Nov 20 2007
A national crime-fighting network billed as Israel’s FBI, video teleconferenced remand hearings, and an increase of 1,000 in the number of police officers hired – these are among the changes to Israel’s law enforcement scene expected to take off in 2008. Continue Reading »
Nov 20 2007
NEW YORK – A former Nassau County judge was sentenced to nearly 3 years in prison for conspiring to launder more than $400,000 for members of the Genovese crime family. David Gross, 45, pleaded guilty in July and admitted he agreed to try to secretly move cash he believed was the result of a jewelry heist. What Gross did not know is that one of the men he was making the deal with was an undercover FBI agent. Continue Reading »
Nov 18 2007
ROME: It’s said that the Mafia has a hold on Italy. Of late that’s been especially true of Thursday nights, when millions of television viewers have tuned in to watch the biographical rise-and-fall saga of Salvatore (Toto) Riina, the murderous mob boss who once commanded organized crime in Sicily. Continue Reading »
Nov 17 2007
Vito Rizzuto, named as Canada’s most powerful Mafia boss, says he should already be eligible for release from his U.S. prison, where he is incarcerated for three gangland murders. Continue Reading »
Nov 16 2007
ROME: A court in Palermo imposed stiff sentences Friday in a Mafia trial in which a restaurant owner rebelled against paying “protection” money to the Cosa Nostra and identified an extortionist in the courtroom.
Vincenzo Conticello, one of the owners of Antica Focacceria San Francesco, a popular eatery that opened in 1834, had told police about the Cosa Nostra’s efforts to make him pay “protection” money, according to prosecutors. Continue Reading »
Nov 16 2007
AMERICAN GANGSTER (18) ***
DIRECTED BY: RIDLEY SCOTT
STARRING: DENZEL WASHINGTON, RUSSELL CROWE, CHIWETEL EJIOFOR, JOSH BROLIN
Denzel Washington gives a typically electrifying performance as Frank Lucas
ON THE DVD of Brian De Palma’s ultra-trashy Cuban gangster epic Scarface is a documentary acknowledging its odd status as “a hip-hop classic”. Over the years, and apparently without irony, America’s biggest rap stars have embraced the rise and fall of drug monster Tony Montana as a “how to” guide to making it big and living it large on the streets of America. It’s one of the film’s stranger legacies, but this fictional icon’s reign as the “ultimate ghetto superhero” may be about to come to an end if the seductive portrait of real-life New York crime lord Frank Lucas served up in American Gangster anything to go by. Continue Reading »
