Illinois State Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias, a close personal friend and financial supporter of Obama who is running in Tuesday's Democratic primary for the President's former Senate seat, says that with respect to some troubling loans he made while serving as chief lending officer from 2002 - 2006 for his family's Broadway Bank -- now operating under a federal consent order -- that "If I knew then what I know now, obviously we wouldn't have made those loans" as reported by Abdon M. Pallasch for the Chicago Sun-Times:
Among the loans Giannoulias has gotten heat for:
* More than $10 million from 2001 to 2005 to alleged Father & Son Russian mobster team Lev and Boris Stratievsky. Father Lev has passed away. Son Boris is in jail facing money-laundering charges. Broadway funded development projects some on the South Side — that tenants and city attorneys complained were roach motels. Broadway has been unable to collect on the loans.
* About $12.9 million to convicted bookmaker Michael Giorango for a Miami Beach hotel and a Hollywood, Fla., restaurant, among other ventures, according to Crain’s Chicago Business. Broadway has sued Giorango and his partner, Demitri Stavropoulos, convicted of running a betting operation in Chicago, seeking to get the money back. Giannoulias initially downplayed his relationship with Giorango, noting the loans to him started before he joined the bank. Later he said he went to Miami to meet Giorango and inspect the property, and that another $3 million loan to Giorango was for a South Carolina casino.
"If I knew then what I know now, obviously we wouldn't have made those loans." Alexi, dude, that's precisely the stubborn point you're blindly missing: you were the freakin' chief lending officer, and your duty was to know your customer before you made the loans but you failed in that duty for reasons known only to you.
Truckloads containing $487 million of goods were stolen in the U.S. in 2009, a 67% increase over the $290 million worth of products swiped a year earlier. Thieves stole 859 truckloads in 2009, up from 767 loads in 2008 and 672 in 2007, according to FreightWatch International, an Austin, Texas-based supply-chain security firm that maintains a database of thefts that several government agencies, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation, look to for trends. * * * The latest wave of thefts is different from a run of tractor-trailer hijackings that occurred in the 1960s, when organized-crime rings forced drivers out at gunpoint and took their trucks. According to industry officials and police, the current thefts are generally nonviolent and typically happen at rest stops when the driver is away from the truck and eating or showering. While organized-crime rings may be involved, "we are seeing a lot more amateurs get into this," said Sgt. Sid Belk, of the California Highway Patrol. * * * California, Florida, Texas, Georgia, Illinois and New Jersey are the top states for number of cargo thefts, according to FreightWatch. The crooks are targeting such things as electronics, food and beverages, clothing, pharmaceuticals and cigarettes.
In Maryland engaging in human trafficking is only a misdemeanor, and the state accordingly has become "one of the hubs of a $9 billion-a-year global industry of trafficking in human beings that is among organized crime's most profitable enterprises" as reported by The Baltimore Sun:
A century and a half after slavery was abolished in the United States, the stain of involuntary servitude lingers on in Maryland. Immigrant laborers brought into the state by human traffickers work for little or no pay on farms and construction sites; women and girls lured by false promises of office jobs end up as virtual prisoners in homes where they serve as nannies and maids; and young people of both sexes are forced into prostitution, with the proceeds going to pimps and criminal gangs. This archipelago of exploitation and misery is only made possible by the brutal application of force and relentless psychological coercion -- beatings, rapes, torture and murder are the commonest way of sowing fear among victims. And the criminals know that the state's laws against human trafficking are seldom enforced and are so weak that even if they are caught they are unlikely to suffer serious consequences.
Colin Gunn, a British reputed underworld boss currently serving a 35-year term for conspiracy to commit murder, allegedly "has been using Facebook to threaten and intimidate his enemies from a maximum security prison" as reported by Daniel Foggo and Carl Fellstrom for The Sunday Times: "Gunn . . . has been able to correspond freely with up to 565 'friends' on the social networking site for the past two months," and "is said to be still running his drugs and organised crime cartel from jail." Gunn's Facebook site was shut down after The Sunday Times brought it to the attention of officials supposedly watching over the prisoner.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials have launched what they call "the largest operation of its kind in our agency's history," rounding up more than 470 gang members, gang associates and others across the country in one week. The crackdown, dubbed Project Big Freeze, had a "particular focus" on "transnational gangs" and their associates inside the United States illegally, ICE chief John Morton told reporters at a press conference on Tuesday. * * * Transnational gangs are often involved in drug, weapons and even human smuggling, and like any gang they "have a propensity toward violence," ICE said in a statement.
East Side Riva gang members regularly acted as a tentacle of the powerful Mexican Mafia, trafficking methamphetamine and protecting their turf with attacks on black people and bystanders, authorities alleged Wednesday in a sweeping federal complaint. Charges came as 650 officers from 34 local and federal agencies swarmed the gang's territory Wednesday morning to make 50 arrests, including Riva leaders and members of their rivals, the 1200 Blocc Crips.
***Arlanza 13 member sentenced to death in Riverside, CA for following "Mexican Mafia bosses' orders to gun down an associate for cooperating with authorities in an auto-theft investigation."
*** Judge issues civil injunction against 49 alleged members of Hard Times in Garden Grove, CA which prohibits "members from operating or gathering as part of a gang"
*** Six reputed MS-13 members convicted in Charlotte, NC: "The federal jury deliberated for about four hours before finding the men guilty on all 36 charges. Their crimes ranged from murder and extortion to racketeering conspiracy and robbery."
*** In San Antonio, TX "a dozen members of the Texas Mexican Mafia were sentenced . . . to prison terms of six to 10 years for enforcing the gang's drug extortion tactics."
*** In Baltimore, MD two leaders of Tree Top Piru -- "one of whom produced the infamous 'Stop Snitching' videos" -- have been convicted:
Sherman Pride, 35, of Salisbury and Ronnie Thomas, 36, of Baltimore face a maximum of 20 years in prison on the racketeering charge. Pride could get a life term for conspiracy to distribute cocaine. Prosecutors said the men were members of the Bloods' violent Tree Top Piru group, which sold drugs across the state. Pride led a TTP set on the Eastern Shore, and Thomas was a gang leader in Maryland, according to the U.S. attorney's office. Thomas produced two "Stop Snitching" videos, which encourage retaliation against anyone who cooperatates with police. Eight others connected to the videos have been convicted in federal court. Five other defendants charged with gang racketeering are expected to go on trial in March.
The investigation began in April and initially focused on drug dealing by David Parks of Pittsburgh, authorities said. Investigators used wiretaps to identify other people involved in the ring, including a North Side street gang known as the Hoodtown Mafia, Attorney General Tom Corbett said in a news conference. The crack, cocaine and heroin originated with Mexican drug gangs, he said. "A lot of the drugs we're seeing, you find the origin is that they're coming from Mexico," Corbett said. "Atlanta is definitely a source city."
The trial of Fotios "Freddy" Geas, charged with planning the 2003 hit against New England Genovese capo Adolfo "Big Al" Bruno, has been adjourned from March 1 "to April 5 after the departure of Assistant U.S. Attorney Todd E. Newhouse from the case" as reported by Stephanie Barry for The Republican:
Geas was charged in 2008 with murder in aid of racketeering after admitted gunman Frankie A. Roche, who was charged previously in Hampden Superior Court, turned federal informant and told the FBI Geas paid him $10,000 to kill Bruno. Roche, an ex-con and fringe character in local criminal circles, told agents that Geas, a reputed mob enforcer, recruited him to shoot Bruno on behalf of rival gangsters amid a coup. Bruno, 57, was the local head of the New York-based Genovese crime family until Roche shot him six times as the mobster left his regular Sunday night card game on Nov. 23, 2003.
A 61-year-old man from Wenonah, NJ has been charged with harassment after he allegedly delivered a plush toy horse head to New Jersey state Senate President Steve Sweeney with the instruction that it be forwarded to Gov. Chris Christie as reported by Jen Calantone for New Jersey News Room: "Some have linked the incident to a scene in the 1972 film 'The Godfather,' where a movie mogul finds a horse head in his bed."
Federal prosecutors said the role that Phillip J. Bauco, 56, of Bridgeport, played in the conspiracy was to collect losing bets from gamblers and payoffs from bookmakers who were under the control of the gambling ring, which operated from Bridgeport to New Haven. Federal prosecutors said Bauco and his associates once tried to force an independent bookmaker to make protection payments to them. Bauco owns Auto Town Sales in Stratford, and the gambling ring used the business as a headquarters, prosecutors said.
Bauco and his co-defendant Raul "Sonny" Suner were indicted last June, and at that time Edmund H. Mahonet reported for the Hartford Courant:
Suner and Bauco claimed that they had Gambino family backing and that the New York gangsters had authorized Suner to run illegal sports betting operations in New Haven and Bridgeport, according to the indictment. The U.S. attorney's office said the two used "threats, violence and intimidation" to persuade bookmakers and gamblers to work and bet with them. When mobsters take over bookmaking operations, they customarily collect a percentage of the profits, ostensibly in return for providing protection and assistance with collecting debts from losing bettors.
John Kenneth Arnold, a co-founder of the data mining service Intelius, has "pleaded not guilty to a charge of lying to a grand jury about having sex with dancers at Rick's as part of the ongoing prosecution of strip-club owner Frank Colacurcio Sr. and the government's efforts to shut his clubs down" as reported by Mike Carter for The Seattle Times:
The indictment alleges that during sworn testimony on Feb. 18, 2009, Arnold was asked a series of questions about whether he had engaged in sex acts with dancers at Rick's. Arnold answered no. The indictment alleges Arnold lied. It claims that Arnold, "on numerous occasions and over a period of years," had engaged in sex acts with the exotic dancers at Rick's.
The 93-year-old Frank Colacurcio Sr. was indicted last July with his son Frank Jr. and others on federal racketeering, money laundering, mail fraud and prostitution conspiracy charges in connection with the many strip clubs he operated in Washington. Last November co-defendant Gil Conte, a long-time associate of Colacurcio Sr., pleaded guilty "to a prostitution-related conspiracy charge in a deal that will keep him out of prison and not require him to testify against his boss."
In Sarasota County, FL "three South Florida men have been charged in connection with [a] Best Buy burglary and another at West Marine in Sarasota, and now detectives say the group may be connected to organized crime" as reported by Anthony Cormier for the Herald Tribune:
[L]awmen say . . . the group may have been stealing GPS devices and boating equipment to help with human trafficking efforts from Cuba. So far, there is no clear evidence that the group is linked to human traffickers based in South Florida, said Sheriff Tom Knight. "But that's certainly one of the thoughts we first had," he said.
Stealing to smuggle people probably is a good guess, according to federal officials and law enforcement authorities. They say boats longer than 29 feet are frequently stolen in Florida and used for runs to Cuba to pick up people paying up to $10,000 per trip. "Generally, these boats go south to Cuba or west to Mexico for smuggling operations," said Cpl. Eric Christensen, with the Cape Coral police Marine Patrol Unit. Last year, 116 boats of that size were stolen in Florida, including seven in Lee and Collier counties. In 2008, 190 large boats were stolen statewide, including 19 in Lee and Collier counties, according to the state Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.
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