Gang murdered drug dealer then blew up his house

 

Drugs gang executed one of their dealer's and then blew up his house to cover-up the murder, a court heard this afternoon. Colliston Edwards, 38, of no fixed address and Andre Johnson, 25, also of no fixed address are accused of shooting Leroy Burnett, 43, after he kept back some of their money from drugs deals. Max Walter, 21, of no fixed address was then recruited by the pair to blow-up his house in Crichton Road, Battersea the Old Bailey heard. Mr Burnett was allegedly a low level drug supplier, who dealt drugs in Wandsworth Road and the Nine Elms area on behalf of Edwards. Edwards, whose street name is Lousy, was allegedly a drug dealer who commuted between Doncaster and South London and worked in a team with Johnson, known as Tallman. The court heard that Lousy had two mobile phones and gave out the numbers to his customers, travelling to their homes to sell the drugs. He allegedly expected Mr Burnett to carry out sales and look after his phones whilst he was away in Doncaster, but problems arose when Mr Burnett started miscounting money owed to him. Prosecuting, Aftab Jaffbrjee said: "There was simply no reason other than this pernicious deed of drugs supply to cost Leroy his life. Ads by Google Build Eco Friendly Visit us Today for Carbon Reduction Eco Tips for Construction Industry! www.CutCarbon.info Election Boundary Changes Constituencies are changing. Have your say on our report, Autumn 2013 independent.gov.uk/boundarychanges "He was executed in his home having been shot in the head at point blank range. There was nothing else that accounted in his life for such a brutal attack. "Walter then blew up the entire house causing destruction to the building and the street." Edwards and Johnson are both on trial for joint enterprise of murder and intending to pervert the course of justice. They deny having anything to do with the murder or the cover-up. Walter has pleaded guilty to perverting the course of justice and arson, but denies being reckless as to whether life was endangered. The trial which opened this afternoon is expected to last six weeks.

Jurors convict two men of first-degree murder in shooting death near Delray Beach

 

A jury convicted two men of first-degree murder Tuesday in connection with the 2007 shooting death of John Blazevige, whose body was found outside his still idling pick-up truck near Delray Beach. It took three days for jurors to return the verdicts against Michael Marquardt and Louis Baccari at the end of the week-long trial. At times they seemed entrenched into two separate camps, but in the end they made the unanimous decision to return the convictions on murder and armed robbery for each man. "We were surprised, and disappointed," Baccari's defense attorney Andrew Strecker said. "We thought for sure it would have been a hung jury." More puzzling, Strecker said, were the jury's findings in their verdict. For example, they found that Baccari, the alleged triggerman, had not used a firearm during the robbery of Blazevige, but they convicted him of armed robbery anyhow. Prosecutors Sherri Collins and Aaron Papero built their case largely on the testimony of Antonio Bussey, who deputies originally said was responsible for the killing. His DNA was found on the murder weapon, but he told deputies that Marquardt had made him touch the gun after Baccari shot Blazevige during a bad drug deal, telling him that they were "all in it together." Bussey made a deal with prosecutors and pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in exchange for a 21-year sentence. Hours before they returned the verdicts Tuesday, jurors asked to hear Bussey's testimony again. Baccari's and Marquardt's attorneys Strecker and Scott Skier asked Circuit Judge Jeffrey Colbath to also allow jurors to hear their entire cross examinations of Bussey, but the judge ruled that jurors only needed to hear a small portion of it. Colbath also denied defense attorneys' subsequent requests for a mistrial. Baccari's relatives outside the courtroom described him as a warm-hearted person and said they were convinced there was no way he would ever harm Blazevige, who had been his longtime friend and formerly lived in West Palm Beach. Prosecutors had said that Blazevige was addicted to prescription drugs and had met Baccari, Marquardt and Bussey to buy pills when he was killed. But defense attorneys, along with Baccari's family, say Bussey made a deal with prosecutors even though he knew he was the one who killed Blazevige in order to avoid the life sentences both Baccari and Marquardt will now inevitably receive as result of their convictions. Colbath set sentencing for Marquart, a landscape company owner who lived in Boynton Beach, and Baccari for April 2.

Drug gangs report blasting UK cities as dangerous

 

 Comment By Professor Alan Stevens Drug gangs report blasting UK cities as dangerous is too confusing The problems are nowhere near as deep in Manchester or Liverpool as they are in Rio de Janeiro – or even San Francisco A masked municipal policeman stands outside a shopping mall in MexicoAP On one hand it is right to state that there are communities in British cities suffering from social exclusion and marginalisation and that this contributes to their drug and crime problems. But on the other, these ­problems are nowhere near as deep in Manchester or Liverpool as they are in Rio de Janeiro or Ciudad Juarez – or even San Francisco or Los Angeles. The problem with the INCB report is that the wording is unclear. It gives the impression that its comments on no-go areas could apply equally to all of these cities. But it should have been more careful in specifying which ones it was referring to. The cities in Central and South America have more extreme ­problems which come from bigger social inequalities. They are dramatically more affected by crime and health problems. For example, in the past few years in Rio there have been repeated attempts to crack down on the areas controlled by violent drug markets. For a while these places were no-go zones. But authorities have acted in a militaristic fashion in the past year as they prepare for the World Cup.

British cities are becoming no-go areas where drugs gangs are effectively in control

British cities are becoming no-go areas where drugs gangs are effectively in control, a United Nations drugs chief said yesterday. Professor Hamid Ghodse, president of the UN’s International Narcotics Control Board (INCB), said there was “a vicious cycle of social exclusion and drugs problems and fractured communities” in cities such as Birmingham, Liverpool and Manchester. The development of “no-go areas” was being fuelled by threats such as social inequality, migration and celebrities normalising drug abuse, he warned. Helping marginalised communities with drugs problems “must be a priority”, he said. “We are looking at social cohesion, the social disintegration and illegal drugs. “In many societies around the world, whether developed or developing, there are communities within the societies which develop which become no-go areas. “Drug traffickers, organised crime, drug users, they take over. They will get the sort of governance of those areas.” Prof Ghodse called for such communities to be offered drug abuse prevention programmes, treatment and rehabilitation services, and the same levels of educational, employment and recreational opportunities as in the wider society. The INCB’s annual report for 2011 found persistent social inequality, migration, emerging cultures of excess and a shift in traditional values were some of the key threats to social cohesion. As the gap between rich and poor widens, and “faced with a future with limited opportunities, individuals within these communities may increasingly become disengaged from the wider society and become involved in a range of personally and socially harmful behaviours, including drug abuse and drug dealing,” it said.

The daily Sun had systematically paid large sums of money to “a network of corrupted officials” in the British police, military and government.

A day after presiding over the publication of his new, damn-the-critics Sun on Sunday tabloid, Rupert Murdoch was confronted with fresh allegations from a top police investigator that the daily Sun had systematically paid large sums of money to “a network of corrupted officials” in the British police, military and government. Connect With Us on Twitter Follow @nytimesworld for international breaking news and headlines. Twitter List: Reporters and Editors Readers’ Comments Share your thoughts. Post a Comment » Read All Comments (130) » The allegations, part of a deepening criminal probe into The Sun and Mr. Murdoch’s defunct News of the World, highlight the challenges to Mr. Murdoch and his News Corporation as he seeks to minimize the threat to his British media holdings. They also cast a harsh spotlight on the freewheeling pay-for-information culture of the British media. In public testimony on Monday, Deputy Assistant Commissioner Sue Akers, who is leading the criminal investigation into Mr. Murdoch’s newspapers, said The Sun, long a source of special pride and attention for Mr. Murdoch, had illegally paid the unidentified officials hundreds of thousands of dollars in exchange for news tips and “salacious gossip.” She said the payments had been authorized “at a very senior level within the newspaper.” Her comments, unusual during a continuing criminal inquiry, directly undercut Mr. Murdoch’s campaign of support for the embattled newspaper. On Feb. 17, the 80-year-old Mr. Murdoch made a grand entrance into the Sun newsroom, where, marching around in shirtsleeves, he vowed to reinstate journalists suspended in the criminal investigation, offered to pay their legal bills, issued a robust statement about the paper’s probity and announced that he was defying conventional industry wisdom by starting a Sunday issue. Ms. Akers said illegal activities had been rife at the paper. “There appears to have been a culture at The Sun of illegal payments, and systems have been created to facilitate such payments whilst hiding the identity of the officials receiving the money,” she told the Leveson Inquiry on media ethics and practices, led by Lord Justice Leveson. The payments involved “frequent and sometimes significant sums of money” to public officials, she said. In a statement, Mr. Murdoch said that “the practices Sue Akers described at the Leveson Inquiry are ones of the past, and no longer exist at The Sun.” He remained publicly bullish, helping promote the new Sun on Sunday in newspaper stores and announcing on Twitter that it had sold 3.26 million copies. In another blow to Mr. Murdoch, related this time to The News of the World, a lawyer for the Leveson Inquiry said Rebekah Brooks, a former Murdoch executive, was apparently informed by the police in 2006 that detectives had evidence that the cellphones of dozens of celebrities, politicians and sports figures had been illegally hacked by an investigator working for the newspaper. The disclosure, contained in a September 2006 e-mail from a company lawyer to the editor of The News of the World, Andy Coulson, is highly significant. Until late in 2010, Mrs. Brooks, Mr. Coulson and other officials at News International, the British newspaper arm of News Corporation, repeatedly asserted that the hacking had been limited to a single “rogue reporter” — the paper’s royal correspondent, Clive Goodman. The assertion was rendered implausible, at best, by the fact that the police had information that so many hacking victims existed, and that so few of them had anything to do with the royal family. Monday’s disclosures could not have come at a more inopportune time for Mr. Murdoch. In recent weeks, morale at The Sun hit a low point after a number of senior editors and reporters were arrested on suspicion of illegally paying sources. At the same time, journalists at The Sun and elsewhere released a stream of angry attacks at the police, saying the investigation had gone too far and was targeting reporters for what they said was normal behavior in the British tabloid press like taking sources out to lunch or paying whistle-blowers. “The Sun journalists who have been arrested are not accused of enriching themselves — they were simply researching stories about scandals at hospitals, scandals at army bases and scandals in police stations that they believed their readers were entitled to know about,” Kelvin Mackenzie, a former editor of The Sun, wrote in The Daily Mail. “If the whistle-blower asks for money, so what?” The Metropolitan Police Service’s highly unusual decision to release specific details of a continuing investigation seemed designed to rebut such criticism. “The cases we are investigating are not ones involving the odd drink, or meal, to police officers or other public officials,” Ms. Akers said. “Instead, these are cases in which arrests have been made involving the delivery of regular, frequent and sometimes significant sums of money to small numbers of public officials by journalists.”

Putin assassination plot foiled: Russian officials

 

Ukrainian security services have thwarted a plot to kill Russian PM Vladimir Putin, Russian officials say. Two suspects were detained in the Ukrainian port of Odessa, Russia's state-owned Channel One TV reports. The arrested men were both shown on TV admitting their involvement in the plot, after an explosion at a flat in January in which one suspect died. Ukrainian security officials have refused to confirm the arrests were part of a plot to assassinate Mr Putin. But the Russian prime minister's press secretary, Dmitry Peskov, told the BBC that the report was correct: "this was absolutely a plot to kill the prime minister." The attack was to happen after next Sunday's presidential vote, the report said. Mr Putin is expected to win the election and get a third term as president. The BBC's Daniel Sandford in Moscow said the two men were both shown on Russian TV, one being interrogated and the other giving an interview. Continue reading the main story Analysis Daniel Sandford BBC News, Moscow The Ukrainian security services have told the BBC that they did arrest some people in January after an apartment explosion. But when we asked them if it was part of a plot to assassinate Mr Putin, spokeswoman Maryna Ostapenko said she did not know what to say. She would not go on the record to confirm that this was part of a plot to kill Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. So it goes back only to the very detailed Russian Channel One report which even interviewed one of the suspects. But at this stage the Ukrainian authorities do not confirm that these men are being held in any way in connection with an assassination plot. In the footage, both admit plotting to attack Mr Putin. One, identified by Ria Novosti as Ilya Pyanzin, said he had been hired by Chechen militant leader Doku Umarov to carry out the killing and also by Ruslan Madayev, the suspect who died in the Odessa explosion. The other suspect was named by Channel One as Adam Osmayev, said to have been on an international wanted list since 2007. The plotters were planning to plant mines on Kutuzovsky Avenue in Moscow, used by Mr Putin on a daily basis, the report said. Russian media report that Mr Pyanzin was arrested in the Odessa flat where the explosion happened. He told police that he and Madayev had flown to Ukraine from the United Arab Emirates via Turkey, with precise instructions from representatives of Doku Umarov. According to the reports, details of the plot were found on laptops in the flat, along with a video showing Mr Putin's motorcade. Mr Osmayev was reported to be the local fixer in Odessa and the instructor for the plotters, and had lived for a long time in London.

You can buy a Kalashnikov for a hundred euros on the back streets of Athens

"You can buy a Kalashnikov for a hundred euros on the back streets of Athens and people are doing so to guard their property," Mr Chrysanthopoulos told me from his home outside the capital yesterday. Thanks to the disastrous euro, his country is sliding remorselessly towards bankruptcy and disintegration. Modern Greece is an economic corpse, kept on life support by Germany and France, who fear the euro will be destroyed if they admit the truth. Last week's £110BILLION bailout was not aimed at rescuing the Greek people. It was to save the euro from total collapse. Yet the country seems doomed to another historic crisis as disastrous as the German occupation, a bloody civil war and years of military rule. "What we risk today is anarchy, the collapse of society and a breakdown in law and order," says Mr Chrysanthopoulos, 66. "We have more than 20,000 homeless families in Athens alone. "There are food lines for the hungry, which have not been seen since the Second World War. "Penniless pensioners are begging in the streets. People are bartering for essentials, living hand to mouth." Sooner or later they will be thrown out of the euro — the greatest peacetime catastrophe in the history of Europe. Hatred seethes against Germany, which in 1942 reduced Greece to starvation and slavery during its brutal Nazi occupation. A Greek radio station has just been fined for describing German Chancellor Angela Merkel as a "dirty Berlin slut". Nazi resistance fighter Manolis Glezos, now 89, says Germany plundered Greece for the equivalent of £138billion in the 1940s. "They grab us by the throat for the debt — let's do the same to them for the reparations," he says. Germans hit back, branding the Greeks "idle swindlers". They claim nobody pays tax because bandit politicians steal their money. The insults are fuelling precisely the nationalistic antagonism that sowed the seeds for two world wars — and which the EU was created to eliminate forever. Germany and France, who must accept the blame for allowing Greece into the euro at all, are terrified of contagion. So they are forcing this humiliated nation to slash pay and pensions to starvation levels. Last week's costly bailout has bought time — and the fantasy of an orderly default. Mr Chrysanthopoulos feels betrayed by the euro currency con. But he is not alone. Charles Kennedy, the Lib Dems' fervently pro-euro ex-leader, last week admitted: "I was wrong." His successor, the made-in-Brussels Nick Clegg, admits he would no longer join the euro. Two former editors of the fanatically pro-Brussels Financial Times confess they backed the wrong horse. Ex-EU Commissioner Frits Bolkestein admits: "The euro has failed." We will never hear honesty like that from Ken Clarke and Michael Heseltine, who lost the Tories three elections by stoking the row over Europe. But unlike Mr Chrysanthopoulos, they will probably die comfortably in their beds without witnessing the hideous consequences. Greek instability risks spilling over to fragile ex-fascist regimes Spain and Portugal. If it does, we can only hope it doesn't bring chaos to Italy — then to France. People will take only so much belt-tightening austerity. More revolutions have been triggered by oppressive taxes than anything else. The drive for ever closer political and economic union and the end of national rivalry was aimed at ending war in Europe. We must pray the arrogant fools who launched this undemocratic juggernaut do not achieve precisely the opposite.

TONY Adams has been compared to TV gangster Tony Soprano, and his gang are rumoured to be responsible for 25 murders.

 

 When he appeared in court last November, he gave his address as the cottage in Barnet. Land Registry documents confirm the property is owned by Cole, 31. There is no suggestion of any wrongdoing by the player, who has a multi-million-pound property investment portfolio. Adams, once said to be worth £150 million, headed a notorious North London crime gang nicknamed the A-team or Adams Family. He bought a yacht and sent his daughter to a private school. But in 2007 he was jailed for seven years — for money laundering his own wages — after an undercover operation by MI5 and the Serious Organised Crime Agency. Just like Chicago mobster Al Capone, he had escaped justice for years before finally being nailed for tax evasion. Officers spent 21 months and £10 million eavesdropping on Adams. During the probe his accountant was killed in a drive-by shooting, and a hitman was reputedly buried in the foundations of London's O2 Arena. A search of Adams' £1million former home uncovered £700,000 worth of stolen goods. Adams was released in 2010 after serving half his sentence. But last year he was sent back to do the rest of his time after he defied a financial reporting order and failed to declare luxury purchases including a £7,500 facelift. His earliest release date is now December 2013.

Britain’s crime hot spots revealed

 

The findings, posted on an interactive website, will allow the public to discover how many cases of robbery, vehicle crime and other offences take place in their area – and to rank areas from best to worst. Oxford Street in London's West End was revealed to be the shopping destination surrounded by the most crime. During 2011, there were 656 vehicle crimes, 915 robberies and 2,597 violent crimes within three quarters of a mile of the Oxford Street branch of John Lewis. There were also 5,039 reported instances of anti-social behaviour – equivalent to 14 a day. High streets and shopping centres in Bristol, Brighton and Derby also featured in a top 10 of crime hot spots, according to the website ukcrimestats.com.  A spokesman for the New West End Company, which represents Oxford Street traders, said: "We need to remember that this is an area with extremely high footfall, with over 200 million visits a year. This data needs to be seen in context. "Oxford Street has seen an overall reduction in crime over the past 10 years, with our lobby for harder sentencing on crime having a positive impact." The Croydon postcode CR0 was found to have the highest number of crimes reported last year, with 5,000 more than any other postal area. The south London suburb was the scene of some of the most severe rioting last summer. During 2011, 2,081 burglaries, 3,258 violent crimes and 8,316 instances of anti-social behaviour were reported in the CR0 postcode district. Dan Lewis, the chief executive of the Economic Policy Centre, the Right-of-centre think-tank which carried out the analysis and created the website, said: "On the one hand it is good that the Government is now publishing such detailed crime statistics, but the official police website does not allow the public to put these figures in context. "It has taken us, as a private sector provider, to harness this data in a way which is much more helpful to consumers. "It's not just important that the Government becomes more transparent, it's vital that what information is published is actually useful to the public." Seven of the 10 schools with the highest number of crimes within three quarters of a mile of their gates were in London. Two were in Portsmouth and one in Bristol. Almost 8,250 acts of anti-social behaviour, robbery, vehicle crime or violent crime were reported within three quarters of a mile of Charing Cross railway station in London last year, 1,700 more than Newcastle's central railway station, which had the second-highest crime rate. There were also high numbers of crimes around stations in Birmingham, Blackpool and east London. Anyone craving a life free from crime should consider a move to Wales. Nearly a third of the 50 postcode districts with the lowest number of reported crimes last year were in Wales, with several on the island of Anglesey. Official figures suggest that the Welsh village of Garndolbenmaen, on the edge of the Snowdonia national park, had one reported crime last year – a single case of anti-social behaviour. Steve Churchman, who runs the village shop serving the 300 residents, said the area was "like Beirut" when he moved there from London eight years ago. "We had a real problem with anti-social behaviour back then," said Mr Churchman. "There was this gang of kids. We had a phonebox vandalised, a bus stop graffitied and a few break-ins." Mr Churchman said the falling crime figures in the village were a result of pushing for convictions on those residents who stepped out of line and having police office and community support officers out on the beat. The children who caused the trouble had grown up and were now "nice lads", he added.

Gangster’s moll rents a house from Ashley Cole

 

Gangster's moll Ruth Adams, 51, pays about £1,500 a month to rent the Chelsea defender's three-bedroom cottage. Her husband Terry, 57 — a fan of Chelsea's London rivals Arsenal — also lived at the property for 17 months between prison sentences. He moved in to the £600,000 home in Barnet, North London, after his release from a seven-year stretch for money laundering, before being banged up again last year. Neighbours often see loyal Ruth — who married Adams 29 years ago — driving a top-of-the-range Lexus. One local said: "It's funny that it's Cole's house because Terry is an avid Arsenal fan and was once linked to buying the Gunners. "Ruth is very polite but won't engage you in conversation for long. She's still close to her husband."

One of Italy’s most notorious gangsters, Enrico De Pedis, is buried in a Roman Catholic basilica near Piazza Navona.

 

 Why the Vatican allowed a top mobster to be buried in Sant’Apollinare has been a source of furious speculation since 1997, when the resting place of De Pedis — gunned down seven years earlier — was first revealed. The answer taking shape looks like something bestselling author Dan (The Da Vinci Code) Brown would have had trouble dreaming up. The story goes back to the 1980s and includes money-laundering allegations against the Vatican’s bank, the attempted assassination of the late Pope John Paul II, the murder-suicide of two Vatican Swiss guards, and the widely publicized kidnapping of a teenage girl. The shocking tale’s many threads began meshing in the mid 2000s. They were revived this week by the latest in a series of leaks that have rocked the Vatican — leaks observers believe are the result of an internal power struggle, one that has fuelled speculation about jostling to succeed Pope Benedict XVI. This time, a January letter from Rev. Federico Lombardi, the Vatican’s spokesperson, has made its way to the media. The three-page letter, revealed by a program on the state-owned Rai Tre channel, focuses on the kidnapping of Emanuela Orlandi, a 15-year-old Vatican City resident who disappeared in 1983. She was last seen leaving her regular piano lesson outside the Vatican City walls. Her father was a clerk in the office organizing papal events. Last summer, a former member of De Pedis’ infamous Magliana gang, Antonio Mancini, was interviewed by La Stampa newspaper after spending years in jail. He said De Pedis had loaned the Vatican a huge sum of money. There is speculation it was to help fund Solidarity, the 1980 democracy movement in Poland, John Paul’s homeland. Mancini said Orlandi was kidnapped to pressure the Vatican when some of the money wasn’t returned. De Pedis’ girlfriend had said similar things a few years earlier. At the time, the Vatican was the main shareholder of Banco Ambrosiano, which had gone bankrupt. Roberto Calvi, Ambrosiano’s head, was found hanging from a London bridge in 1982. Mancini said part of De Pedis’ peace deal with the Vatican included burial in Sant’Apollinare, a church built in the 18th century and now run by the ultra-conservative Opus Dei movement. Church officials say De Pedis was buried there because he helped the poor. They’ve had less to say about the ruthless, Rome-based gang he headed. In January, Orlandi’s brother led a demonstration in front of the church, demanding the tomb be opened. Since an anonymous call to Rai Tre in 2005, there has been talk of it perhaps containing evidence of Orlandi’s disappearance. The Orlandi family wants to know if the body in the tomb is indeed De Pedis’. In his letter, Lombardi alludes to the rumours, according to excerpts released by Rai Tre. He also notes the cardinal in charge of the basilica has said he’s willing to have the tomb opened. “I don’t understand why this hasn’t happened yet,” Lombardi writes. Lombardi then discusses the Vatican’s refusal to help Italian police on some aspects of the Orlandi kidnap investigation. He wonders “if the non-collaboration with the Italian authorities . . . was a normal and justifiable affirmation of Vatican sovereignty, or if in fact circumstances were withheld that might have helped clear something up.” Reached by the Star, Lombardi laughed when asked about the letter. “You don’t have anything more important to write about?” he said. “I’ve had enough of this story. It seems like such a secondary thing to me that I have no comment to make.” Earlier leaks of Vatican documents included recent private letters to the Pope complaining of corruption and cronyism in the awarding of contracts. Other documents emerged reigniting allegations of money-laundering at the Vatican’s bank. Finally, a bizarre confidential letter from a Vatican official described a presumed plot to kill Benedict and discussed his potential successor. The day before Lombardi’s letter became public, another TV channel broadcast an interview with a man claiming to be a Vatican employee who leaked one of the documents. He looked like the Mafia turncoats Italians are used to seeing on TV — much of his face was covered by sunglasses, hat and scarf, and his voice was disguised. He complained about the failure to investigate the Orlandi kidnapping and alluded to the death of two Vatican Swiss guards in 1998. In that incident, Alois Estermann, commander of the Pontifical Swiss Guard at the Vatican, was killed, along with his wife, by Cedric Tornay, a young Swiss guard who then shot himself. That murder-suicide has spawned books filled with theories as to what really happened. One widely quoted scenario comes from Ferdinando Imposimato, a former magistrate who officially investigated some of the biggest criminal cases in Italy, including the shooting of Pope John Paul in 1981, and cases involving De Pedis’ gang. Imposimato is convinced secret police services in the former Soviet Union were involved in the plot to kill John Paul. He says Estermann was a spy for East Germany’s Stasi secret police, and was involved in Orlandi’s kidnapping. She was targeted because her father was the first to suspect Estermann as a spy, and told Imposimato so in 1981. Estermann was eventually killed, Imposimato says, because he knew too much. Imposimato is now working with the Orlandi family. Both are pushing for a full investigation — and the opening of De Pedis’ tomb.

Russia: a gangster state

 

Vladimir Putin came to power nearly 13 years ago to give Russia some direction after the increasingly ramshackle rule of Boris Yeltsin. Next Sunday, he stands for re-election as president after a four-year interlude in which his puppet, Dmitry Medvedev, has kept the seat warm for him. He is certain to be elected for a further six years, a constitutional amendment to extend the term having been passed in 2008. What can be expected from his return to the highest post in the land? The 1990s saw an exciting surge in the liberalisation begun under Mikhail Gorbachev. But its downside was the seizure of the commanding heights of the economy by the oligarchs. Under Mr Putin, they have been bridled or persuaded to flee the country. For those tempted to step out of line, the fate of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the former oil magnate who has served nearly a decade in jail, serves as a warning. Into their shoes have stepped the siloviki, or men of power – bureaucrats, like their master, who have wasted or pillaged money that should have gone into modernising the economy. The turning-point came with the grossly rigged parliamentary elections last December, which drove tens of thousands of demonstrators on to the streets. As Masha Gessen said in her interview with the Telegraph Magazine on Saturday: “It’s humiliating to vote and have your vote stolen in that blatant manner... It’s saying: you don’t exist.” The most that can be hoped next Sunday is that the poll will be cleaner. But, given the unimpressive opposition, the best form of protest is abstention. Locked so firmly into the corrupt system he has created, Mr Putin is unlikely to have the courage to embrace radical reform. His long period in power is a reminder that a state without constraints becomes a gangster.

New Lockerbie bomber evidence' may clear Abdelbaset al Megrahi

'Lockerbie: Case Closed accessed the ‘secret contents’ of the legal review into the case of Abdelbaset al Megrahi. Programme makers pored over the Scottish Criminal Case Review Commission’s investigation to find fresh evidence – including the ‘dramatic results’ of new scientific tests that go against the original evidence. The documentary says the previously unseen information was not known to the commission and ‘comprehensively undermines’ the case against Megrahi. A total of 270 people were killed when Pan Am Flight 103 exploded over Lockerbie, south-west Scotland, on December 21, 1988. Megrahi is the only man to have been convicted of the atrocity – Europe’s worst terrorist attack. The Libyan was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2001 but returned home in August 2009  after he was diagnosed with terminal cancer. At the time, doctors estimated Megrahi had three months to live but he is still alive. Earlier this month, members of the Justice For Megrahi group accused the government of an ‘orchestrated desire’ to keep details of the case under wraps. They also said politicians ‘either have to be dishonest or ignorant’ to allow the secrecy to continue. The programme will be shown at 8pm on Al Jazeera English. It includes an interview with Megrahi filmed in December. John Ashton, who was part of Megrahi’s defence team, said: ‘The wrong man was convicted.’

Man claims he was under duress from gangland figure to steal

 

A jury has been told that a man accused of attempting to steal €1m from a cash-in-transit van over four years ago was acting under duress from gangland figure Eamonn Dunne. Joseph Warren (aged 30) of Belclare Crescent, Ballymun, has pleaded not guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to conspiring to steal cash from Chubb Ireland at Tesco supermarket on the Shackleton Road in Celbridge on November 2, 2007. Detective Inspector Eugene Lynch headed a surveillance operation that observed five other men, Eamonn Dunne, brothers Alan and Wayne Bradley, Jeffrey Morrow and Michael Ryan travelling in four different vehicles behind the cash-in-transit van as it drove from the Chubb Security base in Birch Avenue, Stillorgan to the Tesco Shopping Centre. All six men were arrested that morning after Mr Warren and Mr Ryan were seen approaching the Chubb van as it was parked in Tesco Shopping Centre. Mr Warren was carrying a consaw while Mr Ryan tried unsuccessfully to open the doors of the van with a set of keys he brought with him. Det. Insp. Lynch told Alan Toal BL, defending, that he “could not say” when it was suggested to him that Mr Dunne was “public enemy number one” who was “supposed to have killed 17 people”. He accepted a further suggestion from counsel that according to media sources, Mr Dunne was “a gangland figure of calibre” but said he had no evidence of that. “He was an integral part of an organised criminal gang responsible for firearms, cash-in-transit robberies and drugs,” Det Insp Lynch said but again replied there was no evidence that he “would kill for the hell of it” as suggested by counsel. “He was massively involved in the assassination of Baiba Saulite and no one could touch him for the amount of murders he carried out as leader of this gang,” Mr Toal said referring to what he termed “general held views in the media”. Det. Insp. Lynch again repeated that he could not answer that. He told Mr Toal that he had never been made aware that Mr Warren claimed he was acting under duress from Mr Dunne that day. The detective said his only role in the investigation was to lead the surveillance operation. He said he was also unaware that Mr Warren had been the subject of a threat to his life in January or February 2008 and he had been formally warned by the gardai of this threat. Darryl Caffrey (aged 37), the Chubb Security worker who was a passenger in the cash-in-transit van that day, told Deirdre Murphy SC, prosecuting, that he provided inside information to two men, knowing that it would be used to organise a robbery. He said he gave the two men, previously unknown to him but whom he referred to as “Dog” and “Liverpool man”, information about the company, including the registration details of the unmarked delivery vehicles and how the safes were accessed. He said he handed this information over during a number of meetings in 2006 and 2007. Mr Caffrey told the jury he had provided “Dog” with the registration details of four jeeps used by Chubb at the time after the man told him if he had that information he could get keys cut for the vehicles. He informed “Dog” that Chubb headquarters had to be contacted by phone to open the safe and access cash before it was dropped off at an ATM. He also told him that Chubb workers wore casual clothes, drove unmarked jeeps and carried the money to the ATMs in sports bags. Mr Caffrey said he had also been instructed to propose a suitable route which he felt would be an easy target for a gang to rob. He said he provided “Dog” with a map on October 30, 2007, with a route marked in black pen, of a specific run he regularly did in Ballymore Eustace, Wicklow. Mr Caffrey said he was “given the impression” that it would be the Ballymore Eustace run that the gang would target. He said “Dog” told him the gang would put up “road closed” and “diversion” signs along the route that would eventually lead to a building site. His jeep would then be surrounded by armed men, he and his colleague would be tied up, dumped off and their phones taken off them before the robbers would drive away in the van. He said “Dog” told him he would get a phone call the day before “the job was going down” to give him time to get rid of his mobile phone and any links between them. He never got the call. Mr Caffrey agreed with Mr Toal that he did not know any of the men that were arrested at the Tesco Supermarket that day. He confirmed that he did not know Mr Warren. The trial continues before Judge Tony Hunt and a jury of seven women and four men.

500,000 passengers allowed to enter Britain on Eurostar without border checks

 

Home Secretary Theresa May told the House of Commons that border security checks at ports had been suspended regularly and applied inconsistently for more than four years. Mrs May also said students from low risk countries had been allowed to enter Britain even when they did not have visa clearance. She said the practice was unlawful and discriminatory. John Vine, the independent chief inspector of the UK Border Agency, launched an investigation after it emerged the UK's border checks were being relaxed at ports and airports without ministerial approval. His report found that border staff went "over and beyond" any scheme approved by ministers. It also discovered that the biometric chip reading facility had been deactivated on 14,812 occasions at a number of ports between January and June 2011.

Teenagers jailed for south London murder

 

teenager accused of two gang murders at the age of 16 has been sentenced to a life term. Jordan Williams was told on Thursday he would serve a minimum of 18 years for murdering Daniel Graham, 18, who was stabbed 24 times in 45 seconds. Williams, who turned 17 last month, was part of a gang which attacked Graham as he stepped off a bus on 29 January last year. Williams was later arrested for the murder of promising athlete Sylvester Akapalara, 17, who was shot dead in Peckham, south London, a month before. But a jury cleared him of that killing, which resulted in Sodiq Adeojo, 20, being jailed for a minimum of 30 years, also on Thursday. Williams, Colin Aghatise, 16, and Lennie John, 24, all from Peckham, were found guilty on Wednesday at the Old Bailey of murdering Graham. Williams and Aghatise were ordered to be detained during Her Majesty's pleasure, with Aghatise given a minimum term of 15 years. John, 24, was jailed for life with a minimum term of 22 years. They were said to be members of the GMG gang, which is said to stand for various names, including Guns, Murder and Girls. Graham was attacked with knives and a broken bottle in front of horrified passengers as he got off a bus in East Dulwich, south London. He was helped back on to the 176 bus by passengers, but died from his injuries. Judge Timothy Pontius told the defendants: "Daniel Graham was murdered in circumstances of horrific and merciless brutality. "He was killed in an attack which, for all its brevity, was intensely ferocious. "At least four, and probably more, played an active part. They were acting like a pack of hyenas." Williams had taken one of two lock-knives he kept at home to a party where violence was likely to arise at the meeting of two opposing groups. Williams and Aghatise were both 15 at the time. All three defendants were from decent homes and had good academic achievements. But on the night "they all too readily followed the pack instinct". The court was told that Williams was a server at his local church and had been elected chairman of his school council. And John's mother was said to work at a central London magistrates court. Duncan Penny, prosecuting, said trouble flared at an under-18s event at Dulwich Hamlet football club and a gun was fired, hitting a youth in the leg. He said a row broke out between Graham's friends and another group of youths. Penny said: "Daniel's group was punched and knives were produced and it appears a firearm was discharged and at least one shot was fired. "Daniel's group fled the party and their escape route took them past East Dulwich railway station. They were pursued by members of the defendants' group." Graham had tried to take refuge on the double-decker bus before changing his mind and jumping off. But he was attacked in front of passengers by a large group of youths who subjected him to "a volley of punches, kicks and stamps" to the body and head. Penny said CCTV on the bus showed the time of the attack as 12.09am. "It lasted in the region of 45 seconds," he added. "In that short period he had received 24 stab wounds, having been descended upon by a group of murderers." Passengers made the driver drive off while Graham, who was covered in blood, was laid across two seats by a nurse and her sister. After seeing some of the attackers at the next stop, the bus drove on until police and an ambulance reached it in Lordship Lane. Williams and John were identified by a youth who had viewed them rapping on YouTube. Aghatise's DNA was found on a broken bottle with Graham's blood on it. Graham had gained seven GCSEs and was doing business studies. He did voluntary work for the NSPCC children's charity in his spare time. His mother, Stephanie, said in an impact statement to the court that she had been devastated by his death. She added: "Everyone loved Daniel. He was instantly likeable to all who knew him."

Hells Angel charged over Sydney ice labs

 

Police say they have charged a senior member of the Hells Angels bikie gang over the discovery of two illegal drug laboratories earlier this week. The 33-year-old man was arrested with an alleged Hells Angels associate on Wednesday afternoon at an apartment block at North Ryde, in Sydney's north-west. Police say they found drugs and a loaded handgun at the unit. The apartment was raided by officers investigating the discovery of two methylamphetamine labs on Tuesday in the city's south-west at Catherine Field and Narellan. Specialists from the Drug Squad's Chemical Operations Team are still working to dismantle the equipment and chemicals used in the manufacture of ice. Both men arrested yesterday have been charged with drug manufacture and other drug offences, while one has been charged over the pistol. Two other men who were arrested at the lab sites on Tuesday, aged 36 and 41, remain before the courts.

1993 £1m Felixstowe heist: Suspect Eddie Maher was 'bankrupt'

 

A man wanted in Suffolk over a £1m heist in 1993 had been declared bankrupt with debts of more than $30,000 (£19,000), American court papers have revealed. Eddie Maher, 56, originally from Essex, was arrested on 8 February after being found in Ozark, Missouri. Mr Maher had $85 (£54) in his bank account when he filed for bankruptcy in 2010. He is due in court in America on 22 February for a preliminary hearing. Anonymous tip-off Mr Maher disappeared in 1993 after a security van packed with cash was taken from outside a bank in Felixstowe. The former security guard, who had been living in South Woodham Ferrers when he disappeared, has been charged with immigration and firearm offences in the United States. Bankruptcy papers filed in November 2010 revealed Mr Maher had got into financial difficulties. They showed that he had $17,061 (£10,881) of loan and credit card debts. He also owed $1,759 (£1,121) in hospital and doctors bills and $3,148 (£2,007) in unpaid tax. The security van disappeared after stopping outside Lloyds Bank, in Felixstowe, in January 1993 Assets listed on the court papers included a rifle and digital camera valued at $170 (£108) and a 1997 Mercury Mountaineer car valued at $1,700 (£1,083). He was working as a broadband technician and earned $1,896 (£1,208) a month. His monthly expenses totalled more than $1,807 (£1,151). 'Financial management' course The papers also revealed Mr Maher and his family regularly moved home. Between May 2007 and September 2010, they lived in three addresses within the Ozark area. After being declared bankrupt in November 2010, Mr Maher was forced to complete a course in "personal financial management" on 13 December 2010. Police in America arrested Mr Maher after receiving an anonymous tip-off that he was a "fugitive wanted in England". Papers from a US District Court, in Springfield, Missouri, revealed Mr Maher cannot afford a lawyer. Suffolk police is looking to start extradition proceedings to bring Mr Maher back to the UK.

The lucrative illicit market in “B.C. Bud”

 

The lucrative illicit market in “B.C. Bud” — by far the province’s largest agricultural crop — is controlled largely by Asian and biker gangs.  Grow operations have led to gang warfare in what were once peaceful Fraser Valley farm towns. “The case demonstrating the failure and harms of marijuana prohibition is airtight,” wrote the former B.C. AG’s,  “massive profits for organized crime, widespread gang violence, easy access to illegal cannabis for our youth, reduced community safety and significant and escalating costs to taxpayers.” Four former Vancouver mayors signed a similar letter recently, which was endorsed by the city’s current Mayor Gregor Robertson. Prominent law enforcement figures, including Mandigo and ex-U.S. Attorney John McKay, are backing I-502 on this side of the border.

Serbian fugitive Dobrosav Gavric, Russian Igor Russol and Moroccan Houssain Ait Taleb have made appearances in the Cape Town Magistrate's Court.

 

 They have all been branded by police as underworld figures with links to organised crime. Yesterday, community safety MEC Dan Plato said he was concerned about these developments. "I am worried about the fact that so many high-profile underworld figures are involved in Cape Town. I am worried about the number of foreign nationals involved in organised crime in Cape Town. "My question is: why are all these foreign people heading for Cape Town, doing their business in Cape Town and finding Cape Town so cosy and appropriate?" Plato said new names of underworld figures were daily being added to the list "known to us". The latest high-profile case involves local businessmen Mark Lifman and André Naudé, who both allegedly ran Specialised Protection Services, providing security to Cape Town nightclubs, without the necessary permits. On Friday, Naudé, the company's CEO, was released on R1000 bail after handing himself over to police. A warrant of arrest has been issued against Lifman, who is in China on business. Charges against 13 of the company's bouncers, including Taleb, were dropped last week. Yesterday, Russol appeared in court accused of extorting R600000 and a Porsche Cayenne from businesses in and around Cape Town. His bail application was postponed to tomorrow. Next month, Gavric is set to appear in court on two cases. He is accused of fraudulently entering South Africa in 2007 and is also facing extradition to Serbia, where he has to serve a 35-year jail sentence for three murders. The Serb was driving Cyril Beeka when Beeka was killed in a drive-by shooting last year. Beeka, too, has been branded an underworld figure. He is also said to have had links to SA Secret Service boss Moe Shaik. Last week, Western Cape police commissioner Lieutenant-General Arno Lamoer told parliament that drugs with a street value of R12-billion had been confiscated in the province since April , and that this was just the tip of the iceberg. Plato said that though police had managed to prevent drugs from finding their way into the provinces via the roads, the ports were "wide open". He said: "We heard through the grapevine that [some] underground figures are also responsible for drug trafficking. "We're dealing with high-profile, professional and sophisticated gang and drug bosses and we need people to outplay them. I do not believe the SAPS in its current format is in that position," he said. Plato said this was a clear indication that specialised police units should be reinstated. Plato said he had met Lifman and businessman Jerome Booysen, who have both been linked to the underworld. Booysen has been fingered in court as a possible suspect in the Beeka murder. He has also been linked to Specialised Protection Services and suspected of being a leader of the Sexy Boys gang. Both men, Plato said, wanted to clear their names and insisted they were not involved in crime. He admitted that he had been criticised for meeting the two, but said it was the right thing to do. "Many are saying: 'Don't speak to gangsters.' My take is, if we are not going to start speaking to these people, who is going to talk to them? Who is going to change their mindsets? "Booysen is the president of the Belhar Rugby Football Club. He deals with vulnerable youngsters. It was appropriate for me to face him and challenge him. But he said: 'I'm not giving them drugs'." Plato said Lifman had denied being linked to the murder of Yuri "the Russian" Ulianitski. Ulianitski was killed in a late-night ambush that also claimed the life of his four-year-old daughter, Yulia, in May 2007. After meeting Plato, Lifman left the country. Lawyer William Booth confirmed a warrant of arrest had been issued against him. Hawks spokesman McIntosh Polela said the elite unit had embarked on a "crackdown on the security industry in Cape Town".

'FAT' FREDDIE'S GIRL IN SUICIDE VIGIL

Hood's lover desperate to raise awareness over spate of young victims

 

 

FUNDRAISER: Vicky Dempsey poses with picture of her brother 

THIS is gangster 'Fat' Freddie Thompson's girlfriend posing for photographs at a fundraiser for suicide awareness last week. Vicky Dempsey (31) has been dating 'Fat' Freddie since they were teenagers and has stayed loyal to the notorious criminal through thick and thin. 

 

The pretty blonde - who has an 11-year-old son with Thompson - recently turned up in court for her partner's extradition hearing. But last weekend, the mum-of-one was part of a group who camped out near the Guinness Hopstore in Dublin to raise cash for suicide charity. The fundraiser was arranged after a "spate" of suicides among young people in the south-inner city.

Violent

In August 2008,Vicky's brother, Les, tragically took his own life just days before his 26th birthday at a house in Clondalkin, west Dublin. Les was an associate of 'Fat' Freddie's but was not regarded as a serious or violent criminal by cops. A source told the Sunday World that her brother's death has had a "terrible impact" on Vicky.

"They were very close and she took it very hard. Les was a very well liked guy, he wasn't a hard man or anything like that.

"She does a lot for suicide awareness charities since and arranges a fundraising ball in his honour every year."

Vicky's other brother, Karl, is one of Thompson's key associates. In 2000, Karl was jailed for five years after he was caught with
€63,000 of heroin. The Criminal Assets Bureau (CAB) also ordered him to cough up €424,987 following an investigation in 2002. Writing on the tribute website, Vicky recently posted a heartbreaking tribute to Les.

She wrote: "I've one son Brad and a partner Frederick.

"Les is Brad's godfather and is sorely missed by every single one of us. life is just never gonna be the same without my lovely brother."

Gardai believe 'Fat' Freddie is the leader of one of the two gangs locked in the bloody Crumlin/Drimnagh feud. Last year, he was extradited following a request by Spanish police investigating godfather Christy Kinahan's drugs ring. Thompson is suspected of sourcing shipments of drugs and weapons from Kinahan and arranging for them to be smuggled into Ireland.

Last weekend, Vicky was also joined by the family and friends of another well-known southinner city criminal at the 24-hour camp out.
Last March, Bernard 'Gack' Lee took his own life just days before he was due to be sentenced for heroin dealing. In March 2008, Lee (28) had sold a large quantity of heroin to undercover gardai who were monitoring his activities. Gardai believe Lee was a member of a crime gang headed up by crime figure Greg Lynch.

Last Saturday his close friend, Ciara Comerford, held a photograph of 'Gack' as she posed for pictures. Fat Freddie is currently relaxing in Marbella after being released from custody, having only been quizzed for a matter of hours following his extradition.

Bail

Despite the seriousness of the charges, the maximum sentence that the mobster is facing is just nine years in prison. The Spanish authorities have not provided any direct evidence to back-up assertions that Thompson is a key member of the Kinahan gang.
They claim that he is a "trusted right-hand man" of Kinihan.

Rapper and Bloods Gang leader indicted for murders and racketeering

Up-and-coming Rap music performer Ronald Herron, also known as “Ra Diggs,” “Ra Digga” and “Raheem,” was charged in federal court on Monday in Brooklyn, New York, with multiple crimes, including three murders related to his leadership of a "set" of the Bloods Street Gang.    A federal indictment charges the 30-year old suspect with a whopping 23 counts, including murder, racketeering, murder in-aid-of racketeering, murder conspiracy, attempted murder, robbery, illegal use and possession of firearms, and narcotics trafficking

. Ronald Herron, who calls himself "The Big Homie," dabbled as a self-styled rapper under the name "Ra Diggs" until he was busted in 2010

 

The leader of all Bloods street gangs in New York City was hit with a sweeping new indictment today charging him with murder and several murder conspiracy charges. Ronald Herron, who calls himself "The Big Homie," dabbled as a self-styled rapper under the name "Ra Diggs" until he was busted in 2010 after a four-year FBI-NYPD probe involving more than 65 undercover drug purchases. Brooklyn federal prosecutors say he unleashed a reign of terror over several city housing projects, threatened the police, vowed online to "turn the pigs kids into" orphans, and issued warnings against snitching. Today prosecutors hit him with an expanded indictment that includes several murder, murder conspiracy, and attempted murder charges related to his alleged drug business, and Herron possibly could face the death penalty, if convicted. He was already facing cocaine and heroin-trafficking charges - as well as weapons offenses - that stemmed from his 2010 arrest. The feds say he’s carried sub-machine guns, strapped on bulletproof vests, and authorities believe he's responsible for ordering murders and intimidating witnesses that doomed one homicide prosecution in New York state court. Last summer - while fighting the earlier federal drug charges - Herron claimed that he was not bound by American law. "I am not a party to ... the Constitution of the United States of America," Herron wrote Brooklyn federal Judge Nicholas Garaufis. Arguing that he was a “sovereign inhabitant” not subject to federal jurisdiction, he also made a contradictory argument that he’s governed only by the US Constitution and no other laws passed since the Founding Fathers penned that original document. Herron’s philosophy includes concepts espoused by certain grass-roots political movements in the western US, which Constitutional law experts say was a “fascinating” development. “Surprisingly, some of the things he says here are popular with white supremacist groups,” Larry Solum, a professor at Georgetown University’s law school, told The Post last summer. Herron’s challenge also uses “similar ideas to those associated with extremist and fringe movements,” such as the Patriot movement and militia groups," said Solum, a constitutional scholar. But the judge was not persuaded and rejected Herron's motion suggesting that his earlier drug trafficking indictment be dismissed.

Sun newspaper 'will continue' says Rupert Murdoch

 

News International owner Rupert Murdoch has said he is committed to publishing the Sun newspaper, following the arrest of five of its employees. They were among eight people arrested over alleged corrupt payments to police and public servants. A Surrey Police officer, a member of the armed forces and a Ministry of Defence employee were also arrested. Sun editor Dominic Mohan said he was "shocked" by the arrests but pledged to continue to lead the paper. The BBC understands picture editor John Edwards, chief reporter John Kay, chief foreign correspondent Nick Parker, reporter John Sturgis and associate editor Geoff Webster were arrested as part of the Operation Elveden probe into payments to police. The arrests marked a widening out of the operation to include the investigation of evidence in relation to suspected corruption involving public officials who are not police officers. News International chief executive Tom Mockridge issued a memo to Sun staff, which said: "The Sun has a proud history of delivering ground-breaking journalism.

Rupert Murdoch flies into London as five Sun journalists arrested over alleged corruption

 

The journalists, including The Sun’s deputy editor, were detained at dawn as part of the Metropolitan police investigation into corruption of public officials. A serving officer with the Armed forces and his wife, who is a Ministry of Defence official, were also arrested at an address in Wiltshire. It is the first time the Armed Forces have been drawn into the widespread police inquiry launched following phone hacking revelations at The Sun’s now defunct sister title The News of the World. One source suggested Mr Murdoch’s decision to come to the UK was in order to reassure news international staff about the tycoon’s support for a newspaper that he is said to cherish above all others in his media empire. The latest arrests follow the detention just a fortnight ago of four senior Sun executives, for allegedly bribing police. In total, ten Sun journalists have been arrested over alleged corruption.

drug gang threatened to kill an officer per day

 

2,000 police are hunkering down in hotels in Mexico's most violent city of Ciudad Juarez after a drug gang threatened to kill an officer per day if their chief refused to resign. Eleven police officers, including four commanders, have already been killed in the city across from El Paso, Texas, since the start of the year. The city's mayor this week ordered police to use several local hotels as temporary barracks to protect themselves from attacks on the way home from work in the city at the heart of Mexican drug violence that has left 50,000 dead in five years. Mayor Hector Murguia said Tuesday that they would stay in hotels for at least three months, with 1.5 million dollars put aside to pay for it. Murguia stood by his police chief, Julian Leyzaola, a controversial former soldier who has also been asked to resign by human rights groups for his alleged heavy-handed policing. "The chances that he (Leyzaola) resigns or that they force him to resign are zero percent," the mayor told journalists. At the entrance to the Rio motel, on Las Torres avenue, several patrols stand guard to protect access to the improvised barracks, as others monitor vehicles passing by. Last week, several banners signed by the "New Cartel of Juarez" appeared around the city of 1.3 million, to announce the killing of a police officer each day as long as Leyzaola stayed in charge of the local police. Some of the messages also accused the police chief of protecting another group, "New Generation," allied to powerful Sinaloa drug cartel of fugitive billionaire Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman. According to the mayor, the threats only showed how concerned the drug gangs were in the face of Leyzaola. Murders fell to less than 2,000 in the city in 2011 -- the year Leyzaola took control -- from 3,100 in 2010. Key leaders of city gangs like the "Aztecas" were also captured. Leyzaola already provoked controversy when he led police in another Mexican border city, Tijuana in northwest Mexico. Authorities lauded him for reducing crime there but organizations such as Amnesty International sought to put him on trial for the alleged torture of prisoners, backed by witness accounts from at least 25 police. Since Leyzaola took over the local police in Ciudad Juarez in March 2011, the Chihuahua state human rights commission has recorded 37 complaints against him, including for abuse of authority and arbitrary detentions. Gustavo de la Rosa, a commission member, told AFP that the police "were told to arrest anyone who looked like a criminal or became nervous on seeing someone in uniform." The business community of Ciudad Juarez -- the base of almost 20 percent of Mexico's manufacturing industry -- support the police chief, however. "It's clear that we have to stop the violence continuing, particularly murders of police. We have to look for means to reinforce the local police," said Alejandro Seade, director of the city's chamber of commerce.

Twenty seconds of shooting, 432 bullets, five dead policemen.

 

 Four of the corpses are sprawled over a shiny new Dodge Ram pickup truck that has been pierced so many times it resembles a cheese grater. The bodies are contorted in the unnatural poses of the dead - arms arched over spines, legs spread out sideways. The bloodied fifth man is lying three metres from the pickup. His eyes are wide open, his right hand stretched upward clasping a 9mm pistol - a death pose that could have been set up for a Hollywood film. It is a balmy evening in Culiacan, Sinaloa, near Mexico's Pacific Coast. The policemen had stopped at a red light when the gunmen attacked, shooting from the side and back, unleashing bullets in split seconds. A customized Kalashnikov can fire 100 rounds in 10 seconds. This is a lightning war. I arrive 10 minutes after the shooting and a crowd of onlookers is already thickening. "That one is a Kalashnikov bullet. That one is from an AR15," says a skinny boy in a baseball cap, pointing at a long silvery shell next to a shorter gold one. Besides them, middle-aged couples, old men and mothers with small children gawk at the morbid display. The local press corps huddles together, checking photos on their viewfinders. They are relaxed, cheery; this is their daily bread. A battered Ford Focus speeds through the crowd. The wife of one of the victims jumps out and starts screaming hysterically. Her swinging arms are held back by her brother, his eyes red with tears. It is only when I see the pained look on their faces that the loss of human life really sinks in. Anyone with half an eye on the news knows that Mexico is in the midst of a drug war, with rival cartels battling for control of a multibillion-dollar trade in the United States. The country is so deep in blood it is getting harder to shock the locals. Even the kidnapping and killing of nine policemen, or a pile of craniums in a town plaza, isn't big news. Only the most sensational atrocities now grab media attention: a grenade attack on revellers celebrating Independence Day; an old silver mine filled with 56 decaying corpses, some of the victims thrown in alive; the kidnapping and shooting of 72 migrants, including a pregnant woman. In the five years of President Felipe Calderon's administration, the government admitted earlier this month, the drug war has claimed 47,500 lives, including 3,000 public servants - policemen, soldiers, judges, mayors and dozens of federal officials. Such a murder rate compares to the most lethal insurgent forces in the world - and is certainly more deadly than Hamas, Eta, or the IRA in its entire three decades of armed struggle. The nature of the attacks is even more intimidating. Mexican gangsters regularly shower police stations with bullets and rocket-propelled grenades; they carry out mass kidnappings of officers and leave their mutilated bodies on public display; they even kidnapped one mayor, tied him up and stoned him to death on a main street. I originally travelled to Latin America with the goal of being a foreign correspondent in exotic climes. The Oliver Stone film Salvador inspired me with its story of reporters dodging bullets in the Central American civil wars. But by the turn of the millennium, the days of military dictators and communist insurgents were no more. We were now, apparently, in a golden age of democracy and free trade. I arrived in Mexico in 2000 the day before Vicente Fox, the former Coca-Cola executive president, was sworn into office, ending 71 years of rule by the Institutional Revolutionary Party. This was a titanic moment in Mexican history, a seismic shift in its political plates, a time of optimism and celebration. The clique who ravaged the country and lined their pockets for most of the 20th century had fallen from power. Ordinary Mexicans looked forward to enjoying the fruit of their hard work along with freedom and human rights. In the first years of the decade, no one saw the crisis ahead. The American media heaped high expectations on the cowboy-boot-wearing Fox as he entertained Kofi Annan and became the first Mexican to address a joint U.S. session of Congress. The first wave of serious cartel warfare began in the autumn of 2004 on the border with Texas and spread across the country. When Calderon took power in 2006 and declared war on these gangs, the violence multiplied overnight. The same system that promised Mexico hope was weak in controlling the most powerful mafias on the continent. The old regime may have been corrupt and authoritarian, but it could manage organized crime by taking down a token few gangsters and taxing the rest. Mexico's drug war is inextricably linked to the democratic transition. Its special-force soldiers became mercenaries for gangsters. Businessmen who used to pay off corrupt officials had to pay off mobsters. Police forces turned on one another - sometimes breaking into shootouts. Following the rise of the Mexican drug cartels has been a surreal - and tragic - journey. I have stumbled up mountains where drugs are born as pretty flowers; dined with lawyers who represent the biggest capos on the planet; and I got drunk with American undercover agents who infiltrate the cartels. I also sped through city streets to see too many bleeding corpses - and heard the words of too many mothers who had lost their sons, and with them their hearts. I have met the assassins, too; men like Jose Antonio from Ciudad Juarez, probably the most murderous city on the planet - just 11 kilometres from the border with the U.S. Jose stands just five foot six and has chocolate coloured skin, earning the nickname "frijol" or bean. He has a mop of black curly hair and bad acne, like many 17-year-olds. But despite his harmless demeanour, he has seen more killings than many soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. Frijol came of age in a war zone. When Mexico's two most powerful gangs, the Zetas and Sinaloa cartels, began fighting in 2004, he was just 12 and joined a street gang in his slum. At 14, he was already involved in armed robberies, drug dealing and regular gun battles with rival gangs. At 16, police nabbed him for possession of a small arsenal of weapons and being an accessory to a drug-related murder. Frijol is typical of thousands of teenagers and young men. His parents hail from a country village, but joined the wave of immigrants that flocked to work in Juarez. They sweated on production lines making Japanese TV sets, American cosmetics and mannequins, for an average of $6 a day. It was a step up from growing corn in their village. But it was also a radical change in their lives. Frijol's parents still celebrated peasant folk days and macho country values. But he grew up in a sprawling city of 1.3 million where he could tune into American TV and see the skyscrapers of El Paso over the river. Contraband goods and guns flooded south and drugs went north. He was in between markets and in between worlds. While Frijol's parents slaved for long days in the factories, he was left for hours at home alone. He soon found company as part of a Juarez street gang or "barrio," the Calaberas, or skulls. "The gang becomes like your home, your family. It is where you find friendship and people to talk to. It is where you feel part of something. And you know the gang will back you up if you are in trouble." These barrios had been in Juarez for decades. New generations filled the ranks while veterans grew out of them. They had always fought rival gangs with sticks, stones, knives and guns. But a radical change occurred when the barrios were swept up into the wider drug cartel war. Frijol learned to use guns in the Calaberas. Arms moved around Juarez streets freely and every barrio had its arsenal. "There was a guy who had been in the barrio a few years before and was now working with the big people," explains Frijol. "He started offering jobs to the youngsters. The first jobs were just as lookouts or guarding tienditas (little drug shops). Then they started paying people to do the big jobs ... to kill." I ask how much the mafia pays to carry out murders. Frijol says one thousand pesos - about $77. The figure seems so ludicrous that I ask other active and former gang members. The price of a human life in Juarez is just $77. To traffic drugs is no huge step to the dark side. All kinds of people move narcotics and don't feel they crossed a red line. But to take a life for what amounts to enough to buy some tacos and a few beers over the week shows a terrifying degradation in society. I ask Frijol what it is like to be in fire fights, to see your friends die and to be an accessory to a murder. He answers unblinking. "Being in shootouts is pure adrenalin. But you see dead bodies and you feel nothing. There is killing every day. Some days, there are 10 executions; other days, there are 30. It is just normal now." I speak to Elizabeth Villegas, a psychologist. The teenagers with whom she works have murdered and raped. I ask, how does this hurt them psychologically? She stares at me as if she has not thought about it before. "They don't feel anything," she replies. "They just don't understand the pain that they have caused others. Most come from broken families. They don't recognize rules or limits." The teenagers know that, under Mexican law, minors can be sentenced to a maximum of only five years in prison no matter how many murders, kidnappings or rapes they have committed. Many convicted killers will be back on the streets before they turn 20. Frijol himself will be out when he is 19. But the law is the least of their worries; the mafias administer their own justice. Juarez cartel gunmen went to neighbourhoods where gang members had been recruited for the Sinaloans. It didn't matter that only two or three kids from the barrio had joined the mob; a death sentence was passed on the whole barrio. The Sinaloan mafia returned the favour on barrios that had joined the Juarez Cartel. Frijol recognizes that youth prison may be hard. But it is a lot safer there than on the streets now. "I keep hearing about friends who have been killed out there. Maybe I would be dead too. Prison could have saved my life." On the streets of Mexico, death was never far away. Five sources whose interviews helped to shape my book were later murdered or disappeared. One of them, the Honduran anti-drug chief Julian Aristides Gonzalez, gave me an interview in his office in the capital Tegucigalpa. The officer chatted for hours about the growth of Mexican drug gangs in Central America and the Colombians who provide them with narcotics. In his office were 140 kilos of seized cocaine and piles of maps and photographs showing clandestine landing strips and narco mansions. I was impressed by how open and frank Gonzalez was about his investigations and the political corruption they showed. Four days later, he gave a news conference showing his latest discoveries. Next day, he dropped his sevenyear-old daughter off at school. Assassins drove past on a motorcycle and fired 11 bullets into him. It turned out he had planned to retire in two months and move his family to Canada.

ruling on how much money will be confiscated from the ringleader of an international drugs gang that was based in Wiltshire is due next week.

 

Police believe David Barnes made as much as £29m from illegal activities and want to seize it under the Proceeds of Crime Act.

Barnes, 42, of Berkshire, was convicted of conspiracy to supply Class B drugs and jailed for 12 years in 2010.

He appeared at Gloucester Crown Court on Friday, surrounded by armed police.

During the trial, Bristol Crown Court heard Barnes and seven other gang members were caught after 10 tonnes of skunk cannabis was found at a farm in Wanborough near Swindon in April 2009.

The gang had smuggled the cannabis into the UK among shipments of flowers such as tulips and chrysanthemums.

Ten tonnes of skunk cannabis was found at a farm in Wanborough near Swindon

It was then driven in lorries to Wiltshire.

Wiltshire Police said it was one of the largest drug distribution operations seen in the UK.

Barnes, from Hungerford, claimed in court that he only made £40,000 from the operation.

Police believe the gang transferred millions of pounds out of Britain by taking cash by car from Swindon to London.

From there a courier would go to a high street money bureau and wire the cash to bureaux in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Dubai.

It was then collected and the trail ends.

Judge Jamie Tabor is due to announce his ruling next Friday.

Four members of a criminal gang have been jailed for their role in one of the biggest alcohol smuggling frauds ever uncovered in Britain.

The complex scam was worth an estimated £50 million a year in unpaid duty and VAT and allowed the men to buy fast cars and luxury homes, investigators said.

They used their positions and contacts in the drinks trade to conceal dozens of truckloads of alcohol being moved into Britain without paying tax or duties in a scam known as diversion fraud.

 

Alcohol smugglers: Gary Clarke and Kevin Burrage were convicted of conspiracy to cheat the public revenue last month while Michael Turner and Davinder Dhaliwal pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to the same charges and fraudulent evasion of excise duty

 

Gang ringleader Kevin Burrage, 49, and Gary Clarke, 55, were convicted of conspiracy to cheat the public revenue last month following a three-month trial at Canterbury Crown Court.

Their accomplices, Michael Turner, 52, and Davinder Dhaliwal, 32, pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to the same charges and fraudulent evasion of excise duty.

 

 

Sentencing them, Judge Michael O'Sullivan said 'All four of you were involved in a criminal enterprise to cheat the revenue. Alcohol was diverted in the UK without paying duty or tax due to the revenue.'

Burrage, of Ravendale Way, Shoeburyness, Essex, was jailed for 10 years, and Clarke, of Maplin Way North, Thorpe Bay, Southend, was sentenced to six years, nine months behind bars.

Luxury: Bundles of cash were seized from the gang after they were found to splashing cash on luxury cars and homes

Turner, of Rendezvous Street, Folkestone, Kent, was jailed for three years, two months and Dhaliwal, of Langdale Gardens, Dartford, was sentenced to 16 months in prison.

Prosecutor Andrew Marshall said the scam heavily revolved around Promptstock Ltd, a bonded warehouse in Essex owned by Burrage.

Alcohol can be stored and moved between bonded warehouses within the EU without paying excise duties.

But once the business needs to release the alcohol to retailers the excise duty then becomes payable at the rates applicable in the host country.

Burrage's brother-in-law, Clarke, managed the warehouse which the pair used to import and export alcohol without paying a penny in tax.

The gang bought beer, wine and spirits from bonded warehouses in France and imported them duty-free into Britain, destined for Promptstock Ltd.

Once through Customs, the alcohol was illegally diverted to locations around the country where they were then sold on without duty being added.

Mr Marshall said 'What was planned and what took place was to cause enormous and continuous losses to the Revenue of millions of pounds and those losses were only stopped by their arrest.'

Over a 22-month period from January 2007, he said the total VAT and excise duty loss caused by the gang amounted to £7.49 million, but, quoting former US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, said there were 'known unknowns'.

HM Revenue and Customs officials said they believed the scam was worth around £50 million a year in losses to the Revenue.

Mr Marshall said 'Mr Burrage was the organiser and ringleader of all of this trade. It was fraudulent from the very start. It has an international element, controlling goods abroad and from abroad.'

There was a 'web of corrupt players' involved in the fraud, he added, including transport companies which diverted the loads from their intended destinations.

Mr Marshall went on 'It was not just transport companies but cash-and-carries, here and abroad, and some retailers, all of which undercut legitimate retailers and therefore imperil their businesses.'

Investigators said the gang also reversed the fraud by appearing to send lorries over to the Continent loaded with non-duty paid alcohol.

HMRC said the cargo of alcohol in fact remained in the UK and the alcohol was sold on, again with no tax added.

Turner owned Keytrades (Europe) Ltd which provided an apparently legitimate cover for the movements of the alcohol consignments.

Meanwhile, Dhaliwal operated as Burrage's right-hand man, and organised the delivery of large quantities of alcohol ready for their distribution.

Mr Marshall said the gang were responsible for 'professional offending' and made use of sophisticated concealment methods to try to hide their crimes.

In addition to the lost VAT and excise duty, he added that they ran the risk of alcohol being sold to children and falling into the hands of 'less than reputable' operations.

Senior Sun journalists arrested in police payments probe

 

Five Sun newspaper journalists have been arrested as part of Operation Elveden, the police inquiry into alleged inappropriate payments to public servants. Photograph: Martin Argles for the Guardian The Sun has been plunged into crisis following the arrest of five of its most senior journalists, including the deputy editor, over allegations of inappropriate payments to police and public officials. The five Sun journalists are understood to be: deputy editor Geoff Webster, picture editor John Edwards, chief reporter John Kay, chief foreign correspondent Nick Parker and reporter John Sturgis. The Sun's editor, Dominic Mohan, said: "I'm as shocked as anyone by today's arrests but am determined to lead the Sun through these difficult times. I have a brilliant staff and we have a duty to serve our readers and will continue to do that. Our focus is on putting out Monday's newspaper." A News International source said Mohan was "not resigning" but added that it was "obviously a dramatic day for him". Sky News reported that Rupert Murdoch is flying into the UK to reassure Sun staff that he will not close the paper in the wake of the latest arrests. The worsening crisis at the tabloid could have wider ramifications for the Murdoch media empire, according to some media experts. Clive Hollick, former chief executive of United Business Media, said the latest arrests could intensify the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act investigation into News Corp in the US. In a post on his Twitter account he added that the arrests "may lead to fines, director oustings and asset sales". He also suggested that the developments could lead to the broadcasting watchdog Ofcom review Murdoch's control of Sky television in the UK. Hollick tweeted: "Will Ofcom conclude that Sun arrests on top of hacking render NI not fit and proper to hold #Sky license and make them sell shareholding?" A Surrey police officer, 39, a Ministry of Defence employee, 39, and a member of the armed forces, 36, were also arrested at their homes on Saturday on suspicion of corruption, misconduct in a public office and conspiracy in relation to both. The new arrests at Britain's bestselling newspaper will further rock News International, which is still reeling from the closure of the Sun's sister title, the News of the World last year, after it emerged that journalists had hacked the phone of murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler. The journalists, aged between 45 and 68, were arrested at addresses in London, Kent and Essex on suspicion of corruption, aiding and abetting misconduct in a public office, and conspiracy in relation to both these offences. They are being questioned at police stations in London and Kent. News Corporation, the parent company of News International which owns the Sun and the Times, confirmed that five Sun staff were among those arrested today. It said its Management and Standards Committee (MSC) had provided information to the Elveden investigation which led to the arrests and had also provided the option of "immediate legal representation" to those arrested. "News Corporation remains committed to ensuring that unacceptable news-gathering practices by individuals in the past will not be repeated and last summer authorised the MSC to co-operate with the relevant authorities," it said. "The MSC will continue to ensure that all appropriate steps are taken to protect legitimate journalistic privilege and sources, private or personal information and legal privilege. "News Corporation maintains its total support to the ongoing work of the MSC and is committed to making certain that legitimate journalism is vigorously pursued in both the public interest and in full compliance with the law." The arrests come two weeks after four former and current Sun journalists and a serving Metropolitan police officer were arrested over alleged illegal police payments. Senior Sun employees Chris Pharo, 42, and Mike Sullivan, along with former executives Fergus Shanahan, 57, and Graham Dudman, were named by sources as suspects facing corruption allegations. All five were released on bail. Surrey police confirmed a serving officer was arrested at the officer's home address on Saturday as part of Operation Elveden. A spokesman said: "Surrey police has been working closely with Operation Elveden since it was established in 2011, with a number of its officers seconded to the [Metropolitan Police Service] to assist with the investigations. "On learning about the involvement of one of its officers, the force immediately referred the matter to the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC)." Assistant Chief Constable Jerry Kirkby said: "The force takes matters of this nature extremely seriously and we will not hesitate to respond robustly to allegations where there is evidence to support them." Deborah Glass, deputy chair of the IPCC, said: "Today's arrests are further evidence of the strenuous efforts being undertaken to identify police officers who may have taken corrupt payments." The MoD refused to comment. Officers from Operation Elveden made the arrests between 6am and 8am as part of the investigation into allegations of inappropriate payments to police and public officials. Operation Elveden, which runs alongside the Met's Operation Weeting team, was launched as the phone-hacking scandal erupted last July with allegations about the now-defunct News of the World targeting Milly Dowler's mobile phone. Its remit has widened to include the investigation of evidence uncovered in relation to suspected corruption involving public officials who are not police officers. All home addresses of all eight detained men are being searched and officers are also carrying out searches at the offices of News International in Wapping, east London, the Metropolitan police said. " larger | smaller Media The Sun · News Corporation · News International · Rupert Murdoch · Dominic Mohan · Ofcom · Newspapers & magazines · National newspapers · Newspapers · Media business · US press and publishing · US television industry UK news Ministry of Defence World news United States Television & radio US television More news More on this story Operation Elveden and Operation Weeting: the full list of arrests 30 people have been arrested so far in police investigations into phone hacking and payments to officers Leveson inquiry: James Harding, Dominic Mohan, Baroness Buscombe Leveson inquiry: Sun editor recalled for questioning on Page 3 Sun journalists think Murdoch doesn't care for them any longer Rupert Murdoch cuts off Wapping? Sun arrests show that News Corp is now at war with itself Printable version Send to a friend Share Clip Contact us