A few of the best lines from the article:
“
“Hitmen disguised themselves as drunks and Orthodox priests.”
“ ‘Other countries have the mafia,’ said Atanas Atanasov, a member of Parliament and a former counterintelligence chief who is a magnet for leaked documents exposing corruption. ‘In
The papers also ran the reaction from Bulgarian Prime Minister Sergey Stanishev, who vowed to hand over any tainted campaign contributions to charity after prosecutors received documents showing that Stanishev’s party took money from people thought to be part of a crime network.
While that may not help erase
A Bulgarian court on Monday launched a trial against 9 people accused of embezzling millions from European Union aid funds. The defendants were accused of stealing 14 million leva ($9.6 million) from funds made available to
The defendants allegedly imported used machinery for meat processing, but forged documents so the machines could be registered as new. The EU fund was drawn upon for the cost of new equipment, with the defendants allegedly pocketing the difference.
Slavs Arrested in
Spanish police raided the Majorca island villa of Russian politician Vladislav Reznik over the weekend, seizing cars, computers, files, paintings and sculptures on the order of a Spanish judge who is investigating Reznik’s alleged links to the Tamboskaya mafia. Reznik is a deputy of Vladimir Putin’s United Russia party.
Mr Reznik, who was not at his Spanish home at the time of the raids, is being investigated over his supposed connections with fellow Russian Gennady Petrov, the suspected kingpin of an international crime organisation that allegedly used a network of Spanish registered companies to launder money earned through illicit activities.
Meanwhile, in
Italy Arrests Suspected Calabrian Mob Leaders
Italian police arrested some powerful men in raids last week against the Calabrian mafia, or ‘Ndrangheta. Besides arresting an uncle and nephew with the same name – Gioacchino Piromalli – for allegedly plotting to regain control over smuggling at a large southern Italian container port, police also arrested the ex-mayor and deputy mayor of one town and the serving mayor of another. Another suspected Calabrian mob boss was arrested in his underground bunker last Thurday.
But the real drama in
Saviano has already been under 24-hour police protection for two years. He told an Italian paper last week that he felt like a prisoner in his own country, that hiding had ruined an important relationship and that if he could go back in time, he didn’t know if he would write the book again. It probably didn’t help that Salman Rushdie – who was the subject of an Iranian assassination order over his 1989 book The Satanic Verses – told the Daily Telegraph last week, “Saviano is in terrible danger…the Mafia poses a much more serious problem than the one I had to face.” Saviano indicated last week that he would probably leave Italy, the same day that the informant who had given the tip about the Camorra death threat recanted.
The reach of the Camorra was shown last week not in the hullaballoo over the Saviano death threat, but in the murder of 60-year-old Stanislao Cantelli, just two days after Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi sent in 500 paratroopers to get after the mob around
Mr Cantelli was playing cards in a social club on the high street of Casal di Principe - a satellite town and stronghold of the Camorra gangs - when someone walked in and fired 18 bullets. Paratroopers were 200 metres away. By the time the police arrived, the killer and all witnesses had fled. Shops were closing their shutters.
Police say Mr Cantelli, a retired cheese factory worker, paid the price for being the uncle of Luigi Diana, a Mafia "pentito" or turncoat whose information had led to the arrest of members of the Casalesi clan.
Anti-mafia prosecutor Nicola Gratteri told the paper, “Checkpoints are not the answer,” and showed the reporter where a bug was found next to a guarded office where he and his colleagues used to have what they thought were confidential conversations. Gratteri said phone tapping was more effective. “Contrary to checkpoints, to fight against the Mafia one must camouflage oneself, forget to exist, disappear,” he said.
Or, forget the checkpoints and phone taps, and take advice from Pope Benedict XVI, who was in nearby
Group: Enviro-Criminals Plunder Planet
Organized environmental criminals are plundering the planet to the tune of tens of billions of dollars annually, and this type of crime is on the rise, according to a report the Environmental Investigation Agency released at the UN’s trans-border crime meeting last week.
EIA campaigns director Julian Newman said, "Our report shows how organized criminals are looting the planet for a quick profit. It is time for the international community to step up and meet this threat head on."
Environmental crimes are illegal acts which directly harm the environment, and include the illegal trade in wildlife, smuggling of ozone-depleting and global-warming substances, illicit trade in hazardous waste, illegal fishing, illegal logging and the associated trade in stolen timber.
From what Newman and the report said, it looks like “environmental criminals” have become just as organized as their non-environmental counterparts: Apparently, they’re operating across international frontiers and using sophisticated techniques to move illegal goods from point A to B and to launder the proceeds.
UK Slammed for Inaction on Global corruption
The UK’s “continued failure” to introduce laws that clearly prohibit UK companies from bribing foreigners when doing business abroad was the subject of a report last week from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).
The OECD, a group of 30 of the world’s wealthier, free-market countries, said it was “disappointed and seriously concerned” about the
The recent review was begun earlier this year, after the
While British anti-corruption czar Jack Straw welcomed the OECD report, British businesses were not so cheerful. A British employers’ organization leader lambasted the OECD’s conclusion that it would be more expensive for companies abroad to do business with British companies, as the foreigners would have to do more due diligence and check-ups. The Financial Times reports:
“There is nothing in that report to back up the claims. It does seem to be a comment at the end of the report that bears little relationship to the content,” (
The OECD group has no formal powers to impose sanctions against
Beijing Olympic Official Gets Death Sentence, Reprieve
Then there’s the Chinese approach to corruption. Weekend headlines such as “Beijing Olympics Building Chief May be Executed for Corruption” highlighted the death sentence handed down to a
The sentence, however, was actually a suspended sentence. Liu Zhihua’s sentence will be turned into a life imprisonment after two years if he demonstrates good behavior.