Noting that this trip is just an initial visit, Hefetz said the fact the Bulgarian government invited him to the country was itself significant.
"In principle, we're talking about initial feelers ahead of more in-depth consultation," he said. "I received the invitation and I am going for three days to study the Bulgarian police, to study the experience and conditions in which the police operate there and to identify the problems the police officers there cope with."
He said he ultimately plans to send his recommendations to the Bulgarian government.
Hefetz is considered a world-renowned expert on fighting terrorism and organized crime. He founded and headed the
In other unrest involving Bulgarians, two were killed and three were injured when Bulgarian and Colombian mobs clashed last week in Madrid over control of some of the city’s nightclubs.
The Serbian government seems to be making good on its promise last year that it would make seizing criminals’ assets a reality. Government coffers will be open for seized assets in March, Justice Minister Snezana Malovic said last week. Malovic also noted that her ministry has established an office to manage the asset seizures with an annual budget of 160 million Serbian dinars (US$2.22 million).
In neighboring
Charges against two Tajiks accused of using a state-owned aluminium plant, Talco, as their personal cash cow have been dropped, thus bringing an end to one of the most expensive lawsuits in British history.
Last week’s announcement ends three years of court proceedings against Talco’s former director Abduqodir Ermatov and against Avaz Nazarov, whose company was the main supplier of the plant’s smelter. They were accused of taking some $500 million from the plant between 1996 and 2004. The suit has to date cost $130 million in lawyers’ fees, or 5 percent of
Talco – owned by Tajik President Emomali Rahmon since 2004 – brought the lawsuit against Nazarov and his UK-based company last year, citing the two men’s corrupt relationship and lavish bribes paid by Nazarov to Ermatov and his family.
The company may have dropped the
In other Central Asia news, a police major in
US: OC Prosecutions Down 20 percent
US federal prosecutions of immigration crime may have doubled last fiscal year, according to the New York Times, but that’s at the expense of most other serious crime:
The emphasis, many federal judges and prosecutors say, has siphoned resources from other crimes, eroded morale among federal lawyers and overloaded the federal court system. Many of those other crimes, including gun trafficking, organized crime and the increasingly violent drug trade, are now routinely referred to state and county officials, who say they often lack the finances or authority to prosecute them effectively.
Bush administration officials say the government’s focus on immigration crimes is an outgrowth of its counterterrorism strategy and vigorous pursuit of immigrants with criminal records.
Immigration prosecutions have steeply risen over the last five years, while white-collar prosecutions have fallen by 18 percent, weapons prosecutions have dropped by 19 percent, organized crime prosecutions are down by 20 percent and public corruption prosecutions have dropped by 14 percent, according to the
One southwestern border state’s attorney general called this a “national abdication” by the
In happier news involving the
Italian anti-mafia police on Friday seized €100 million worth of real estate, companies, shares and one luxury vehicle in a strike aimed at the Casalesi clan of the Camorra mafia outside
And in another blow to the Camorra, police last week arrested Guiseppe Setola, thought by investigators to be behind 18 murders in the past five months, including the September murders of half a dozen African immigrants. Earlier last week, police had surrounded Setola’s hideout, but Setola escaped through a tunnel and into the local sewer system. It was his third such escape since he slipped out of a hospital during treatment for his eyesight while in custody.
“The Setola hit squad has been dispatched to history,” (regional Carabinieri head Carmelo) Burgio said in an interview on Sky TG24 television. “He’s an important figure in the local mafia, a bloodthirsty leader whose attempt to flee proved once and for all that his eyesight is fine.”
Setola had been sought as a suspect in a dozen homicides, including the murder of six immigrants from Ghana in the seaside town of Castelvolturno, north of