Friends of Ours

La Familia Regional Boss Arrested

Mexican federal police have arrested Jose Alfredo Landa Torres, a reputed regional boss of La Familia Michoacana drug cartel, as reported by Ivan Moreno for The Associated Press: "La Familia, which officials say is Mexico's main trafficker of methamphetamine, captured nationwide attention in 2006 by rolling severed heads into a disco in the city of Uruapan," and is responsible for "some of the brashest attacks on security forces, including an ambush that killed 12 federal police officers in June." Landa allegedly was "recently named to head La Familia's operations in the state capital, Morelia," and "his alleged duties included managing finances, bribing police and overseeing street-level drug sales" as reported by Ken Ellingwood for the Los Angeles Times.

Video

Waterfront’s Been Very Good To LaGrasso Family

Nunzio LaGrasso, the International Longshoremen's Association vice president who was charged last April "with shaking down his own union members for extortion payments," has "a dozen family members earning a very nice living as waterfront workers" as reported by Jerry Capeci for The Huffington Post: "Last year, for example, the ten LaGrasso family members whose salaries Gang Land could obtain earned $1,562,704 in a variety of jobs, including longshoremen, checkers, and timekeepers. The total does not include what LaGrasso's sister Lisa made as a secretary for Local 1478, where LaGrasso was secretary treasurer, or the salary his daughter earned working at the ILA Welfare Fund."

Last week the veteran mob watcher Capeci reported that several kin of the now-deceased legendary Genovese boss Vincent "Chin" Gigante raked in nearly $2 million a year from the waterfront.

It's good work if you can get it.

Related:

Bust On The Waterfront

Feds Played Cat And Mouse With Michael Sarno

Following a Thanksgiving break the trial resumed yesterday against reputed Chicago Outfit capo Michael "the Large Guy" Sarno who is accused of ordering the 2003 bombing of rival video poker firm C&S Coin Operated Amusements, and "FBI Special Agent Courtenae Troutman outlined the surveillance operation she supervised starting in 2006, three years before Sarno was charged with racketeering conspiracy" as reported by Andy Grimm for the Chicago Tribune. ATF Special Agent Tina Sherrow also testified about surveilling Sarno at a lunch meeting with co-defendant Casey Szaflarski who has been dubbed the "video poker king of the Chicago area" as reported by Steve Warmbir for the Chicago Sun-Times.

Sally Fish Gets Nine Years

Salvatore "Sally Fish" Maniscalo has been sentenced to nine years in prison for his role in the 2008 slaying of Staten Island jeweler Louis Antonelli during a botched robbery as reported by John Marzulli for the Daily News: Maniscalco, who faced a life sentence, "looked disappointed after learning that he wasn't getting a free pass in return for testifying at the trials of co-defendants Anthony Pica and Genovese capo Anthony Antico, who both were convicted. Although prosecutors said Antico ordered the robbery, he was convicted only of racketeering." The feds allege that "Antonelli was robbed because he had failed to pay the Genovese crime family a percentage of the profits he earned when he sold jewelry in a mob-linked gambling club" as reported by Mitchel Maddux for the New York Post.

Construction Firm Admits Minority Front Scam

Schiavone Construction Company "admitted on Monday that it had defrauded government programs for five years, and agreed to forfeit $20 million for crimes it committed while performing $691 million in public contracts" as reported by William K. Rashbaum for The New York Times: "it admits committing wire fraud and evading requirements on federally financed projects that it hire a certain percentage of minority- or women-owned subcontractors."

In 2005 an "affidavit filed in federal court in Brooklyn suggests that officials with the Schiavone Construction Company . . . were involved in variety of schemes involving organized crime in recent years" as reported in 2008 by William K. Rashbaum for The New York Times: "The affidavit . . . says that Schiavone executives plotted to evade a requirement that they seek to hire businesses owned by women on a city project by using a front that was actually mean to funnel money to a mob-connected trucking executive."

The minority front scam in which Schiavone was engaged came to light by reputed Gambino mobster Joseph Vallaro who "secretly taped conversations with executives who had promised [government agencies] to hire firms owned by women and minorities for projects like the Croton Water Filtration Plant in the Bronx" as reported by John Marzulli for the Daily News: "For the Croton project, the subcontractor was merely a front: Vollaro used his own trucking outfit to haul the debris while Schiavone paid a subcontractor – who was Vollaro's neighbor on Staten Island – and listed the company in his wife's name to qualify in the minority program."

Schiavone was purchased in 2007 by Spanish conglomerate Dragados Inversiones USA S.L., and all the wrongdoing alleged by federal prosecutors against the firm was committed prior to the sale as reported by Mitchel Maddux for the New York Post: "The firm's former part-owner, ex-U.S. Labor Secretary Raymond Donovan – who was a cabinet officer during the Reagan Administration – beat mob-tied fraud charges in 1987" involving allegations that he stole $7.4 million from a subway contract pursuant to a scheme with a Genovese crime family associate and a minority-owned subcontractor.

The Sicilian Mafia & The Grand Illusion

In Catania on Sicily's east coast Cosa Nostra members increasingly are operating incognito by dressing themselves up as legitimate businessmen and conducting their illicit affairs through otherwise non-criminal commercial enterprises in order to fly under law enforcement's radar screen as reported by Adnkronos: "Companies that conduct everyday business aren't as attention-catching as traditional mafia operations like drug trafficking, prostitution and gambling, said Ivan Lo Bello, head of Sicily's Confindustria in Sicily and president of bank Banco di Sicilia."

Rat: Green Energy Cash A Gift To The Mafia

In Italy the Mafia fraudulently is siphoning off European Commission grants for the development of renewable energy projects according to former Cosa Nostra or Sicilian Mafia member Antonio Birrittella as reported by Gail Champion for BBC News: "'All these funds from the EU were seen as a gift to the Mafia, easy pickings, especially the development of wind farms and renewable energy,' he said. * * * With previous 'responsibility' for extortion in neighbouring Trapani, he claims the modern Mafia has reinvented itself as a 'white collar' organization which has siphoned off millions in EU funds, through a combination of shell companies and the infiltration of regional bodies which distribute the subsidies."

Study: Mafia Murders Difficult To Solve

Over the last year several Rizzuto clan members and associates – including patriarch Nicolo Rizzuto and his grandson Nick Rizzuto Jr. – have been slain in Montreal, QC Canada, and the odds are that police investigators won't solve the crimes. It's not because the police are corrupt or inept but simply because organized crime murders are notoriously difficult to solve – it's called "organized crime" for a reason – according to a study by Professor Tanya Trussler which will be published next month in the International Criminal Justice Review as reported by Douglas Quan for The National Post: "If the killer has little or no connection to the victim – sometimes killers are hired from outside the province – that can make it a tough case to solve. * * * Members of crime groups also make concerted efforts to know police tactics and have become adept at not leaving behind clues, such as getting rid of a BlackBerry after using it. The reluctance of witnesses to come forward is also a problem."

Typically, a mob hit is solved only after a member within the responsible organization flips as reported by Jessica Murphy for The Toronto Sun: "Steve Roberts, a retired Montreal police investigators, recalled how hard it was to close a case during the city's biker wars of the 1990s. 'When you're dealing with the Mafia or a group like the Hells Angels it takes longer to solve these murders,' he said. 'Normally, you have to wait until somebody gets arrested for something and then he wants to make a deal.'"

U.S. law enforcement long has encountered the same difficulties as their Canadian counterparts in solving Mafia murders, and literally thousands of mob hits over the decades throughout America have not been cleared. For example, "when Chicago's deadliest hit man, Harry Aleman, was brought to trial in the late 1970s, not a single one of the city's more than 1,000 mob-related murders had been solved" according to authors Maurice Possley and Rick Kogan in Everybody Pays. Indeed, even some of the most notorious high profile hits in the country – say, the 1975 "disappearance" of Jimmy Hoffa following his 1971 pardon by President Nixon – still cry out for justice. Notwithstanding the best good faith efforts of dedicated law enforcement, the Mafia pretty much gets away with murder.

Police: Mafia Likely Murdered Resort Owners

On southern Italy's Gargano peninsula the resort-owning brothers Martino and Giovanni Piscopo were discovered in a burnt-out car "with police suspecting the mafia had a hand in their deaths after they had been kidnapped" for apparently not playing ball with the bad guys as reported by The Windsor Star.

Italian Authorities Seize Assets

Italian authorities have seized assets worth four million euros from suspected 'ndrangheta or Calabrian Mafia-linked drug trafficker Marcello Amelio as reported by Adnkronos.

Video

State Dep’t: Russia A “Virtual Mafia State”

The disclosure of State Department cables by Wikileaks reveals that "senior US officials . . . fear that Russia's notorious mafia has connections at the heart of the government" as reported by Andy Potts for The Moscow News. The cables detail "allegations that Russia and its intelligence agencies are using mafia bosses to carry out criminal operations, with one cable reporting that the relationship is so close that the country has become a 'virtual mafia state'" as reported by David Leigh for The Guardian.

Weekly Gang Roundup

*** Incarceration at Donovan State Prison in San Diego, CA does not prevent Mexican Mafia leaders from calling the shots: "While locked in their private cells for hours each day, the Mafia's leaders are still able to order contract killings, drug deals and extortion with nothing more than their cell phones."

*** Authorities arrested several suspected members of Armenian Power for allegedly orchestrating riot at a Los Angeles County, CA jail: "the gang is increasingly teaming up with the Mexican Mafia, a prison-based Latino gang that also exerts control on gang activity on the streets."

*** Three ex-Marines charged with selling illegal assault weapons to Florencia 13 in Los Angeles, CA.

*** Gang members are wearing their colors in court to intimidate cooperating witnesses and rival gangsters.

*** Ingmar Guandique, the illegal alien from El Salvador who was convicted for the murder of Washington, D.C. intern Chandra Levy, wore a turtleneck throughout the trial to hide his MS-13 gang tattoos. The Associated Press didn't mention his MS-13 gang affiliation or illegal immigration status in its coverage. Video

*** In NYC suspected Bloods member indicted on gun running charges.

*** Brothers Tyrone and Patrick Weatherall, the leaders of the West Side Gator Boyz in Dallas, TX, sentenced to decades in prison: "Born from the surprising merger of Crips and Bloods . . . the Gator Boyz dominated the drug trade in West Dallas, authorities say. * * * The Weatherall brothers amassed a cache of weapons, cash and property, including a ranch with exotic animals that authorities say they often used to entice children as young as 14 to sell drugs or serve as lookouts in and around about 30 drug houses throughout West Dallas."

*** One hundred suspected members of the Traveling Vice Lords arrested in Chicago, IL: "The investigation, dubbed Operation Blue Knight, involved wiretaps on gang members' telephones and has led to drug, weapons and other charges, sources said. None of the suspects is charged with a violent crime, although the gang has been connected to numerous killings and shootings on the West Side, sources said." Video

 

Reputed Kosovo Mob Boss Found In Ireland

Enver Sekiraqa, the suspected boss of an Albanian crime ring from Kosovo, has been found living in Ireland but lucky for him there is no extradition agreement between the two countries as reported by Conor Lally for The Irish Times: "He is wanted for questioning in Kosovo in relation to . . . involvement in the sex trade, and for questioning about the murder of a police officer."

Church Funerals For Mobsters Just Not Right

Earlier this month slain Montreal Mafia patriarch Nicolo Rizzuto was afforded a proper Catholic burial which has raised some eyebrows as reported by John Longhurst for the Winnipeg Free Press: "I know the church is supposed to be a hospital for sinners, not a rest home for the saints. And, like a family home, it's a place that has to take you in when you've got no place left to go. But still, it seemed wrong for Rizzuto's funeral to be held in a chuch. How could someone who was involved in murder, drug trafficking and other crimes be given a proper religious send-off?" Longhurst points out that not all mobsters have received their sendoff to the great hereafter with a sacred blessing, and among those previously denied a church funeral were John Gotti, Paul Castellano, Carmine Galante and Frank DeCicco. Of course, everyone knows that things are done differently in Quebec where the Montreal Mafia and dirty politicians have reigned for decades as reported by Andrew Chung for The Star: "Quebec has been beset by revelation after revelation of corruption and ethical malpractice, involving biker gangs, the mafia and – most ubiquitously – the construction industry. The miasma has found its ways into city halls, union boardrooms, and even the premier's office." And now even the Catholic Church can be added to the fallen institutions in Montreal which cannot be trusted by the public in light of its inexplicable decision to provide an incorrigible degenerate mob boss like Nicolo Rizzuto a sacred resting place. The Church has done nothing more than continue the secular legitimization of the Devil's chosen. The Mafia long has bastardized Catholicism but to quote Bob Dylan from his song Masters of War: "even Jesus would never forgive what you do."

Brazil Cracks Down On Rio Drug Gangs

Brazilian soldiers and police are in their sixth day of clashes with well-armed drug gangs in Rio de Janeiro for control over the streets in certain neighborhoods which so far as resulted in the deaths of thirty-five people as reported by BBC News. The two gangs with whom law enforcement is clashing are Red Command and Amigos dos Amigos as reported by Robin Yapp for The Telegraph: "Usually the gangs are deadly rivals as they vie for control of favelas. * * * But the rival gangs may now see a mutual interest in attempting to defeat the police's recent efforts to clean up the favelas."

Video