Mafia News

Palermo’s traditional tolerance of Mafia intimidation may be ending

Palermo — In the Cosa Nostra’s stronghold of Palermo, Sicily’s sprawling port capital, the Mafia have ways and means of knowing if you are turning a profit. And inevitably they want a cut.

“It starts with them glueing over your keyhole,” explains Cecile Lambert, a young member of an association, Addiopizzo, that aims to free the city’s shopkeepers from the tyranny of extortion payments. “That’s a clear signal that they are looking for the pizzo .”

The pizzo - or protection money - is paid monthly and the sum is even negotiable. If you are unable, or unwilling, to interpret the Cosa Nostra’s symbolic language then they are usually more than happy to make it clearer. Continue Reading »

HE HAS worked in textile and construction firms controlled by the Mafia, helped offload smuggled goods from cargo ships, and rubbed shoulders with the Camorra’s teenage footsoldiers in Naples’ drug-infested suburbs.

Now, at only 28, the anti-Mafia writer Roberto Saviano has had both Left and Right knocking at his door and urging him to run for them in Italy’s election. Continue Reading »

For followers of crime drama, the word mafia might produce images of unspeakable violent acts and gun battles in the streets of major U.S. cities, reminiscent of scenes from “The Godfather” movies.

However, there is a different mafia functioning quietly yet successfully in the United States, and its operations could possibly be affecting every American either directly or indirectly.

This mafia, driven more by the desire to acquire money rather than territory, is collectively known as the Russian mafia, although those involved are from other post-Soviet countries as well, according to a new book by Joe Serio. Continue Reading »

Public prosecutors in southern Italy are reportedly investigating conservative senator Sergio De Gregorio, after he was filmed dining in restaurant there, together with several local Mafia bosses.

De Gregorio is suspected of Mafia association aimed at money laundering. Continue Reading »

Silvio Berlusconi, the Centre Right leader and media tycoon, will order the re-writing of school history books to extol “forgotten heroes of the Right” if he wins this weekend’s election as expected, according to a key ally.

Marcello dell’Utri, who helped Mr Berlusconi to found Forza Italia and enter politics in 1994, said that history text books were “leftwing”. He said that the “forgotten heroes” included Vittorio Mangano, Mr Berlusconi’s former driver and stable manager on his Milan estate, who was convicted of a Mafia-linked murder and died of cancer in prison in 2000. Continue Reading »

THE Italian mafia has joined forces with Dutch and Chinese criminals to flood Australia with ecstasy, in a global crime alliance not seen here since the 1980s.

Dutch authorities have warned their Australian counterparts that tonnes of ecstasy pills are arriving by container at various ports, because we lead world demand for the drug. Continue Reading »

Sicilian Mafia boss Bernardo Provenzano arrives at a police station in Palermo. Photograph: Reuters

The letters of jailed Cosa Nostra boss Bernardo Provenzano are full of insights into his leadership style. The result could be a how-to manual for company directors. Clare Longrigg opens the mafiosi’s management handbook Continue Reading »

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BELGRADE — Siniša Stojčić, charged with illegally importing and selling cigarettes in the 1990s, yesterday pled not guilty.

He told the Special Organized Crime Department of the Belgrade District Court that it is impossible that his brother, former deputy interior minister Radovan Stojčić, a.k.a. Badža, “who fought against crime, could have organized a criminal group”, the so-called Tobacco Mafia. Continue Reading »

Georgy Stoev who wrote books telling about the underground world in Bulgaria was shot in front of Pliska Hotel in Bulgaria’s capital. Continue Reading »

ROME — Italian police arrested 38 suspects Monday in a sweep against a clan of the ‘ndrangheta organized crime syndicate accused of murder, extortion and arms and drug trafficking. Continue Reading »