Jul 07 2008
The mafia’s allure
ROME — This is the year of the mafia—at least at the box office.
Two films on organized crime in Italy, each fact-based melodramas, took top prizes at the Cannes Film Festival in May and are drawing packed audiences here. The Italian movie industry was giddy over the double win. Continue Reading »
Jul 06 2008
Global drug traffickers compared to Al Qaeda
REGGIO CALABRIA — The tale of “The Godfather” seems almost quaint from this rocky, remote outpost in Italy.
Prosecutors and lawmakers are increasingly riveted by a more mysterious and blood-bound crime racket rooted in these far southern reaches of Calabria—not Sicily—that in the past two decades has put Italy at the heart of the global cocaine market. Continue Reading »
Jul 05 2008
Pete Halat was not exactly dumbstruck when his former law partner, Judge Vince Sherry, and Sherry’s wife were found executed in their Biloxi, Miss., home. Continue Reading »
Jul 05 2008
The Bishop of Aversa, Mario Milano, at the anti-Mafia headquarters.
Photo: Penny Bradfield
In the wake of a historic win against the Mafia, Paola Totaro visited the headquarters of the feared Camorra.
The shops and windows of Casal di Principe are closed, their metal security shutters sealed against the searing summer heat. Dust rises and settles in the wake of the occasional passing car, plastic shopping bags inflate with the hot wind and career down empty streets like tumbleweeds in a town of the old west. Continue Reading »
Jul 04 2008
Naples — Two fugitives with links to the Mafia were arrested by Italian police on Thursday night. Continue Reading »
Jul 01 2008
LAS VEGAS — A former New York police detective accused of moonlighting as a hit man for the mob has been sentenced to 18 months in prison for filing a false income tax return. Continue Reading »
