organized crime

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Crime Boss Whitey Bulger Sends Letter to 3 Students

In which he calls his life 'wasted' and 'best forgotten'

(Newser) - When three Massachusetts high school students wrote to crime leader James "Whitey" Bulger in jail—where he's serving two life sentences (plus five years) for racketeering, money laundering, extortion, and murdering 11 people— they weren't sure if he'd write back. But he did, and the tone...

Cops: 170 Bikers Could Face Capital Murder Charges

Bail set at $1 million each after Waco shootout

(Newser) - The McLennan County Jail is full of bikers after Sunday's gang shootout in Waco, and they're likely to be there for a while: Bail has been set at $1 million each for around 170 people arrested and charged with engaging in organized crime , reports the Dallas Morning News...

Mexico Charges Mayor's Wife With Organized Crime

Her brothers allegedly part of Guerreros Unidos drug gang

(Newser) - The wife of a Mexican mayor whose police force turned 43 students over to a drug gang that allegedly killed them has been charged with organized crime and money laundering. Maria de los Angeles Pineda is the wife of Jose Luis Abarca, the former mayor of Iguala, in the southern...

Top-Secret Mafia Ritual Caught on Video

Recruits reportedly seen taking 'holy' oath, promising to commit suicide if disloyal

(Newser) - A double-kiss on the cheeks. A loyalty oath to keep up your end of the "holy chain … the holy society." A reminder to always carry an extra bullet to take yourself out if you ever betray said society. Authorities in Milan say that's exactly what they...

Bodies in Mexico Mass Grave 'Savagely Slaughtered'

Grim find in Guerrero as officials search for 43 missing student protesters

(Newser) - Mexican forces searching for 43 students who went missing last weekend amid violence in the southern state of Guerrero made instead a grisly discovery yesterday: Six freshly dug mass graves on the outskirts of Iguala city containing at least 20 bodies, reports Reuters ; the victims had been "savagely slaughtered,...

Pope Blasts Mafia: Repent or Go to Hell

Francis says mobsters' 'blood-stained' money is worthless

(Newser) - Pope Francis attended a vigil for mafia victims in Rome yesterday, reports the BBC , but he made bigger headlines by unloading on the mobsters themselves in his remarks:
  • "This life that you live now won't give you pleasure," he said. "It won't give you joy
...

Drugs No Longer Mexico Cartel's Top Earner

Knights Templar now a mining, logging, extortion cartel

(Newser) - Mexico's Knights Templar cartel has diversified so much that instead of being a drug cartel, the organization that started out smuggling crystal meth is now more of an extortion, logging, and mining cartel with a profitable sideline in drugs, the AP finds. In the cartel's home state of...

Japan's Crime Gangs Went Where, Exactly?

Police say yakuza membership is declining due to stricter laws

(Newser) - Japan's underworld crime syndicates, or yakuza, have apparently dwindled over the years, raising the question of where they've gone and why they dropped out of sight, the Daily Beast reports. Police say stricter laws have pressured yakuza members out of the business, by empowering financial institutions to punish...

Bought Cigarettes in NY? You May Have Funded Terror

Authorities arrest 15 men in alleged smuggling ring that sold in state

(Newser) - Police have uncovered a cigarette-smuggling operation whose proceeds may have gone to terrorist groups, they say. Sixteen Palestinians were indicted yesterday (and all but one arrested) in the East Coast effort, which saw some 1 million cartons of cigarettes trucked into the state from Virginia, where they were sold to...

Report Blows Lid Off Crime, Drugs in Aussie Sports

'Blackest day in Australian sport,' says one official

(Newser) - Australian sports are besieged by performance-enhancing drugs and organized crime, according to a year-long government investigation, reports the Wall Street Journal . The report didn't name names, but it indicated illegal hormones and other performance enhancers are widespread in Australian sports, facilitated by coaches and trainers. "The findings are...

Soccer Infiltrated by Organized Crime


 Soccer Infiltrated by 
 Organized Crime 
Match-Fixing Probe
Feb 4, 2013 10:36 AM CST

Soccer Infiltrated by Organized Crime

Investigation casts doubt on 680 matches

(Newser) - Is soccer completely rigged? You'd be forgiven for thinking that, in light of a Europol investigation released today that identifies 680 matches authorities suspect were fixed for gambling purposes. The alleged culprit: an Asia-based organized crime syndicate. Authorities suspect at least 425 people, including players and both match and...

Feds: Whitey Bulger's Immunity Claims 'Absurd'

Mobster says feds gave him carte blanche in the '70s

(Newser) - Prosecutors are rolling their eyes over Whitey Bulger's assertions that authorities gave him permanent immunity from all prosecution for his work as an informant in the 1970s. In court documents filed on Friday, prosecutors called those claims "absurd" and "frivolous," and asked a judge to insist...

Whitey Bulger Hospitalized With Chest Pains

Relatives of some victims think gangster is trying to stall trial

(Newser) - James "Whitey" Bulger, the Boston gangster who was finally captured last year after 16-plus years on the run , was rushed to the hospital early yesterday with chest pains, officials tell the Boston Globe . Little is known about Bulger's condition, but this is at least the second time he'...

Feds Raid Outlaws Biker Gang, Bust 41

Every member of gang's Indianapolis chapter arrested

(Newser) - Dozens of bikers and their associates were busted yesterday as hundreds of federal, state, and local police raided Outlaws clubhouses in Indiana. The 41 people arrested on charges including drug trafficking, extortion, money laundering, witness tampering, and illegal gambling include every member of the biker gang's Indianapolis chapter, the...

Logging a $15B Racket for Organized Crime
 Logging a $15B Racket 
 for Organized Crime 
report says
Mar 21, 2012 2:46 PM CDT

Logging a $15B Racket for Organized Crime

World Bank says illegal forest operations are big business

(Newser) - Ah, those classic gangster rackets: drugs, prostitution, gambling, and, of course, wood. Illegal logging has become a major endeavor for organized crime, raking in as much as $15 billion a year, according to a new report from the World Bank. Scofflaws with chainsaws are running wild in places such as...

Bonanno Mob Boss Salvatore Montagna Found Dead in Montreal
NYC Mob Boss
Found Dead in Canada 
Nov 25, 2011 12:54 AM CST

NYC Mob Boss Found Dead in Canada

Cops believe 'Sal the Ironworker' was trying to take over Montreal Mafia

(Newser) - The criminal career of former New York City mob boss Salvatore Montagna came to an end in a frigid river in suburban Montreal yesterday. The body of the 40-year-old former chief of the Bonanno crime family, known as "Sal the Ironworker," was found after a witness said they...

Missing Olympus Billions Tied to Yakuza Crime Gangs

$4.9B unaccounted for at Japanese firm

(Newser) - To make a serious financial scandal much, much worse, simply quadruple the sums involved and add gangsters. Investigators probing the shady accounting at Japanese camera maker Olympus believe that in addition to the $1.4 billion the firm paid in merger fees to mask losses, some $4.9 billion is...

Boston Mob Boss Whitey Bulger Arrested in California
Mobster Whitey Bulger Busted After 16 Years
UPDATED
Jun 23, 2011 7:53 AM CDT

Mobster Whitey Bulger Busted After 16 Years

Boston mob boss, FBI informant nabbed near LA

(Newser) - Boston mob boss James "Whitey" Bulger has been arrested after 16 years as a fugitive, during which time the FBI was sometimes accused of not trying hard enough to find its former informant, the AP reports. The former leader of the Winter Hill Gang went on the run in...

Feds Bust Philly Mob Boss, 12 Others

Joseph 'Uncle Joe' Ligambi and a dozen more face charges

(Newser) - A real-life Sopranos (or Godfather, depending on your generation) in Philly: Joseph “Uncle Joe” Ligambi, the reputed boss of the Philadelphia mob, has been arrested along with a dozen others believed to be connected to the mob. Federal authorities busted the group, and prosecutors charged them with conspiracy, extortion,...

Mobster Found Hiding in Idaho Town

'I’ve always thought there was something different about Jay'

(Newser) - Stunned residents of the small Idaho town of Marsing have just learned that the man they knew as Jay Shaw was actually Enrico Ponzo, a fugitive mobster from Boston. Ponzo, who had been on the lam for 17 years, was arrested this week for a long list of charges including...

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