Mafia News

The grave of Mikhail Kuchin, a casualty of Russia’s mafia wars. He is shown clutching the keys of his Mercedes

A surge in contract killings reminiscent of Russia’s mafia wars in the 1990s is threatening to damage Vladimir Putin’s legacy of stability in the dying days of his presidency.

As the Russian leader prepares to hand power to his handpicked sucessor, Dmitry Medvedev, after Sunday’s election, the Kremlin has been keen to remind Russians the president replaced Yeltsin era lawlessness with what he calls “the dictatorship of the law”. Continue Reading »

Boris Stratievsky has been in jail awaiting trial since 2005.

Boris Stratievsky was a ‘professor’ of money-laundering for Moscow clients, according to his father, whose conversations were secretly taped by the FBI. Continue Reading »

Seizure of Calabrian mafia leader could spark deadly war of succession

‘It’s me,’ the man said. ‘I’m the real Pasquale Condello.’ I Cacciatori, the Hunters – the Carabinieri’s specialist man-trackers entrusted with the last stage of the operation to net ‘The Supremo’ – had left nothing to chance. They were convinced the 57-year-old mobster lived in one of 12 flats on the outskirts of Reggio Calabria.

But was he, as they first believed, the retired priest? Or the blind man who had recently come to live with his mother? After a two-week stake-out, they opted to mount 12 separate, simultaneous operations. The team that burst into Condello’s comfortable apartment realised they had the right man – his two dinner companions reached for their pistols, only to be stayed by Il Supremo. In the refrigerator the Carabinieri later found a plate of oysters and two bottles of champagne. Continue Reading »

The most powerful and -efficient “holding company” adapting to globalisation is the ‘Ndrangheta criminal organisation, Italy’s parliamentary anti-Mafia commission warned yesterday.

In a 230-page report intended as a wake-up call to both a domestic audience and Italy’s neighbours, commission members said that while Sicily’s Cosa Nostra and other regional crime groups had been dealt serious setbacks, the ‘Ndrangheta of Calabria, rooted in the “toe” of Italy, was on the rise worldwide. Continue Reading »

Grizzled hair, a neat moustache, and elegantly dressed. A bottle of French champagne on the table and another of fine French cognac nearby. Pasquale Condello – one of Italy’s most wanted fugitives from justice, and one of the reputed masterminds of the Calabrian mafia, or ‘Ndrangheta – put up no resistance when a crack five-man Carabinieri police team burst into an anonymous looking apartment just after sunset on Monday on the outskirts of Reggio Calabria. The 57-year-old was quickly handcuffed and although he had a gun, he declined to use it. Continue Reading »

Picture made available by Italian Police 19 Feb. 2008, showing Pasquale Condello captured in Reggio Calabria, southern Italy, Monday night

Italian police have arrested the leader of the Calabrian mafia, which has parlayed drug trafficking to become more powerful than the more famous Sicilian mob. Clan feuds of the powerful ‘Ndrangheta organized crime syndicate have bloodied the southern Italian region for years. Sabina Castelfranco reports from Rome. Continue Reading »