Friends of Ours

Weekly Gang Roundup: Latin Kings; Surenos; MS-13; Barrio Azteca; Laos Pride; Oriental Rascals; Providence Street Boyz; Dark Side Rascals & Hanover Boyz

***   Latin Kings, Surenos, MS-13 and other street gangs -- all with reported ties to the Mexican Mafia -- have been infilitrating Kentucky, and the state's small-town police forces are ill-equipped to deal with the growing problem.

***  Border patrol agents in the Tuscon, AZ sector arrested an illegal alien with known ties to the Sureno gang:

Records also revealed that the subject was an active member of the "Sureno" gang. He admitted to being a former member of "Sureno" as he revealed his gang tattoos with the distinctive "13." The "Sureno" gang, better known as a part of the "Mexican Mafia" started in California state prisons. The Mexican Mafia is a highly organized criminal entity thought to have more than 100,000 members and be involved in extortion, drug and human trafficking, and murder.

***  A jury in federal district court in El Paso, TX is deliberating on racketeering charges involving drug trafficking against six alleged Barrio Azteca gang leaders and associates.

***  After a series of shootings in the West End of Providence, RI, the city's Police Gang Unit vows a crackdown on five of its well-known gangs:  Laos Pride, the Oriental Rascals, Providence Street Boyz, Dark Side Rascals and the Hanover Boyz. The Providence Journal has a multi-media special report on The Gangs of Providence.

***  An interview with Gabriel Morales, founder of Gang Prevention Services and author of La Familia -- The Family: Prison Gangs in America:

The general public is aware of street gangs, but jails and prisons are kind of out of sight, out of mind. I wanted people to see what happens on the inside. Once (people) get arrested, they don't stop dealing. Your aggressive guys who like to assault people on the street, they're the guys who like to beat up people on the inside. The gangs are a lot more organized than people understand. The street gangs are influenced a lot more by the prison gangs than people realize.

***  "Some 73 homicides have occurred in 2008 in Tucson, Arizona, a new record for this city that authorities link partly to drug trafficking and to street gangs along the Mexican border."

***  National Public Radio airs a segment on kids in elementary school joining violent gangs in St. Louis, MO.

***  A three-part series by WBIV on gangs in Buffalo, NY:

Gangs are in the Buffalo area, and law enforcement experts say they're growing by recruiting new members as young as 14-years-old.

***  Sgt. Sean Larkin, head of the Tulsa Police Department's Gang Unit, states that there are approximately 5,000 gang members and associates in his Oklahoma city:

Among those numbers are new members who are recruited between the ages of 9 and 13. * * * Once in a gang, members gain status by the number of crimes they commit, with little concern about being arrested and sentenced to prison. "The street term for it is 'the game,' " Larkin said. "Some of them accept it and the consequences of it, but they still choose to do it. And they understand that they have the opportunity to make fast and easy money." * * * The distribution of drugs remains the primary way gangs make money, but they also gain access to it through burglaries and robberies, police say. * * * A police report titled "Tulsa Area Gangs Summary 2007" showed that 17 out of 64 homicides in the city last year "involved victims and/or suspects that have some type of gang association."

***  Michael K. Addison, convicted earlier this month for the murder of a Manchester, NH police officer, "was an impulsive teen with a temper who began selling drugs and hanging out with street gangs when he was 10, according to a case worker's report written while Addison was incarcerated in a juvenile detention facility."

***  In order to boost its intelligence capabilities in the fight against gangs Massachusetts is establishing a state-wide database "that will store information on violent street criminals by describing such factors as associates, criminal history, and tattoos that indicate gang affiliation":

This intelligence system, funded by a $1.2 million Department of Justice grant, will allow investigators to share gang-related information in "real time," adding new data to a gang member's history as it becomes available. "This [system] will give officers on the street the freshest information that's available" on gang members, said Curt Wood , executive director of the Criminal History Systems Board. Wood also said the database will be used by the Department of Correction, which monitors activities by "security threat groups" within the prison system.

News: NY State Liquor Authority & Governor David Paterson; & Caribbean Junket & Rep. Charlie Rangel

***  Two New York State Liquor Authority Commissioners, Jeanique Greene and Noreen Healey, who voted to renew licenses for the Ciprianis after Arrigo and Giuseppe Cipriani pleaded guilty to income-tax evasion have now received "unlimited" use of state cars on the orders of Gov. David Paterson, and they have stripped SLA Chairman Daniel Boyle -- the only member who voted against the renewals -- of all powers previously delegated to him to conduct board business.  Greene is a former legislative aide to Paterson, and Boyle previously has alleged that Carl Andrews, a top aide to Governor David Paterson, tried to "intimidate" Chairman Boyle into renewing liquor licenses for the Ciprianis:

"There's no question there was an attempt to intimidate me," SLA Chairman Daniel Boyle told The Post, as he discussed the authority's 2-1 vote in August to renew licenses controlled by such famed establishments as the Rainbow Room at Rockefeller Center, Harry Cipriani at the Sherry-Netherland Hotel and Cipriani Wall Street. Boyle cast the only "no" vote when the three-member SLA board decided not to revoke the Cipriani licenses. The board's two Democratic appointees, Noreen Healey and Jeanique Greene, sided with the Ciprianis.

The incredible vote by the SLA to renew the Cipriani licenses was eyebrow-raising at the time.  After the Ciprianis were convicted their liquor licenses ordinarily would have been automatically revoked.  However, state Supreme Court Justice John Cataldo issued a certificate of relief, unopposed by NYDA prosecutors.  Moreover, the Ciprianis further had omitted from their license applications that they employed Dennis Pappas.  From 2000 to 2006 the Ciprianis employed Pappas off-the-books notwithstanding his 1998 federal conviction for money laundering for the Colombo crime family.  Pappas later was convicted in 2007 for insurance fraud. 

The New York State's Inspector General has launched an investigation into Boyle's allegations.

***  Charlie Rangel, Chair of the House Ways and Means Committee, may be in new trouble for attending a three-day junket at a Caribbean resort paid for by corporate sponsors in an apparent violation of ethics rules according to some critics.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has announced that the Ethics Committee probe into earlier allegations concerning the finances of Rangel will be completed before the current session of Congress ends on January 3.  The Ethics Committee is investigating Rangel's failure to pay taxes on income received from a beach house he owns in the Domincan Republic, his use in Manhattan of three rent-stabilized apartments, and his fund raising activities for an academic center in his name at City College.

Within the last week more questions concerning the financial dealings of Rangel have been raised, including his "taking of a "homestead' tax break on a Washington, DC, house for years while simultaneously occupying multiple rent-stabilized apartments in New York City," and working to preserve a tax break -- which he previously was against -- for an oil drilling company after its CEO pledged a $1 million donation to the Charles B. Rangel School of Pubic Service at City College.

Rangel was one of four Democratic Congressmen who launched a political campaign in May 2006 to derail a federal racketeering prosecution against class action law firm Milberg Weiss Bershad & Schulman LLP and several of its partners.  Notwithstanding the efforts by Rangel and others, the indicted partners subsequently all pleaded guilty, and the law firm agreed to pay a $75 million fine and employ a compliance monitor.

News: Stopping Payment of Pizzo in Sicily; Organized Crime Classes in Serbia; Anti-Mafia Courts in Croatia; & Operation Cleanup in Mexico

***  Italian police have arrested "10 Sicilian businessmen who had allegedly been paying Mafia 'protection money' for over 40 years":

Giuseppe De Riggi, who spearheaded the operation, described the arrests as "a winning move" that could encourage more businesses to go to the police. "Today's arrests are a surprising result that will be of future help and encouragement to business people paying 'protection money' who want to report their extortionists to police," he said. * * * In July this year, 18 businessmen who became victims of the Mafia's protection racket or 'pizzo' chose to identify their suspected extortionists in court. * * * The Italian private employers organisation, Confindustria, last year decided to expel members found to be paying Mafia protection money.

***  Belgrade University in Serbia now offers a course on organized crime:  "Officials say the course was designed to offer future law professionals in Serbia a greater legal understanding of the complex threat posed by transnational criminal elements operating in Eastern Europe."

***  Croatia establishes Special Anti-Mafia Courts: 

Authorities decided on Thursday (November 27th) to establish special courts that will begin hearing cases involving corruption and organised crime in January. * * * The move follows a series of brutal mafia-style murders in Zagreb recently, including the killing of a prominent journalist and the daughter of a prominent lawyer.

***  100 days after the implementation of "Operation Cleanup" targeting public corruption and the drug cartels, Mexican President Felipe Calderon has presented an interim report citing some gains but warning that much more work remains.

Eugene, Chauncey & Clyde Smaldone & The Rocky Mountain Mafia

Lori Midson reviews Gaetano's in the Rocky Mountain News, and takes a moment to go down Mafia memory lane when the Italian restaurant was once owned by brothers Eugene, Chauncey and Clyde Smaldone:

One of Denver's most colorful crime families, the brothers Smaldone - Eugene, Chauncey and Clyde, all of whom have died - fattened their wallets by bookmaking, bootlegging, gambling, evading their income taxes and operating Gaetano's, a popular North Denver Italian restaurant, opened in 1947, that was the cornerstone of the family's business and social gatherings. My parents, romanticized by the mystery shrouding the Smaldones (and the Mafia in general), patronized the joint weekly in the early '80s, often dragging me and my stepsister with them. My stepfather would even dress the part, cloaking himself in a wide-brimmed hat tipped toward the floor and a long, black wool coat draped over his shoulders. Obscured by darkness, we'd huddle in one of the tattered booths and whisper about the inner circle, those brooding men always assembled in the back of the bar, smoking cigarettes and stogies, their eyes never wavering from the bulletproof front door that still stands. And then one night, my much younger stepsister marched up to the bartender on our way out the door and asked, "Is this place really run by the Mafia?" The bartender gasped, the barflies choked and I nearly peed my pants.

On the occasion of the death of Chauncey Smaldone -- the last surviving of the three brothers -- in 2006, the Denver Post took the opportunity to provide a brief history of the Rocky Mountain Mafia.

 

The Fix: Soccer And Organized Crime

Declan Hill, who previously was involved with the  TV documentary Fifth Estate that examined possible links between Russian mobsters and Russian hockey players, recently has published The Fix: Soccer and Organized Crime which questions match fixing on the field by Asian organized crime groups:

Hill, who was raised in England, offers 60 pages of notes and bibliography at the back of his book to support what he writes. But the evidence is really all over the soccer landscape - a casual Internet search of past or present match-fixing scandals uncovers investigations in Albania, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, France, Italy, Malaysia, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Turkey and Vietnam. * * * "I had no idea of the scale and the height that the match fixers work at," said Hill. "We know for certain there were approaches by fixers to players during that (2006) World Cup. We know the guys (fixers) have been going to the under-17 World Cups, the under-20 World Cups, the women's World Cup, the Olympic Games and these big World Cup tournaments."

From the author's website:

Hill came face-to-face with the multi-billion dollar illegal Asian gambling industry. Over 4 years, he interviewed more than two hundred people, including professional gamblers, Mafia hitmen, undercover cops, top-level international soccer players, referees, and officials. He met men who claim they have bribed their way into changing the results of some of the biggest games in the sport. Initially very sceptical, Hill travelled across four continents to corroborate their stories. He found soccer leagues where mobsters have fixed more than eighty per cent of the games. But most chilling, he met and then was adopted by a small group of match-fixers.

In The Fix, Hill explains the structure and mechanics of illegal gambling syndicates, what soccer players and referees do (or not do) to affect the outcome of their games, why relatively rich and high-status athletes would fix games, how and why club officials would bribe the opposition and how they get referees “on their side.” Perhaps most shocking is Hill’s discovery that gambling fixers have successfully infiltrated the game, all the way to the top international matches.

The book, however, is not just about soccer, the world’s most popular sport. Throughout the text, Hill uses examples from other sports – tennis, hockey, even rowing – to show that the credibility of professional sport now lies on a fragile foundation, and it provides enough hints to suspect that all sports above amateur level should look nervously over the shoulder.