payment for the ^marijuana was sent in bulk amounts by motor vehicle from the Phoenix area to Mexico. The load drivers from the first stage and the scouts from the desert would come to Phoenix to be paid, then return to Mexico in a shuttle bus to prepare for the next load. When loads were not being moved, the scouts stayed in a compound in Pinal County. This compound housed 10 to 15 scouts at a time awaiting deployment in the Estrella Mountains.

Siemens Wins Huge Contract

In "crime apparently pays" news, German engineering giant Siemens won a $2.1 billion contract to supply Iraq with gas turbines last week, just one week after having to pay $1.4 billion in fines to American and German authorities over an international corruption scandal.

The company is alleged to have bribed officials approximately 4,000 times to the tune of 1.3 billion euros between 2000 and 2006 with the goal of winning contracts abroad.
The case became the biggest bribery scandal in German corporate history. Siemens has vowed to ensure through strict oversight mechanisms that all its future business would be graft-free.