Mafia News

TIMISOARA, Romania: Four Romanians were arrested on suspicion of human trafficking, money laundering and electronics theft in European Union countries, police said Wednesday.

Authorities detained the four, two brothers and their wives, on Tuesday in the western city of Buzias, a few months after police began investigations, said Cornel Iures, spokesman for a local police brigade tasked with fighting organized crime. Continue Reading »

SKOPJE, Macedonia - Italian experts who deal with the Mafia will help train Macedonian police in fighting organized crime as part of a program funded by the European Union, officials said Wednesday.

Justice Minister Mihajlo Manevski said the two-year project will promote contacts with Italy’s Ministry of Justice and the International Institute of Higher Studies in Criminal Sciences, based in Sicily, as well as Italian police officers who deal with organized crime. Continue Reading »

BILOXI, Miss. - Howard Leroy Hobbs, a former Harrison County sheriff known for his tailored suits and ties to the Dixie Mafia, has filed papers to run for his old job.

Hobbs, 72, served as sheriff for 12 years in Harrison County. He also served almost 12 years in federal prison for racketeering and drug conspiracy. Continue Reading »

New York — Chris Colombo’s own lawyer dropped the “S” word right in front of a jury yesterday.

“When you look at him, he looks like he just walked off the set of ‘The Sopranos,’” said the lawyer, Jeremy Schneider, as he made his opening remarks in Colombo’s racketeering trial yesterday. Continue Reading »

“THIS IS NOT JUST A country with a mafia. It is a mafia with a country.” This was the graphic description of one of the ex-Soviet republicans where corruption and organised crime is directed from the top. I don’t recall exactly which country it was, but it was in the neighbourhood of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan.

With the outrageous and very political decision to give the all-clear to senior figures in the Kibaki regime implicated in the Anglo Leasing scandals, Kenya now officially joins the list of nations that can be described as above. A mafia with a country. Perhaps the name of the country should be changed to Kenyanistan. Continue Reading »

Accused FBI mob mole Lindley DeVecchio, charged with sealing the fate of a Brooklyn teen by tipping off a Colombo crime pal that the boy was about to squeal, had been completely wrong about the 17-year-old’s intentions. Continue Reading »

Budapest - A Hungarian court Monday sentenced to 15 years imprisonment a man who ordered the murder of a prominent mafia figure.

Laszlo Wapper was found guilty of arranging for the death of Bulcsu Slavy, the ‘King of Balaton’, in 1997 and then concreting the body in a friend’s garage for seven years. Continue Reading »

The Russian crime syndicates have spread their tentacles all over the world

The Russian mafia has steadily grown roots and gained notoriety ever since it came to be noticed internationally in the ’90s after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Often controlled by former KBG agents, the crime syndicates may be nebulous but have a presence worldwide and are into political assassinations, robberies, arms trade, drug trafficking, prostitution and dealing in prize artefacts. Continue Reading »

Bobby Joe Fabian helped solve Sherry murder case

ANGOLA, LA. — Testimony that solved one of Mississippi’s most difficult murder cases didn’t win a reduced sentence for a 62-year-old inmate, one of the few surviving members of the “Dixie Mafia.” Continue Reading »

One of several flavorful morsels of Sicilian dialect that go untranslated in the re-release of Alberto Lattuada’s 1962 film “Mafioso” is picciotto. It means child, or little man, and is also a term for a mafia foot soldier. Another indigenous word that pops up in the subtitles is cornuto, or cuckold. It means the same thing all over Italy, but in the proudly patriarchal southern region in which most of “Mafioso” takes place, it’s an especially loaded word. “Never, ever call a Sicilian cornuto,” warns the brief (and cleverly conceived) vocabulary lesson that precedes the opening credits. “Never.” Continue Reading »