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The New York Mafia: The Origins of the New York Mob : Daniel the lion lee
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The New York Mafia: The Origins of the New York Mob : Tammany
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The New York Mafia: The Origins of the New York Mob : Joe Stracci
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The New York Mafia: The Origins of the New York Mob : Alleged Lucchese crime family members from New Jer...
The New York Mafia: The Origins of the New York Mob : Alleged Lucchese crime family members from New Jer...: John Mangrella, 72, of Clifton, John Perna Joe Perna Martin Taccetta Matthew Madonna Ralph Perna
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The Mob in Vegas: Mob Biggie Johnny Roselli Getting Biopic
The Mob in Vegas: Mob Biggie Johnny Roselli Getting Biopic: Tony Sokol Fox & Davis Entertainment Developing Biopic About Mobster Johnny Roselli Handsome Johnny Roselli was part of the Ch...
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The New York Mafia: The Origins of the New York Mob : 6 Lucchese crime family members admit to massive g...
The New York Mafia: The Origins of the New York Mob : 6 Lucchese crime family members admit to massive g...: By Christopher Baxter | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com TRENTON — Six members of the New York-based Lucchese crime family, includin...
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The New York Mafia: The Origins of the New York Mob : More crimes for mobster jailed in Toms River hit
The New York Mafia: The Origins of the New York Mob : More crimes for mobster jailed in Toms River hit: Kathleen Hopkins, @Khopkinsapp 1:42 p.m. EDT June 18, 2015 MORRISTOWN – Mobster Martin Taccetta, whose role in a 1993 mob hit seem...
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Guns and Glamour: The Chicago Mob. A History. 1900-2000: How's your wife and kids? Pal of mobsters convicte...
Guns and Glamour: The Chicago Mob. A History. 1900-2000: How's your wife and kids? Pal of mobsters convicte...: Written By Jon Seidel A looming, broad-shouldered Michael “Mickey” Davis sat across from R.J. Serpico in the office of a Melros...
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Will Mafia ever loosen its grip on Italy?
By Silvia Marchetti
• Fight against criminal kingdoms that dot Italian peninsula could be round corner, says Silvia Marchetti
• Marchetti: Crusade against Mafia needs moral revolt that stems from hearts of Italian citizens
Silvia Marchetti is a Rome-based freelance reporter and writer. She covers finance, economics, travel and culture for a wide range of media including MNI News, Newsweek and The Guardian. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely hers.
Rome (CNN)Pizza, Mafia and spaghetti. For centuries, these have been the main three stereotypes of Italy as seen from abroad.
Hollywood has built a fortune by portraying padrinos and Italian-style mobsters, and one could argue that the Mafia is so inbred in Italy's DNA that to tackle it would be like removing the original sin.
But things are changing, and even if it may sound crazy now, the fight against criminal kingdoms that dot the peninsula -- from Naple's Camorra to Sicily's Cosa Nostra, Calabria's Ndrangheta and Apulia's Sacra Corona Unita -- could be right round the corner.
Paradoxically, the first steps towards victory can already be seen in the latest events. In Rome, a massive corruption scandal, dubbed "Mafia Capitale", has been exposed, showing how some city hall authorities have done business with the Mafia.
And the fact that these crimes have come to light at all -- thanks to an impressive investigation -- is in itself a heavy blow to the Mafia and shows that it can be defeated.
So the state has the tools and the potential to fight the mob -- and not the other way round. The untouchables are not so untouchable anymore, while the "wall of silence" is starting to crumble.
This is the result of many factors.
First, Italy is demonstrating a strong resilience in responding to crime.
True, the level of fraud and corruption is among the highest in Europe but so is the efficiency of the law.
This anti-Mafia battle is made stronger by the government's new set of rules against corruption and crime and the revamped anti-corruption national agency that will boost transparency in the relationship between politics and businesses, often infiltrated by Mafia clans. And this is the crucial point.
More than 6,800 Mafia properties across the peninsula have been confiscated by authorities, many of which have been recovered to public use.
Second, it's not just a matter of having stronger anti-Mafia laws. The crusade against the Mafia also needs a moral revolt that stems from the hearts of Italian citizens, mainly the youth who are the future of this country.
And such a revolution is already taking place.
Young people today take to the streets to protest against illegality and even party when a boss is arrested, cheering as if they were at the stadium. They write their graduation papers on the good done by the state against organized crime. All this would have been inconceivable 20 years ago when silence and terror ruled over people's consciences.
One youth group has taken it one step further and challenged the mob by provokingly calling itself "Ammazzateci Tutti," or "Kill Us All."
Openly talking about the Mafia and spreading awareness of it stands as a great leap forward. Anti-mafia movements and associations have flourished, while young businessmen wanting to launch start-ups without having to fall prey to clans'"dirty money" are being financially supported by public funds. There's even now a tiny Silicon Valley in the south that is turning into a land of opportunities thanks to innovative firms that dream of a different future.
Third, memory plays a key role. There is no doubt that the turning point, the trigger of change, was the Mafia killings of judges Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino in 1992 -- an event that left a deep scar.
The double homicide is still fresh in people's minds. I was recently sitting in a bar in Palermo, Sicily, having an ice-cream in front of the cathedral. It was a normal day, no special commemorations or festivities were planned. It struck me listening to the bartender and his clients talk about the deaths of Falcone and Borsellino, that they were killings that happened yesterday.
Fourth, it must mean something -- if anything at least a good sign -- that for the first time in Italy's history a Sicilian has been elected head of state. Sergio Mattarella, whose brother was killed by the mob, has pledged a crusade against the Mafia until such a "cancer" is definitely wiped out.
None of Mattarella's predecessors ever made a similar promise with such force. If he so strongly believes Italy can be rid of the mafia, then why can't we?
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Boxing's Detested King
By Kevin Fixler
OZY
The tale of Charles “Sonny” Liston is far more complex than that of just an intimidating ex-con who broke legs for the mob on his way to seizing boxing’s heavyweight title. “His story,” says boxing writer and historian Springs Toledo, is “almost Shakespearean.”
As the story goes, Liston was so reviled that in January 1962 President Kennedy asked the then-heavyweight champ, Floyd Patterson, to refuse Liston, the No. 1 challenger who had been waiting upward of two years, a title shot because of his recognized ties to organized crime. During this intense era of the civil rights movement, black leaders also feared that if the perceived henchman defeated Patterson — the more polished and humble African-American champ — it could set race relations back even further.
But face him he did, and Patterson actually entered the ring that September as the underdog, with many expecting “The Big Bear” Liston to simply overwhelm the champ with his unmatched power and 25-pound advantage. And indeed Liston did, knocking out Patterson two minutes into the fight. “There are still people to this day who say [Liston’s] jab was the greatest and most menacing of all heavyweight destroyer-type jabs,” longtime boxing commentator Jim Lampley tells OZY. In a mandatory rematch the following year, Liston duplicated the feat, this time knocking Patterson to the canvas three times for another first-round KO.
Defending his title did little to ingratiate the man known as the “Yellow Shirt Bandit,” who a decade earlier had been sentenced to five years in the Missouri State Penitentiary for robbery, to the masses. “Some of the things in his past would give one pause,” explains Toledo, author of The Gods of War: Boxing Essays. “He had a history of violence” that included holdups, street muggings and even assaulting police. Whether because of his reputation as a mafia enforcer or in response to the scowl he wore in the ring, Liston was booed by the Las Vegas crowd before and after the Patterson rematch. At the post-fight presser, Liston acknowledged, “The public is not with me. I know it. But they’ll have to swing along until somebody comes to beat me.”
Liston had no known birth record (best guesses point to July 1930) and was one of around two dozen children of a failed Arkansas sharecropper. Illiterate and raised mostly without his mother, he quickly fell in with the wrong crowd, hardening his outlook and setting him on a vicious path. “He had a scary aura,” explains Lampley, “but there was sadness too. You could tell that [his] was not an easy life, and he wore the scars.”
Literally. His alcoholic father beat him, leaving marks so deep that spectators at his matches decades later could still see the welts from repeated whippings. Liston would discover his own penchant for alcohol, which only fueled an aggression that made him as feared in the ring as on the streets as he moved around the country from the Deep South to St. Louis, Philadelphia to Denver, landing finally in Las Vegas.
Liston held the heavyweight crown a mere 18 months before Muhammad Ali usurped it in a stunning six-round victory in 1964. But make no mistake, Liston was more than a brute puncher with a mean streak. He was a skilled tactician inside the ropes and blessed with unrivaled size and strength for the time. Following a title-fight rematch with Ali in May ’65 — the infamous “Phantom Punch” bout in which Liston is thought to have taken a dive to appease the gambling underworld and that produced one of the more iconic photos in sports history — he fought 16 more times (going for a record of 15-1; 50-4 overall). He was in the process of a second-half career resurgence when he was found dead in his Las Vegas home on Jan. 5, 1971.
The official cause of death was lung congestion and heart failure. While there was a needle mark on his arm, it’s unclear whether it was because he had blood drawn during a recent trip to the doctor or due to something else — perhaps drugs. (The autopsy noted trace amounts of the product that appears when the body breaks down heroin.) But with no known history of drug use, many surmise that Liston was fed a deadly dose of narcotics, the victim of a mob hit.
Buried beneath a Vegas headstone with an epitaph that baldly reads “A Man,” Sonny Liston lives on in mystery and legend, a known criminal goon, but without question one of the most imposing boxers to ever strap on gloves.
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Japan’s Yakuza Group Leader Accused of Tax Evasion
TOKYO – The leader of Kudo-kai, Japan’s largest and most violent Yakuza group (crime syndicate), has been accused of tax evasion, Japanese police reported Tuesday.
The charge, yet to be admitted in court, was imposed on Satoru Nomura, 68, who was indicted last year for a murder, committed in 1998.
The police also arrested three other Kudo-kai members, considered close to Nomura, in the tax evasion case.
They are accused of concealing 227 million yen ($1.82 million), collected by the syndicate between 2010 and 2013 and evading taxes to the tune of 88 million yen (around $706,000).
This is the first instance of the Japanese police charging a Yakuza group for tax evasion and hiding of collected dues.
Members of the organized crime syndicate usually collect “protection money” from restaurants, pachinko parlors and drug dealers in their areas and pass on the corresponding quotas higher up the chain of command.
Kudo-kai’s collections were transferred to bank accounts of Nomura’s relatives and other members of the group and passed off as “personal income,” an official from the investigating team told Kyodo news agency.
Kudo-kai is considered one of Japan’s most feared groups in the owing to their involvement in shootings and other violent attacks on civilians.
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Chicago mobster Sam Giancana's 40-year-old murder still a mystery
Mob boss Sam Giancana was killed 40 years ago in his west suburban home and who did it is far more of a puzzle than why.
By Chuck Goudie
CHICAGO (WLS) --
A Chicago crime mystery that the ABC7 I-Team has been following for four decades remains unsolved.
Mob boss Sam Giancana was killed 40 years ago in his west suburban home and who did it is far more of a puzzle than why.
Giancana was born on the West Side and died not far from where he was born, assassinated 40 years ago Friday night in Oak Park. During the years in between, Giancana became one of the world's most powerful organized crime bosses; he allured Marilyn Monroe and some say got John F. Kennedy elected president. But on this night in 1975, he was cut down like the street thug that his enemies believed he was.
On June 19, 1975, Giancana invited a friend in his home for sausage and peppers. Before the meat was done, that man would become Giancana's killer.
The 67-year-old top hoodlum was shot in the head and neck as he fried up the evening snack, seven shots fired from a silencer-equipped .22 caliber pistol.
Chicago mobologist John Binder said Giancana was killed by his longtime driver and close confidante Butch Blasi, who had attended a small party at the Oak Park home, left and then returned.
"He was there that night," Binder said. "A car registered to him or to his family returned there that evening after everyone else had gone home. Not long thereafter they found Giancana dead on the floor of his basement."
The crime boss's nephew has told the I-Team that notorious outfit member Anthony "Ant" Spilotro was given the assignment to rub out Giancana, a belief also held by the late suburban police chief Michael Corbett, a one-time Giancana associate.
"By himself in the house, boom-boom-boom, see you," Corbett said. "He knew how to get into Sam's house without people seeing him, only a few people knew how to do that and he was one of them."
"He was a man who knew too much and ultimately he had to be silenced," said Sam Giancana, the mobster's namesake nephew. "He was killed the night before federal agents were to take him to Washington to testify."
Giancana's was to appear before a Senate committee investigating CIA and mafia links to plots to kill Fidel Castro.
"There's been some claims that the CIA hit Sam Giancana because either they were mad at him or to cover up that he had quote, 'helped them in the plot against Castro,'" Binder said. "That's another conspiracy theory. Conspiracy theories are long in allegations, very, very short in any convincing evidence."
There were other potential suspects in Giancana's murder, the notorious hitman Harry Aleman and mob enforcer Butch Blasi. But with all of them also dead, the likelihood of justice in the case of Sam Giancana seems slim.
Outfit investigators suspect the order to kill Sam Giancana 40 years ago would have come from the bosses at the time, Joey "Doves" Aiuppa or Anthony "Joe Batters" Accardo, and probably both of them. But with Aiuppa, Accardo and everyone else who had a hand in the hit also dead, the likelihood of justice ever coming in the case of Sam Giancana seems slim.
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Italian-Americans outraged over Capone books in NYC schools
By Carl Campanile
Italian-American advocates want Schools Chancellor Carmen Fariña to ban from reading lists a series of children’s books that they say perpetuate negative stereotypes by touting the infamous gangster Al Capone.
Books in the “Tales from Alcatraz” novels written by acclaimed author Gennifer Choldenko are titled “Al Capone Does My Shirts,” “Al Capone Shines My Shoes” and “Al Capone Does My Homework.”
Capone was a prisoner at Alcatraz from 1935 to 1939.
“Italian-Americans remain the last ethnic group in New York that it is acceptable to negatively stereotype,” John Fratta, chairman of the Italian-American Action Network, wrote in a March 25 letter to Fariña.
He is going public after the chancellor’s office brushed off his written complaint.
The Department of Education confirmed that some principals have “Capone” on elementary-school and middle-school reading lists.
“ ‘Al Capone Does My Shirts’ is a Newberry Honor and ALA Notable Children’s book and has received praise and honors from literary magazines across the country,” said DOE spokesman Harry Hatfield. “We empower principals to develop reading lists that are appropriate for their students and respect the diversity of their communities.”
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Urine-troubled mafia boss headed back to prison after meeting with fellow gangsters while on probation
BY JOHN MARZULLI
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
He’s a real a pee brain.
An ailing Bonanno capo was sentenced Tuesday to a year and a day in prison for violating his supervised release by meeting with fellow gangsters after he underwent surgery to repair his plumbing.
John Palazzolo, 77, was being treated for a condition that rendered him unable to stop urinating, sources said, but that didn’t keep him from gallivanting with fellow Bonannos.
“It’s rather astonishing that a person in your medical condition would be engaging in meetings with persons who may be involved in organized crime activities,” Judge Nicholas Garaufis lectured in Brooklyn Federal Court.
“I’m astonished that you would put those interests ahead of your health,” Garaufis added.
Palazzolo walked gingerly in the courtroom and requested a private conference at sidebar with the judge to explain his medical condition. At one point he gestured like he wanted to show the judge something, and Garaufis appeared to tell him that was not necessary.
“I have absolutely no comment on his medical condition,” defense lawyer Flora Edwards told the Daily News later.
Palazzolo was arrested last March for violating the condition of his supervised release, which prohibits him from associating with any members of the Mafia.
He was hobbling down the home stretch of his three-year term of supervision after serving nearly a decade behind bars for participating in the 1991 rubout of Bonanno mobster Russell Mauro. Palazzolo lured the victim to a social club, cleaned up the gore from the crime scene and got rid of the corpse.
“It’s rather astonishing that a person in your medical condition would be engaging in meetings with persons who may be involved in organized crime activities,” Judge Nicholas Garaufis lectured in Brooklyn Federal Court.
With only a few months left of supervision, Palazzolo apparently threw caution to the wind last spring when he was allegedly promoted to street boss of the crime family, according to court papers.
A confidential source leaked information that Palazzolo was meeting with former consigliere Anthony Rabito at the Nevada Diner in Elmhurst, and a bunch of Bonannos at the Trattoria 35 in Bayside, court papers stated.
U.S. Probation Officer Lawrence Goldman told the judge that he had repeatedly counseled the geezer gangster to stay straight.
“I tried numerous times to beat it into his head, no pun intended, to stay away from organized crime figures,” Goldman said in court.
“Had he only heeded my instructions and the directions of the court, we wouldn’t be here today,” he said.
Palazzolo, who looked pale and drained, declined to make a statement in open court.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Maria Cruz Melendez said the sentence was adequate given the mobster’s serious medical issues.
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Lawyer drops discrimination suit against Williamsburg bakery after learning co-owner has possible mob ties
BY JOHN MARZULLI
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Drop the lawsuit, take the cannoli.
The lawyer for a disabled woman suing a Brooklyn pastry shop for not being wheelchair-accessible withdrew the lawsuit just days after learning the bakery’s co-owner has reputed ties to the Mafia and was tried for a gangland murder, the Daily News has learned.
Valerie Williams, 50, who suffers from cerebral palsy, was shocked to learn Wednesday that lawyer Donald Weiss had filed papers in Brooklyn Federal Court dropping her discrimination suit against Fortunato Brothers Café and Bakery in Williamsburg.
Williams immediately contacted the law firm and said an associate told her the suit had been withdrawn “for my safety.”
“He (Weiss) must be scared of them,” Williams said. “I don’t have anything against the establishment. I just wanted a wheelchair ramp.”
Williams said she has been customer of the bakery for years, but finally got fed up with having to wait outside while friends purchased her favorite chocolate mousse pastry because she couldn’t navigate the two steps at the entrance.
“I used to make a joke about the men standing outside, I called them ‘The Godfathers,’” she said. “I live in the Spanish section (of Williamsburg) and when you go into the Italian section it’s a whole other world.”
Weiss filed the suit under the Americans with Disabilities Act on June 3.
The following day Weiss told The News that he was unaware that prosecutors had alleged bakery co-owner Mario Fortunato was an associate of the Genovese crime family and had been convicted both in state and federal courts of participating in the 1994 murder of loanshark Tino Lombardi in the San Giuseppe Social Club on Graham Ave., and the wounding of Lombardi’s cousin, Michael D’Urso.
Both convictions were overturned on appeal and Fortunato pocketed a $300,000 settlement from the state earlier this year.
Weiss filed a “notice of voluntary dismissal” of the suit Wednesday.
Neither Weiss nor the bakery returned calls for comment.
Williams said she is so upset that about the suit being dropped without consulting her, she is reconsidering the law firm representing her in a similar discrimination suit that is pending against a Spanish restaurant. In the complaint against Fortunato Brothers, Williams claimed she was entitled to recover $2,000 in damages plus $500 for each of the 34 alleged violations found in the entrance, dining area and bathroom.
“I have nothing against them. I don’t know the owner. I just love their pastries,” Williams said.
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Federal prosecutors disclose dramatic details of 1978 Lufthansa robbery
BY JOHN MARZULLI
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Dramatic Details of 1978 Lufthansa Robbery
Federal prosecutors disclose dramatic details of the 1978 Lufthansa robbery.
NY Daily News
The Bonanno gangster charged with the infamous 1978 Lufthansa robbery allegedly blew his nearly $1 million share of the loot gambling at the racetrack, the Daily News has learned.
Federal prosecutors, in their most detailed disclosure to date about evidence against reputed capo Vincent Asaro, have revealed stunning secrets in the long-unsolved airport heist.
The feds have lined up an impressive roster of rats with knowledge of Asaro’s participation in the Lufthansa heist — immortalized in the classic film “Goodfellas.”
Former Bonanno boss Joseph Massino will testify that he was Asaro’s captain at the time and was given by Asaro an attaché case filled with gold and jewelry as tribute. Asaro’s cousin, Gaspare Valenti, also participated in the robbery and recently wore a wire to nail Asaro for the government.
Ex-Bonanno underboss Salvatore Vitale will testify that he saw Massino, his brother-in-law, sorting through the jewelry and was given a gold chain from the airport booty.
Former Gambino associate Anthony Ruggiano Jr., will testify that his father, the late John Gotti crew member Anthony (Fat Andy) Ruggiano, helped Asaro and Burke fence the stolen jewelry.
The $6 million robbery left a trail of bodies in its wake.
Two months after the holdup, Richard Eaton was strangled by Lufthansa mastermind James (Jimmy the Gent) Burke over a drug deal financed by a portion of the proceeds from the heist, according to court papers.
Asaro delivered Easton’s body to a cousin’s house and told him to borrow a neighbor’s backhoe to dig a grave.
The body, with a rope still tied around the neck, was stashed in a refrigeration truck and found by children before the hole was dug, in a scene depicted in the Martin Scorsese movie.
It took two days to defrost his remains for an autopsy.
That was one of many screw-ups by Asaro in his up-and-down Mafia career. He wasted his take from of the Lufthansa loot gambling at the racetrack, stated Assistant U.S. Attorneys Alicyn Cooley and Nicole Argentieri.
His gambling addiction also led to his demotion to the mob rank of soldier in the 1990s.
Prosecutors identified a roster of deceased Lufthansa alumni including Valenti, Burke, Burke’s son Frank, Angelo Sepe, Joseph (Joe Buddah) Manri, Tommy Desimone, Danny Rizzo, Anthony (Snake) Rodriguez and Louis (Fat Louie) Carfora.
“Each participant of the robbery was supposed to receive approximately $750,000 but most did not live to receive their share (either because they were killed or it was never given to them),” prosecutors wrote in papers.
Valenti’s share was glommed by Asaro, but Valenti got the last laugh by secretly taping his cousin ranting: “We never got our right money, what we were supposed to get, we got f---ed all around, that f---ing Jimmy (Burke) kept everything.”
Asaro’s lawyer did not return a call for comment. The trial is scheduled to begin in October in Brooklyn Federal Court.
“Evidence of (Asaro’s) gambling losses and addiction are essential to complete the story of the lucrative criminal schemes charged, including what befell the millions in profits from the Lufthansa Heist,” the court papers state.
Asaro, 80, acknowledged in another secretly taped conversation that he’s a brokefella because he can't help himself when it comes to the ponies.
“If I got a winning ticket and I got to the window, I bet the next race whatever I won in that race, I bet the whole ticket!” he said.
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Uffizi paintings go on display in villa seized from Italian mobster in crime clan stronghold
Associated Press
OME — Eight paintings from the Uffizi Gallery in Florence are going on display in a villa seized from a mobster in a southern Italian town that's a stronghold of organized crime.
The exhibit, entitled "Light conquers shadow," runs June 21-Oct. 21 in Casal di Principe, which has long been a power base for the Casalesi crime clan of the Camorra syndicate in the Naples area.
The exhibit's organizers said Friday that the venue of a villa where a crime boss had lived helps transmit the message that "legality prevails over illegality, culture over ignorance."
The Uffizi paintings include works reflecting the legacy of Caravaggio, who spent some of his last years in Naples and is renowned for his dramatic chiaroscuro technique — partially illuminating figures against a dark background.
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Italian mobsters ‘infiltrate Libs, Labor’
KAITLIN THALS
Investigative journalists have uncovered evidence the Calabrian Mafia may have corrupted Australian politicians.
A joint investigation conducted by the ABC and Fairfax Media uncovered the alleged infiltration, which could have tainted parts of both the Liberal and Labor parties.
According to confidential police reports, Fairfax reported “loopholes” found in the political donation system which showed the long-running failure by government to reform it, exposing Australian politicians to “potential corruption”.
The investigation revealed a series of contacts between known and suspected criminals and senior politicians.
The Calabrian Mafia, also known as the ‘Ndrangheta, is one of the world’s most powerful criminal groups and is thought to be one of the major players in the world of international drug trafficking.
In Australia it operates using threats and violence in both legitimate businesses, such as fruit and vegetables, and illegitimate businesses, such as drugs, the ABC reported.
The violent and powerful group extended its networks from Italy and across the world, and gained access to the very highest office bearers in Australia, the report revealed.
The investigation showed donors had lobbied on behalf of a mafia figure to a host of Liberal and Labor MPs over issues related to their businesses.
Four Corners revealed the son of alleged mafia boss did work experience at the Australian embassy in Rome while former Liberal minister Amanda Vanstone was ambassador.
Prior to his placement, Italian authorities were sharing sensitive information about the alleged mafia boss through the embassy.
Ms Vanstone, who is now retired from politics, is also at the centre of another episode uncovered during the investigation.
When she was immigration minister in the Howard government, she granted a visa for a crime boss who was later jailed for drug trafficking and implicated in a murder plot,” the ABC reported.
The man, who is the brother of a well-known Melbourne businessman, has an extensive criminal history in Italy.
He was set to be deported, but his family used its money and influence to conduct a lobbying campaign with some of the country’s most powerful Liberal politicians — including Ms Vanstone.
Eventually in 2005, the man was granted a visa to stay in Australia on humanitarian grounds.
There is no suggestion Ms Vanstone acted improperly in either case, though confidential police assessments suggest it indicates her South Australian Senate office had likely been ingratiated by mafia figures.
Just a couple of years later, the man was implicated in one of Australia’s largest ever drug busts.
A search of hundreds of photos from Liberal fundraisers from the early 2000s captures one of the alleged Mafia crime figures and donors named in police files, Tony Madafferi, meeting John Howard. Melbourne lord mayor and former Victorian state Liberal leader Robert Doyle also appears in photographs with Tony Madafferi, Fairfax reported.
Tony Madafferi denied any wrongdoing, and was never charged with an offence, but was named repeatedly in court proceedings as an alleged organised crime figure with deep ties to Mafia figures and drug traffickers.
He was named as a violent Mafia figure by witnesses in two coronial inquests, but denied the allegations and was not subject to adverse findings.
Neither Mr Doyle nor Mr Howard knew of Tony Madafferi’s links to organised crime.
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Arrest of Kudo-kai boss for tax evasion must help eliminate crime groups
The Yomiuri ShimbunIt is highly significant that police have investigated the money collected by a crime syndicate from subordinate groups as funds for its management. We hope this will help bring an end to a heinous criminal network.
Fukuoka prefectural police have arrested the top boss of Kudo-kai, an extremely dangerous designated yakuza group based in Kitakyushu, on suspicion of violating the Income Tax Law. The boss is suspected of not reporting to tax authorities ¥227 million in income from money he allegedly collected from subordinates, evading about ¥88 million in taxes.
This is the first time Japanese police have deemed the money collected by a yakuza organization from subordinate groups to be an individual’s income and built a case for tax evasion.
Kudo-kai is a dangerous criminal group that has harmed the general public and engaged in gang wars with other yakuza groups. Its top boss has been arrested before and indicted for his alleged involvement in such cases as the shooting death of a former head of a local fisheries cooperative. That incident occurred after the former cooperative head refused to allow Kudo-kai’s involvement in a port facility expansion project.
To make progress toward defeating Kudo-kai, the prefectural police must meticulously trace the flow of money from subordinate groups to the top boss, so as to cut off the group’s funding sources.
Gang members extort protection money from companies and citizens, which is then taken by higher-ranking groups as operational funds.
It is hard to uncover the workings of such money collection systems. Police and tax authorities have tried to pursue corporate tax evasion charges against financial institutions with deep ties with gangster groups. Such investigations have faced limits, however, because crime organizations are not regarded as corporate bodies.
Smoking guns seized
As part of efforts to disband Kudo-kai, Fukuoka prefectural police launched a crackdown in pursuit of the group’s top boss last September. During the investigation, they seized memos showing money transfers, reportedly finding that part of the funds in question had been transferred monthly to bank accounts of the boss’ relatives and others.
It is also worth noting that the prefectural police, prosecutors and the national taxation authorities cooperated closely in the case. Sharing information, they jointly searched related locations. The securing of gang informants with inside knowledge is also said to have contributed to progress in the investigation.
The approach currently being employed — which treats the money collected by the gang boss from subordinates as personal income — can serve as a reference for other prefectural police headquarters battling crime syndicates.
Ordinances to eliminate criminal syndicates, which were put into force in all 47 prefectures by 2011, ban citizens and businesses from providing remuneration to gang members. The movement to expel gangsters has been gaining greater momentum.
But there has been no end to such incidents as revenge attacks on businesses and drinking and dining establishments that refuse to pay protection money. If they yield to threats and pay such fees, it will be impossible to cut off gangsters’ funding sources.
The police must also make wholehearted efforts to safeguard citizens who are directly confronted by organized crime.
(From The Yomiuri Shimbun, June 20, 2015)
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Russian Mafia Gangster: A Spanish probe into Russian mafia 'could change t...
Russian Mafia Gangster: A Spanish probe into Russian mafia 'could change t...: NATASHA One of Russia's largest organized-crime syndicates allegedly operated out of Spain for more than a decade with the hel...
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