organized crime - Page 2

ROME (AP) – Italy’s No. 1 fugitive, convicted Mafia boss Matteo Messina Denaro, was arrested on Monday at a private clinic in Palermo, Sicily, after 30 years on the run, Italian paramilitary police said.

BUCHAREST, Romania (AP) – The divisive social media personality Andrew Tate is expected at a court in Romania on Tuesday to appeal against a judge´s earlier decision to extend his arrest period from 24 hours to 30 days on charges of being part of an organized crime group, human trafficking, and rape.

Amid record seizures, authorities in Belgium are now reportedly struggling to get rid of what has been described as a “mountain” of cocaine.

The boat migrant crisis in the English Channel has escalated to the point that up to two per cent of “the entire adult male population of Albania” have now landed in Britain, according to the top border official for crossings. 

Chinese state media on Monday reluctantly acknowledged a growing problem with violent crime and gang activity in central China after public attention was captivated by a disturbing video of several women suffering a brutal assault in a barbecue restaurant.

Criminal organisations are looking to exploit refugees and traffic them into prostitution, the drugs trade, and possibly worse.

Viral video of brazen shoplifting at a TJ Max store in Los Angeles in broad daylight is part of an ongoing shoplifting spree in California.

A Conservative councillor in Scotland had his home and cars firebombed in the third attack on the Tory politician in as many years.

Flamboyant Turkish mobster and YouTube sensation Sedat Peker apparently reached the limits of his government’s patience on Thursday, as Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu – a frequent target of Peker’s dirt-dishing videos – filed a lawsuit against him, prompting a warrant for his arrest from the Ankara public prosecutor’s office.

Stacia Hylton, former director of the U.S. Marshals Service, described the “defund the police” campaign pushed by Democrats and the left as an opening for organized crime.

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) – One of the Netherlands’ most-wanted fugitives, the alleged leader of a crime organization that prosecutors described as an “oiled killing machine,” is back in the country after Dutch police picked him up in Dubai, authorities said Thursday.

Police in several European countries have arrested dozens of suspected Nigerian mafia members as the crime organisation spreads across Italy and elsewhere.

At least 105 people have been murdered over the past three months in “machete wars” fought between criminal gangs in Zimbabwe, according to a report from a non-governmental organization called the Zimbabwe Peace Project (ZPP).

A prison riot triggered by gang rivalries in the state of Pará, Brazil, left at least 57 dead – including 16 beheaded – on Monday, leaving authorities to identify the fallen, relocate the culprits, and prevent a revenge attack.

Russian lawmaker Rauf Arashukov was arrested in the middle of a parliamentary session on Wednesday to face organized crime charges, including links to two politically-motivated contract killings.

Arab criminal gangs operating in Berlin have been accused of targetting individual police officers with threats, including spreading rumours of sexual encounters with prostitutes, in order to intimidate or take revenge on officers. 

Italian law enforcement has arrested 33 alleged members of a “Chinese mafia” responsible for trafficking Chinese products, as well as running clandestine gambling dens, night clubs, prostitution rings, and drug dealing.

An investigation by Spain’s most-circulated newspaper has revealed “a tale of illegal immigration, money laundering, and arms and drug trafficking, as well as tobacco smuggling” which is overwhelming the Mediterranean country.

Organised crime is diversifying its activities as traditional drug smugglers are now expanding into the growing market of human trafficking, according to European Union police agency Europol.

HARLINGEN, Texas — As millions prepare to begin their holiday shopping on Black Friday, federal authorities are warning them to avoid purchasing counterfeit goods.

An illegal immigrant and a foreign national, both ranking members of the MS-13 gang, were sentenced to life in prison after being convicted of murder and other organized crime charges in North Carolina.

There has been a steady increase in the number of women in power positions among the different branches of the Italian Mafia, with some as brutal and calculating as the men they are replacing, according to recent reports.

Organised criminals are benefiting from the wave of Islamic extremists in Germany because the threat of attacks take up so much police resources, leaving the criminals to do as they please.

Close to 9,000 migrant children are missing in Germany and police fear that many of them will be exploited by organised criminal gangs.

Two members of a dangerous Puerto Rican gang that operates in a manner similar to a drug cartel have been arrested near the Texas border. Federal authorities recently arrested Carlos E. “El Negro” Carrion Nieves and Orlando “Elvin” Martinez Nunez near this border city.

The Times of Israel reports: Police in the Tel Aviv area are bracing for a surge in violence between rival organized crime groups following a Saturday night shooting that killed the son of a top crime boss.

Japan’s National Police Agency has announced the creation of a special central headquarters to address what is now being described as a “state of war” between rival factions within a yakuza organized crime syndicate. The war arrives as Japan struggles to address a growing population crisis worsened by the ongoing aftermath of the Fukushima nuclear disaster.

Johnny Depp stars as Irish mob boss and fugitive James “Whitey” Bulger, the notorious former member of Boston’s Winter Hill Gang, in the upcoming biopic Black Mass. Bulger’s criminal enterprises and escape have grabbed headlines for more than four decades, and nobody understands his story better than Boston Herald columnist and Breitbart News contributor Howie Carr.

Early Wednesday morning, an anti-mafia squad seized possession of a well-known restaurant in Rome’s historic district, a block from the Pantheon, believed to be owned and operated by the Italian mafia.

European criminal gangs have been flying into the UK on budget airline flights, going on ‘crime spree holidays’, and flying out again to avoid detection. Brian Donald, Europol’s chief of staff said that the gangs commit “volume crimes” – pickpocketing, house

Surveillance video caught burglars pilfering valuable LEGOs and Disney’s “Frozen” toys from all five Toys “R” Us stores around San Diego County.

The horrific torture and murder of a six year-old Mexican boy by five other children, that prosecutors say is evidence of “social decomposition” and an “absence of values,” is now believed to be linked to a satanic cult.

US Immigration and Customs Enforcement announced on April 21 they were targeting 700 businesses in the Miami, FL area for “enhanced scrutiny” in order to detect activity by Latin American criminal organizations related to trade-based money laundering.

The high profile murders appear to have no end in Mexico as the country now rallies around the kidnapping and murder of a Catholic priest in the violent Mexican State of Guerrero; the priest is the third religious man to be murdered in that state this year and just one of many kidnapped priests.