Worldcrunch
BUENOS AIRES — A bit bored by that class on basic accounting? How about a course instead on money laundering? Or maybe one on how to stop transnational mafia groups? Some Argentine students will soon have access to just that kind of course material because certain universities, concerned about the expansion of organized crime in […]
The daughter of Lea Garofalo, who was brutally killed by her Italian mob husband in 2009, courageously speaks out against the dark underworld – and her own father and boyfriend.
PALERMO — Italy was in shock again this week after a 2-year-old boy was killed in a revenge hit by the Sacra Corona Unita (SCU) organized crime syndicate on a Puglia motorway Monday night. The little boy, Domenico Petruzzelli, was one of three people, along with his mother and her partner — a convicted murderer […]
Yakuza, Japan’s notorious crime syndicate, is trying to emerge from two decades of economic stagnation, and is betting on the much-discussed stimulus from Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
MOSCOW – Over the past couple of months, experts on international crime have started raising the alarm: criminal activity is crossing borders like never before. The response from law enforcement must therefore be no less transnational. The European Parliament has recently launched a Special Commission on Organized Crime, Corruption and Money Laundering (CRIM) that is […]
IL TEMPO, ANSA (Italy) Worldcrunch ROME – Italian police arrested at least 116 people Friday, in two major anti-mafia operations in Rome and the southern Calabria region. In pre-dawn raids along the coast near Rome, some 500 police officers apprehended 51 people. A helicopter, dog units and maritime police took part in what the Italian […]
MILAN – “Prestanome for hire: thirty years old, good credit rating, permanent job…” More and more advertisements like this one are finding their way onto the Internet. Literally a “lend-name,” the prestanome has made the leap from mafia-esque dodgy dealings into the real world. “The only thing I had left was my name: so I […]
ZAATARI – The Khamsin is what they call the desert wind that blows in gusts, blocking your sight with an opaque fog, burning your eyes and lungs at the same time. Scruffy-looking kids are pushing makeshift carts through the mini windstorm, piles of clothes and kitchen tools almost falling off them, as ghost-like figures of […]
Italy’s Giulio Andreotti died this week at the age of 94. His handling of the abduction of fellow politician Aldo Moro tells us much about the seven-time prime minister.
Italy’s seven-time prime minister, known as one of the most powerful and intriguing post-War politicians, died Monday at 94.
In the southern Italian region of Calabria, the organized crime syndicate known as the “Ndrangheta is known for its cruelty and ever more central role in the international drug trade. But in his book Rebelling Sweethearts, journalist Lirio Abbate is focused on a largely untold chapter in “Ndrangheta’s story: its women. Abbate, an award-winning chronicler […]
TURIN – Music and organized crime are a duo that have gone hand-in-hand since way back when. Outlaws often see songs as a way to glorify what they do, creating legends that inspire as well as frighten the regions they come to dominate. The Mexico we hear about today is said to be held hostage […]
Two decades after the Sicilian Mafia killed magistrate hero Giovanni Falcone, crime networks have shifted drug trafficking from bases to Russia, Colombia, Burma…and beyond.
CALCUTTA– Captain Manpreet Jolly has not quite recovered yet. Nothing in his career at the Haldia port authority had prepared him for this. The captain was abducted by masked men in the middle of the night, and told at gunpoint to leave and never return to the port town. “We were at my assistant’s house […]