WEB BUZZ MAFIA

Openly gay, devoutly Catholic, left-wing and an enemy of the mafia, Rosario Crocetta broke the mould when he was elected governor of deeply conservative Sicily last month. The island has long been better known for its machismo, corruption and homicidal mafia dons than progressive politics, but the chain-smoking former communist says he will bring a "revolution" after winning a regional election. "I will demonstrate that this region can be the most liberal in Europe. Certainly I will be exposed to opposition from the old political system, to layers of powerful mafia patronage, but I am ready for the battle," he told Reuters in an interview. Crocetta, 61, who has escaped at least three mafia assassination plots and was elected to the European parliament in 2009, could not be more of a contrast to his predecessors, under whom Sicily has come close to bankruptcy. He replaces Raffaele Lombardo, who stepped down in July after being charged with m...

An Italian fisherman has been arrested for supplying World War II explosives to the Mafia. Cosimo D’Amato supplied more than a ton of TNT , which he had taken from unexploded bombs, to the mob.  The explosives were then used in a wave of attacks that killed 21 people two decades ago. According to Mafia insiders the aim of the bombings was to force the government to negotiate more lenient sentences for convicted mobsters. The chief prosecutor says many hundreds of kilograms of explosives were retrieved from the ​​Porticello sea. D’Amato was arrested after former mob boss Gaspare Spatuzza told investigators of how he had helped collect the explosives at a port near Sicily in 1992. In that year two high profile judges, Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino along with their bodyguards were killed by massive explosions. The men are considered national heroes for prosecuting the Cosa Nostra as a single criminal organisation, ignoring repeated death threats.

Almost half a year back, the Kerala Government had told the High court that over 500 police officials were facing trial or probe on criminal charges ranging from murder to cheating. The Intelligence wing of the State police has now found that there is a strong nexus between spirit and sand mafia and officials in the police force. In the report submitted recently to the State Director General of Police, the Additional DGP (Intelligence) has specified the names of 56 officials with proven mafia connections. The report has recommended immediate removal of these officials from their charges and stringent action against them in order to restore the credibility of the force. The Intelligence report, copies of which have been distributed among all the zonal ADGPs, has recommended close surveillance on the officials named in it for mafia connections. It also says the officials having close links with the spirit and sand mafias include even a Superintendent of Police in...

Loizos Michaels sits in court. - Source: ONE News The man accused of defrauding more than $2 million from two former Christchurch casino executives is now giving evidence in his own defence. Loizos Michaels says he inherited shares in a Cyprus-based cruise line but denies ever claiming family links to the shipping magnate. In the Auckland District Court, the Crown alleges Michaels fabricated links to wealthy families and the criminal underworld to convince his victims to hand over money. Michaels denied every saying that he was backed by groups such as the Mafia and the Japanese Yakuza. His lawyer told the court his client's defence boils down to whether Michaels' credibility outweighs that of the 50 Crown witnesses.

TORONTO, Canada — In the back room of the Cosenza Social Club, a strip mall café in an Italian neighborhood of Montreal, the city’s top mobster held court over piles of cash. Hours of surveillance video captured by the RCMP, Canada’s national police, show the since-assassinated godfather of Montreal’s powerful Mafia , Nicolo Rizzuto, in variations of the same scene: counting bills, pausing only to lick his fingers, and stuffing the bundles in his knee-high socks. No one is surprised that the mob conducts its illegal activities in cash. Shocking many, however, are revelations about the source of the money — a Mafia -controlled scheme that rigged bids and dispensed bribes on Montreal public construction contracts. The scam, revealed in an ongoing corruption inquiry in Montreal, added an estimated 30 percent to the cost of municipal construction projects in Canada’s second-largest city — a corruption tax paid, in the end, by the city’s taxpayers. The scheme reache...

Chairman of the Constitutional Court Mahfud M.D., left, alleges a mafia influence on the president, right, regarding drug traffickers. After alleging that “ Mafia ” in the State Palace had influenced the president to commute a drug trafficker’s death sentence to life in prison, Constitutional Court chairman Mahfud M.D. is now coming under fire for his statement. President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono on Sept. 26 granted clemency to Meirika Franola, known as Ola, who had been sentenced to death after attempting to smuggle cocaine and heroin through Soekarno-Hatta International Airport in 2000. After receiving clemency, Ola was discovered running a drug trafficking ring from her prison cell, prompting a wave of criticism directed at the president. One Golkar politician said the clemency was evidence that a drug trafficking ring had infiltarted the State Palace. Mahfud himself entertained the idea, saying  that he was “very surprised” because he had for years known...