WEB BUZZ MAFIA

Vito Rizzuto , right, reputed head of the Montreal Mafia , speaks with his lawyer Jean Salois. Police confirm they have met with Vito Rizzuto amid reports that he has been summoned for what would be the memorable spectacle of a reputed Mafia don testifying at Quebec 's corruption inquiry. Provincial police will not comment on the inquiry appearance first reported by Radio-Canada , the French-language CBC . The news organization said police delivered subpoena papers to Rizzuto , who was alleged to have been this country's most powerful Mafia figure and head of a crime family with myriad international ties. Police confirmed to The Canadian Press that they tracked down Rizzuto on Monday. "He was met - I can confirm that," said provincial police Sgt. Claude Denis. "But that's all I can say." The sight of a prominent underworld figure answering questions on a live TV broadcast would only be the latest twist in an inquiry that...

Chongqing criminal does about-turn on claims that jailed attorney Li Zhuang faked evidence Former defence lawyer Li Zhuang''s arrest in 2009 still has the legal community seething. An imprisoned Chongqing mafia boss who alleged that his lawyer fabricated evidence on his behalf - resulting in the lawyer being jailed for 18 months - has changed his testimony and said police in the municipality forced him to lie to frame him. Li Zhuang, the former lawyer of convicted mafia boss Gong Gangmo, was summoned on Friday, along with his attorney, by the Supreme People 's Procuratorate for a meeting that lasted more than an hour, The Beijing News reported. The summons came after Li, who was released from jail in June last year, submitted a petition earlier this month seeking a review of his case and accusing officers of wrongdoing in their investigation. The newspaper said Li provided seven audio and video clips to support his claims. In petition documents, ...

Raynald Desjardins said inquiry would affect first-degree murder trial Raynald Desjardins was arrested on Dec. 21, 2011 in connection to the death of alleged Mobster Salvatore Montagna Quebec's corruption inquiry is insisting that a suspected Mafia boss must appear to testify. Justice France Charbonneau, who heads the provincial probe into organized crime involvement in the construction industry, has rejected a bid by Raynald Desjardins to get out of appearing. Charbonneau said in her ruling on Thursday that Desjardins has information pertinent to the inquiry, noting he has links to a company tied to organized crime and a labour union boss. Desjardins' lawyer had argued that his client is already awaiting trial for the first-degree murder of a former boss with the Bonanno crime family. Marc Labelle said it would be impossible for Desjardins to get an impartial jury if he appeared at the corruption inquiry. But in her ruling the inquiry chair says i...

Quebec’s corruption inquiry has heard from police, construction bosses and bureaucrats. Pretty soon, that list could grow to include a suspected Mafia boss . The lawyer for a reputed member of the Montreal Mafia is trying to get his client out of testifying before the inquiry. Raynald Desjardins is currently awaiting trial for first-degree murder in the slaying of a former Bonanno crime boss. Lawyer Marc Labelle says since his client is already awaiting trial, testifying before the inquiry could hinder his attempt to find an impartial jury. A lawyer representing the inquiry says it’s interested in Mr. Desjardins’s involvement in a construction firm that specialized in decontamination. Mr. Labelle notes that Mr. Desjardins’s earlier failed attempt to have a subpoena quashed before the Quebec Superior Court received heavy media coverage and he says any testimony before the inquiry would get 10 times more attention. The lawyer asked for commission counsel to make ...

 19/11-2012 12:47, Bishkek – 24.kg news agency , by Makhinur NIYAZOVA. The Russian mafia boss, a citizen of Georgia Ilya Samsoniya, born in 1973, was detained at Manas International Airport. The Interior Ministry of Kyrgyzstan informed 24.kg news agency.  Reportedly, on November 16, in Bishkek, during boarding Moscow - Bishkek flight the officers of the General Organized Crime and Corruption Control Department (GUBOPiK) detained a foreigner with a forged passport of the Kyrgyz Republic’s citizen.  As noted, the examination found out that the detainee is a citizen of Georgia, and he is also so called mafia boss Ilya Samsoniya. The GUBOPiK Investigation Department filed a criminal case under the Article 350 of the Kyrgyz Criminal Code (Use of forged documents).  The report said, now the police is checking the involvement of the detained person in crimes committed in Georgia and Russia. “His extradition is not considered so far,” the Kyrgyz Interior Ministry sai...

One mobster hated Frank Sinatra so much that he wanted to kill the singer, according to secret tapes put forward as evidence at the trial of an alleged mafia "boss." The trial of Joseph "Uncle Joe" Ligambi, reputed head of the Philadelphia mob, began last Thursday after he was arrested on gambling and extortion charges in 2011. Prosecutors claim that Ligambi provided video poker machines and other illegal gambling devices to bars, restaurants and shops in Philadelphia. The prosecution wants to use tapes recorded by a mobster-turned-FBI informant to paint a picture of the violent past of the mob. However defense attorney Christopher Warren, who is representing Ligambi and another alleged gangster Joseph "Scoops" Licata, described the tapes to jurors as just a "bunch geriatric gangsters talking," according to philly.com. He said that the recordings were not relevant to his clients' trial. The tapes were made by mobster Nicholas ...

MONTREAL - Mafia boss Vito Rizzuto had direct access to City Hall through two engineers who played golf with him at a Caribbean resort, a public inquiry heard Monday. Retired engineer Gilles Surprenant also intensified a political firestorm by claiming a colleague told him the city's executive committee took a 3% cut off of all excavation contracts. Surprenant, a longtime city planner, has already admitted to inflating contracts for a cartel of contractors who paid him $600,000 in bribes from 1990 to 2009. He told the Charbonneau Commission that contractor Tony Conte invited him and fellow engineer Luc Leclerc to the Dominican Republic to play a week of golf in 1996 or 1997. When the bureaucrats asked Conte about the identity of the fourth partner, he refused to say, but the partner's identity became clear prior to the flight. "We got to the airport, we got a surprise, we saw Mr. Rizzuto," Surprenant told the inquiry. "He was alone. All I ca...

History The genesis of Cosa Nostra is hard to trace because mafiosi are very secretive and do not keep historical records of their own. In fact, they have been known to spread deliberate lies about their past, and sometimes come to believe in their own myths. Post-feudal Sicily Modern scholars believe that its seeds were planted in the upheaval of Sicily's transition out of feudalism in 1812 and its later annexation by mainland Italy in 1860. Under feudalism, the nobility owned most of the land and enforced law and order through their private armies. After 1812, the feudal barons steadily sold off or rented their lands to private citizens. Primogeniture was abolished, land could no longer be seized to settle debts, and one fifth of the land was to become private property of the peasants. After Italy annexed Sicily in 1860, it redistributed a large share of public and church land to private citizens. The result was a huge boom in landowners: from 2,000 in 1812 to 20,000 ...