He is credited with convincing the apex court to monitor the CBI probe into the 2G spectrum allocation scandal. Activist lawyer Prashant Bhushan says “India is heading towards a mafia state” and corporate houses have become “a law unto themselves”. “The corporate mafia has come to control every institution of power and governance, be it [...]
Posts Tagged ‘mafia’
Corporate mafia fuelling corruption: Prashant Bhushan
January 31st, 2011 |
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Albanian mafia behind Swiss heroin market
December 16th, 2010 |
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Swiss media say that all heroin smuggling groups that have so far been discovered in Switzerland are Albanian or “citizens of Kosovo”.
Geneva Deputy Public Prosecutor Yves Bertossa has stated that the Albanian mafia is one of the most powerful ones among nine identified mafias in the world, Geneva-based daily Tribune de Geneve reported.
Russia branded “mafia state” in cables
December 2nd, 2010 |
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Russia has become a virtual “mafia state” with widespread corruption, bribery and protection rackets, fresh diplomatic cables on Wikileaks allege. There was no differentiation between government and organised crime, one Spanish prosecutor investigating crime links says.
“Russian mafia behind Å arićâ€
November 27th, 2010 |
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Runaway drug lord Darko Šarić was in charge of logistics and organization in drug trafficking operations behind which was the Russian mafia.
“That’s why the Italian mafia tolerated their actions in their country’s territory,†International Narcotic Enforcement Officers Association (INEOA) Board of Directors member Marko Nicović told Montenegrin daily Vijesti.
VH1 “Mafia Wives†Premiering In March 2011
November 19th, 2010 |
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Look out Real Housewives of New Jersey, the Mafia Wives are in your midst! On Thursday, VH1 hit the greenlight on its own slice of Bravo’s juggernaut Real Housewives franchise with the creation of Mafia Wives, a 10-episode docu-soap centering on “four women who are struggling to make ends meet while their husbands or fathers [...]
Italy police arrest top Camorra mafia boss
November 18th, 2010 |
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Italian police have arrested a fugitive mafia boss who had been on the run for 14 years.
Officials said that Antonio Iovine, a senior figure in the Naples-based Camorra crime syndicate, was one of Italy’s most wanted men.
“Šarić gang squeezed Italian mafia outâ€
November 17th, 2010 |
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After arrest of Darko Šarić’s partners, Serbian and Italian media report that his gang has even managed to push the Italian mafia out of the drug business.
Belgrade-based daily Blic writes that the fugitive’s gang managed to push the most powerful Calabrian criminal organization Ndrangheta out of the cocaine business.
Mafia II Sneak-peak Posted By : ArnKT
November 9th, 2010 |
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As you play you will find out that the map where you play isn’t that big. And still none of the locations will seem too used.
Italian explosives find “too big for Mafia”
September 23rd, 2010 |
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Italian investigators are trying to find out details of a shipment of powerful explosive that they say is too large even for the mafia. Police seized seven tonnes of RDX in Calabria at the end of August but kept the find under wraps until this week.
IM’s family under protection from mafia threats
August 1st, 2010 |
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Interior Minister Ivica DaÄić confirmed that his family is being protected by police personnel around the clock because of threats coming from mafia groups. “That is how it is when you have to deal with people who have lost a lot under the sanctions of the police institutions,†DaÄić said.
Finger pointed at Berlusconi in mafia trial
February 9th, 2010 |
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The key witness in an Italian mafia trial has made more allegations linking Silvio Berlusconi to organised crime. Massimo Ciancimino told a court on Monday that the mafia had backed the Italian Prime Minister’s first political party, Forza Italia, when it was set up in the early 90s.
Taming the mafia state
November 19th, 2009 |
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Anti-graft pressure mounts in Afghanistan, as Hamid Karzai is again sworn in as president
IT WAS no secret what the world wanted to hear from Hamid Karzai when Afghanistan’s president was sworn in for a second term on Thursday November 19th: a commitment to get tough on corruption. Visiting Kabul for the inauguration, Hillary Clinton, America’s secretary of state, said Mr Karzai had a “window of opportunity” to show tangible results. American officials say he has just six months to tackle what one calls “Afghanistan’s mafia state”.
In his inauguration speech, he said ministers in his administration must be “competent and just”. But heeding Western concerns about their behaviour does not come naturally to Mr Karzai. He has been in a combative mood since the West’s much-resented demand that he accept that his re-election was marred by massive vote-rigging. In a recent American television interview he batted back questions about corruption in his government with his oft-repeated line that foreign donors must clean their own act up and stop development funds from being wasted. Such wastage, however, is at least lawful, unlike the Afghan government’s practice of selling jobs to officials who then repay themselves through extortion. Nor is it akin to the impunity the well-connected enjoy. …
“Mafia sending threats to Tadić”
July 28th, 2009 |
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Montenegrin businessman Ratko Knežević said that the so-called Tobacco Mafia is threatening Serbian President Boris Tadić. He said that the threats come after the arrest of those suspected of murdering Ivo Pukanić.
Mafia police raid iconic Rome cafe
July 22nd, 2009 |
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Officers say bar immortalised in Fellini’s cinema masterpiece belongs to ‘Ndrangheta crime syndicate
It was the cafe immortalised in La Dolce Vita, the 1960 Fellini study of the ennui and hedonism of postwar Italian society.
But now the Cafe de Paris in Rome has earned an entirely different reputation after being impounded by police who believe it to be part of a property empire, belonging to the ‘Ndrangheta crime syndicate.
Police seized more than €200m (£173m) of property allegedly owned by the crime ring today , including other cafes and restaurants, businesses and luxury cars, according to Daniele Galimberti, a Rome police official.
Galimberti said the establishment was briefly shut early in the day for a search.
“We wanted to check how much money there was in the cash register and seize the account books,” he said, adding that the authorities had appointed a manager to allow the cafe stay open for the time being. “It’s important to guarantee its activity for all those chefs, waiters and other personnel who are working there,” he said.
Anti-mafia prosecutors say mobsters are snapping up property in high-rent Rome neighbourhoods. In recent years, the ‘Ndrangheta, from the southern Italian region of Calabria, has overtaken the Sicilian mafia to become the most powerful organised crime group in Italy. It dominates the drug trade in Europe, including the trafficking of cocaine from South America.
The Cafe de Paris, which symbolised the glitzy nightlife of the fashionable Via Veneto, was sold in 2005 for €250,000 to a hairdresser from Calabria who, according to police sources, is a suspected member of the Alvaro-Palamara gang.
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Dozens jailed in Italy Mafia case
July 18th, 2009 |
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An Italian judge has jailed 49 members of a Sicilian Mafia syndicate – some for up to 20 years – for running protection rackets against businesses. The government says the case is a landmark in the ongoing battle against organised crime in southern Italy.
Dozens jailed in Italy Mafia case
July 17th, 2009 |
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An Italian judge has jailed 49 members of a Sicilian Mafia syndicate – some for up to 20 years – for running protection rackets against businesses.
The government says the case is a landmark in the ongoing battle against organised crime in southern Italy.
The accused, all from the Lo Piccolo crime family, were extorting money – called "pizzo" – from shops in Sicily.
The BBC’s David Willey in Rome says failure to pay led to violence, arson and occasionally murder.
Official figures suggest that up to 80% of businesses in Palermo pay the protection money to Mafia criminals in order to continue their commercial activities.
But this is the first time that Sicilian business groups, working closely with the police, have achieved a successful prosecution, including the payment of compensation to victims, says the BBC’s David Willey in Rome.
But the fight against Mafia crime in Sicily is far from over, our correspondent adds.
Seventeen years after the murder of two leading anti-Mafia judges and investigators, the authorities are investigating alleged newly-discovered links to members of the security services who may have betrayed the judges to the crime clans.</p
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
PhD Economist: The Feds are Worse than the Mafia
Eliot Spitzer’s comment that the Fed is a “ponzi scheme” is newsworthy.But even more dramatic is PhD economist Marc Faber’s comment:The Feds are worse than the Mafia.See this.Print this post