Mafia

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Under Italy's Mob, Toxic Trash Heaps Growing

Intimidation rife as garbage threatens public health

(Newser) - Heaps of garbage tower in southern Italy’s legal and illegal dumps, and may even be contributing to cancer and birth defects in the area—but the mafia’s grip on disposal makes it near impossible to fix the problem, the Los Angeles Times reports. “For years the waste...

PI: Mob Took Down Spitzer
 PI: Mob Took Down Spitzer
Aug 28, 2008 9:12 AM CDT

PI: Mob Took Down Spitzer

a PI suspects sex scandal was Gambino paypack

(Newser) - A new epilogue to the best-selling book King of the Club suggests that Eliot Spitzer’s political and personal downfall was payback by the mafia, the New York Post reports. "I think it's the Gambinos," a private eye tells CNBC's Charles Gasparino in his book’s paperback edition....

Feds Pinch Gotti Jr. in Murder Case

Fla. conspiracy rap ties son of mob boss to killings in '80s and '90s

(Newser) - John Gotti Jr. was arrested today on murder conspiracy charges related to three decades-old killings, the New York Daily News reports. A lawyer dismissed the indictment brought in Florida against the son of the late Mafia boss. "I tend to think they don't have a lot of faith in...

Cybercrime Getting Organized
 Cybercrime Getting Organized 
Jul 16, 2008 5:20 PM CDT

Cybercrime Getting Organized

Hackers, identity thieves working more like mafia; profits increasing

(Newser) - There’s serious money to be made in cybercrime, and its perpetrators are beginning to reflect that fact, Ars Technica reports. Lone hackers have been replaced with hierarchical organizations that divide the criminal risks inherent in stealing and reselling (usually financial) information. The cybercrime "firms" are growing steadily as...

'Super' Mafia Witness Gunned Down in Naples

Slain informant was helping cops bust garbage gangs

(Newser) - The boss of a garbage disposal firm with Mafia links who had turned informant was gunned down in a bar near Naples yesterday, the Guardian reports. The murdered man had been helping police target gangs that control waste disposal in the city, currently gripped by a garbage crisis. He had...

Sicilian Mafia Rebuilding US Family Ties

NY mob busts expose stronger links between Italians and Yanks

(Newser) - The Sicilian Mafia is sending people to the US to revitalize old family ties with its American cousins that faded in the '80s, according to a new report by the Italian government. The FBI nabbed more than 80 New York mobsters in a recent swoop code-named "Old Bridge,"...

Alito Whacks Sopranos' Themes
Alito Whacks Sopranos' Themes
Feb 14, 2008 11:19 AM CST

Alito Whacks Sopranos' Themes

Italian-Americans' real story overshadowed, complains justice

(Newser) - US Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito isn't going to fuhgeddabout all the negative stereotypes concerning Italian-Americans spread by shows like The Sopranos. "You have a trifecta—gangsters, Italian-Americans, New Jersey—wedded in the popular American imagination" and overshadowing the true stories, the New Jersey native complained yesterday to an...

Huge Mob Bust Bags Dozens in NY, Sicily

Entire Gambino family leadership among more than 60 indicted

(Newser) - Authorities in New York and Sicily unleashed a massive mob takedown today, indicting more than 60 suspects, including the entire Gambino family leadership, the New York Times reports; 52 have already been arrested, including underboss Domenico Cefalu and consigliere Joseph Corozzo. “I can't think of a larger single-day roundup,...

Disease Imperils Mozzarella From Italy

Bacteria infects 30% of water buffalo herd responsible for famous cheese

(Newser) - A bacterial disease sweeping through the water buffalo whose milk is used to make mozzarella is threatening production of Italy's famous cheese, the BBC reports. As many as 30% of the buffalo in Campania, near Naples, are infected with brucellosis, which leads to reduced milk production and infertility. Italy's government...

Italian Syndicate Quietly Rules Europe's Cocaine Trade

US market tumbles as mobsters flourish

(Newser) - Europe is gaining a foothold in the world’s cocaine trade, elbowing out the US as the largest market thanks to the bravado of one Italian crime syndicate. The ‘Ndrangheta mafia, based in the hills of southern Italy, has won prominence by dealing directly with Colombian kingpins and shunning...

Suspected Mob Gambling Ring Smashed
Suspected Mob Gambling Ring Smashed
Dec 19, 2007 3:56 AM CST

Suspected Mob Gambling Ring Smashed

NJ cops bust dozens in major blow to Lucchese crime family

(Newser) - New Jersey officials have nabbed a cadre of suspected mob bosses to bust up a sophisticated $2.2 billion gambling ring, the Newark Star-Ledger reports. Others among more than two dozen arrested included a prison officer and a Bloods gangster, said to be part of an "alarming alliance" between...

Collective Funk Settles on Italy
Collective Funk Settles on Italy
Dec 13, 2007 8:52 PM CST

Collective Funk Settles on Italy

EU's unhappiest people disillusioned with nation's future

(Newser) - Italy is in a bad mood, and people from Venice to Naples are worried the current “malessere”—or “malaise—will never lift. On the heels of a Cambridge poll showing Italians to be the unhappiest folks in Europe, Ian Fisher of the New York Times finds a...

Vegas to Build Mob Museum
Vegas to Build Mob Museum
Dec 11, 2007 11:03 AM CST

Vegas to Build Mob Museum

Attraction will display history of crooks who helped build the city

(Newser) - Las Vegas will create a museum showcasing the Mob's role in turning a tiny desert settlement into America's gambling mecca. The $50 million project is slated to be completed in 2010. "Let's be brutally honest, warts and all. This is more than legend. It's fact," said the mayor....

Sicilian Mafia's 'Boss of Bosses' Gets Pinched

On the lam since 1983, 'the Baron' goes quietly during Palermo summit

(Newser) - Italian police today nabbed the alleged head of the Sicilian underworld, his son—who kept repeating "I love you, Dad"—and two other mob bosses, Reuters reports. The arrests, which marked the second time in less than 2 years that the Cosa Nostra's top dog has been busted,...

Leaky Case Against Ex-FBI Agent Collapses

Charges of aiding Mob hits dropped after witness changes tune

(Newser) - Retired FBI supervisor Roy Lindley DeVecchio left a Brooklyn court today exonerated of helping with Mafia murders after prosecutors dropped all charges in light of new evidence discrediting their main witness. Linda Schiro, a mobster's mistress, could face perjury charges, the New York Times reports, after her testimony in court...

Reporter Tapes Kill Mob Hit Trial
Reporter Tapes Kill Mob Hit Trial
Nov 1, 2007 3:55 AM CDT

Reporter Tapes Kill Mob Hit Trial

Charges against renegade ex-FBI agent collapse

(Newser) - The mob murder trial of a former FBI agent collapsed yesterday after lawyers listened to a journalist's taped interviews revealing that the key prosecution witness had lied, reports the New York Times. Prosecutors decided to drop the case against Roy DeVecchio after a conference room drama that could could have...

Court Hears of Mafia Help on FBI Probe

'Mississippi Burning' case cracked with aid from notorious hit man

(Newser) - Jurors heard shocking testimony yesterday in the trial of an ex-FBI agent charged with helping a Mafia informant complete four hits. The onetime girlfriend of a hit man known as the "Grim Reaper" testified that Gregory Scarpa was on the FBI's payroll, traveled to Mississippi, and provided the bureau...

Mob Nearly Iced Rudy in '80s
Mob Nearly Iced Rudy in '80s
Oct 25, 2007 1:52 PM CDT

Mob Nearly Iced Rudy in '80s

The federal prosecutor narrowly avoided earning a Mafia hit in the 198s

(Newser) - Rudy Giuliani could’ve slept with the fishes but for a 3-2 vote among New York’s five Mafia bosses not to put a contract on the then-federal prosecutor in the mid-'80s. Among the two younger hotheads who wanted to whack the GOP's current presidential frontrunner was none other than...

Jury Convicts 5 in 'Family' Affair
Jury Convicts 5 in 'Family' Affair
Sep 10, 2007 5:20 PM CDT

Jury Convicts 5 in 'Family' Affair

Chicago's top kingpin nailed in 'Family Secrets' case

(Newser) - Chicago’s top mob boss was one of five men convicted today in a trial federal authorities dubbed “Operation Family Secrets” after one defendant's relatives offered unprecedented cooperation. Testimony from the son and brother of alleged hit man Frank Calabrese was key in convicting him, along with three Outfit...

Germany Wakes Up to Mafia Problem
Germany Wakes Up to Mafia Problem
Aug 20, 2007 6:13 PM CDT

Germany Wakes Up to Mafia Problem

Italian organized crime gains a foothold across the border

(Newser) - Germany is finding its mafia problem harder to ignore after the murder of six men outside an Italian restaurant in Duisburg last week. The killings were part of a feud between two warring mafia clans, both of which have established major footholds in Germany, Der Spiegel reports. Police are now...

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