Vancouver is a major import and export point for the international illegal drug trade the city's recent violence centers around the illegal drug trade

"They're hitting people in broad daylight in shopping centers," he said, adding the body count is similar to a surge in the fall of 2007. "There were gun battles with armored vehicles in the streets."

Vancouver is a major import and export point for the international illegal drug trade the city's recent violence centers around the illegal drug trade.Criminologist Rob Gordon said gangs have become far more brazen in the past few months, gunning down people in public.Gordon said gangs are likely gearing up for an increase in business during the Olympics. He specifically cited the marijuana business in Whistler where alpine events will be held. And, that he, said, could lead to greater violence as gangs fight over their share of the drug market at that time."Vancouver is not going to look particularly good while the world is watching if we have another one of these outbursts during Olympic events," Gordon said.Royal Canadian Mounted Police Deputy Commissioner Gary Bass said the province's criminal justice and bail systems need to be reformed.Last week, the provincial government announced initiatives to employ more police and prosecutors, introduce tougher laws and build more jails and courts. The government also promised to crack down on illegal guns and owning armored vehicles and body armor."Recent gang violence has been both shocking and appalling, and British Columbians have had enough," Premier Gordon Campbell said.

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Clinton Shawn Martin Jr., is a local leader of the Gangster Disciples, specifically the six deuce trey set

Clinton Shawn Martin Jr., 24, of 31 E. Market St., Harrisonburg, was arrested in early January. Police say Martin is a local leader of the Gangster Disciples, specifically the six deuce trey set, according to multiple search warrants filed in the case by a CHARGE Gang Task Force investigator.Martin was one of four people arrested in January in connection to a two-year gang investigation. He was arrested on Jan. 15 as he attempted to trade drugs for guns in the Roses parking lot on Mason Street.Martin faces 46 charges, including drug distribution, firearms violations and gang participation.

"[The Gangster Disciples] are probably one of the more prevalent gangs in this area," said Lt. Kurt Boshart of the Harrisonburg Police Department. "They're probably one of the most organized."

Randy Crank, president of the Virginia Gang Investigators Association, a group that provides resources and training to local law enforcement agencies, said Harrisonburg's gangs are most likely independent groups and have no official affiliation with the major gangs or their nationwide network of chapters."What you have is homegrown," said Crank. "They will use the national gang signs, symbols, colors and hand signs even though they don't have any ties nationally."Boshart said Martin grew up in Harrisonburg, but might have had some ties nationally.Crank said Gangster Disciple members, or those claiming to be members, can usually be identified by the use of a three-pointed pitchfork and six-pointed star in "taggings," or graffiti, and other materials. They also go by the numbers "74" - a reference to the seventh and fourth letters of the alphabet, "G" and "D", he said. Boshart said this case, and several recent cases, show that gangs exist in the Shenandoah Valley and are growing."We're seeing a steady progression unfortunately," he said, adding that it's getting more violent.
A few years ago, he said, he would tell people that there was some gang activity, but it was rarely an issue and even when it was, it rarely turned violent.
But that's changed, he said."Last year, we could say at least we didn't have a murder," said Boshart. "Unfortunately, we can't say that now."Boshart was referring to the shooting of Reginald "Shay" Nicholson, 19, of Staunton. Nicholson was mortally wounded on Nov. 9 after he left a party at an apartment in the Hunters Ridge complex off Port Republic Road. Nicholson died 12 days later at the University of Virginia Medical Center.Police say the killing was gang-related, pointing to witness statements that say a group of people entered the apartment prior to the shooting yelling "Bloods in the house." As gang activity becomes more violent in the Valley, police say local residents need to step up."Gang activity is a community issue that the community needs to get behind," said Boshart.He said it needs to be a collaborative effort between the educational, business and faith-based communities, as well as public safety agencies and parents."Everybody plays a part," said Boshart, adding that residents need to report what they see. "If you're driving down the road and see some suspicious gang activity and say ‘We'll just let the CHARGE Gang Task Force handle that,' we've lost. The community has lost."Boshart said continuous education is the key to ending gang activity."Everybody has to stay educated, especially if you're dealing with children," said Boshart. "What we learned last year might not apply this year."

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Michael "Roly" Cronin €300,000 confiscated

Confiscated almost €300,000 from the assets of major gangland figure Michael "Roly" Cronin, who was murdered in the centre of Dublin last month.The money was handed over after a High Court decision yesterday afternoon.The Cab was granted a freezing order against Cronin in March 2001 after it seized three properties at Buckingham Street in the north inner city; Ballyboden, Rathfarnham; and Finebar-Fort, Wellmount Road in Finglas.The houses were subsequently sold by the receiver on behalf of Cab and following the statutory seven-year wait, an agreement was reached in court yesterday in which two sums of cash, €103,000 in one bank account, and €180,000 in another, were officially handed over to the Finance Minister.Also in the High Court yesterday, the Criminal Assets Bureau secured an order handing over €38,662.75 to the State.The money was the proceeds of drug trafficking by Cab target Michael Shannon, who gave an address at Minart House at Sligo Road in Longford.The cash was seized as part of a search of a house at Bishopscourt in Ennis, Co Clare and was subjected to a freezing order for the past seven years.Shannon, who then had an address at Lenihan Avenue, Prospect, Limerick, was sentenced to eight years in prison after he pleaded guilty at Limerick circuit court in October 2002 to possession of 100,000 ecstasy tablets with a street value of more than €1m.A third convicted drug trafficker also fell victim to the Cab in the High Court yesterday afternoon.The court heard that Stg£22,000 was seized from Kevin McEvoy, of Ajax Court, Townspark, Antrim, as he attempted to board a flight to Amsterdam in February 2007.The court was told that McEvoy had 48 criminal convictions, including some for drug trafficking.The Cab secured a consent order to confiscate a total of €31,995.28.

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Tyrese Sharod Smith founder of the King Mafia Disciples ,still calling the shots on the street.

Tyrese Sharod Smith still calling the shots on the street. The founder of the King Mafia Disciples had established a violent reputation in Salt Lake City in the early 1990s as he sought to make the gang he founded while serving time in juvenile detention the most powerful in the region. As KMD tried to build notoriety through robberies, drug deals and attacks on rival gangs, Smith's rap sheet grew. He landed in prison in 1994 for a drive-by shooting -- and then arguably committed his most violent acts from behind bars. Gang members operating on Smith's orders in February 1996 shot 19-year-old Joey Miera through an open window as the teenager slept on the floor of his cousin's Salt Lake City home. Miera, who had no gang ties, was killed in a case of mistaken identity. The brutal case spotlighted an aspect of security in Utah's corrections system that has found renewed importance with a recent spike in gang membership and violence: how to keep gangsters in lockup from contributing to crime on the streets. Vigilant watchfulness » It's a job far more complicated than just keeping a gang member behind bars until his or her sentence is completed, and one both the prison system and Salt Lake County Jail have devoted more resources and officers to in recent years. "Most of the public, they look at it like the guy has been picked up, he's gone through the court process and now, everything is good," said Pete Walters, who oversees the gang unit at the Utah State Prison and is president of the Utah Gang Investigators Association. "They get to make phone calls. They are all allowed to get and send letters. The majority of them have visits. … They, a lot of times, still have an influence over some of the groups in the neighborhood." Walters' job, and that of other gang investigators in the corrections system, is to figure just how much influence certain gang members have and how the information officers gather on the inmates could thwart plans gang members may be making from inside their cells. In an activity known as "fishing," inmates can pass messages between their cells by way of make-shift delivery devices called kites, made with a piece of string, a note and a weight. Letters can contain hidden code words, symbols, or drawings to signal an attack on a rival. Phone calls could also contain hidden messages. Corrections gang officers are trained to intercept and decode the hidden messages. The officers chat up inmates to find out which gangs are feuding, and, most importantly, talk with local law enforcement agencies.

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Ian "Blink" McDonald has been banned from every prison in Scotland.

Ian "Blink" McDonald has been banned from every prison in Scotland. The bank robber was blacklisted after he hurled abuse at a warder while visiting a murderer friend in jail. A source said: "Blink's still got a lot of friends in prison and some of them are serving long sentences. "He's gutted he won't be able to visit them and was furious when he was told he's banned from every prison. "He's spent half his life trying to stay out of jail, now he can't get in...but he isn't seeing the funny side. "He'll have to get another conviction before he manages to see his old pals anytime soon." McDonald, 47, was visiting a pal with Paisley gangster Grant Mackintosh when the bust-up happened at Glenochil Prison, near Stirling. Mackintosh recognised a warden he had a run-in with while serving time in Glenochil almost 20 years ago. The officer burst into tears when the pair targeted him for threats and abuse. McDonald was arrested and fined £200 for breach of the peace following the incident in October. Bosses barred him from all 16 Scottish Prison Service jails after a meeting which pin - pointed potential troublemakers. They have in formed McDonald he will not be able to visit any of his banged-up cronies. McDonald was jailed for 16 years in 1992 following a botched £6million bank robbery in Torquay. A teller was shot in the head during the raid. McDonald was released after 10 years.
He was also sentenced to six months for assaulting a prison officer while on remand in Barlinnie in 1986 for attempted murder. The SPS said: "Intelligence is sent to each governor each time there is a incident with a visitor. "It's at the governor's discretion whether to refuse someone entry."

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Mexican authorities found five abandoned bullet-riddled and bloodstained vehicles

Mexican authorities found five abandoned bullet-riddled and bloodstained vehicles on Wednesday, fueling their hunt for drug gang killers following a wave of border-region slayings and clashes with soldiers that left 21 people dead, an official said.The hours-long skirmishes around the town of Villa Ahumada on Tuesday were part of a wave of drug violence that has engulfed parts of Mexico _ and has even spilled across the border _ as the army confronts savage narcotics cartels that are flush with drug money and guns from the U.S.President Felipe Calderon says more than 6,000 people died last year in drug-related violence, and U.S. authorities have reported a spike in killings, kidnappings and home invasions linked to the cartels _ some of it in cities far from the border, such as Phoenix and Atlanta.

Investigators on Wednesday were searching for assailants after finding five abandoned vehicles near Villa Ahumada, where gunmen a day earlier had kidnapped nine people, starting the violence.

They executed six of the kidnap victims along the PanAmerican Highway outside of the town, said Enrique Torres, spokesman for a joint military-police operation in Chihuahua state.Villa Ahumada is 80 miles (130 kilometers) south of the border city of El Paso, Texas.An army convoy heading toward Villa Ahumada to investigate reports of the kidnappings Tuesday came across gunmen who had just executed the six kidnap victims, Torres said.A shootout between gunmen and soldiers ensued in which seven gunmen and one soldier died, Torres said. Another soldier was wounded.Soldiers rescued the three remaining kidnap victims and took them into custody for questioning, Torres said. The men say they are businessmen and were wrongly accused by their captors of belonging to the Sinaloa cartel.In the meantime, other gunmen fled on foot as soldiers rappelled down from military helicopters to chase them through the snow-covered desert.Further down the highway, a series of other shootouts left seven more assailants dead.Villa Ahumada, a town of 1,500 people, was virtually taken over by drug gangs last year when attackers killed two consecutive police chiefs and two officers. The rest of the 20-member force resigned in fear, forcing the Mexican military to take over for months.Unable to hire new recruits, the town hired unarmed residents to keep watch and alert state police about crime.The army was patrolling the town's streets Wednesday.Also Wednesday in the town of Reforma in Chiapas state, three suspected drug hitmen died during a shootout with police. Assailants opened fire after police raided a safe house for arms and drugs, a Reforma municipal police spokesman said. He was not authorized to give his name.

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Manila Gang Wars

Manila Mayor Alfredo Lim has ordered the Manila Police District to put an immediate end to the gang wars in the city citing records of the Presidential Anti Organized Crime Commission that over 30 street gangs caused trouble in Metro Manila. PAOCC Commissioner Grepor Belgica’s report named the notorious among the over 30 street gangs as Trece Hudas, Tau Gamma Phi fraternity, the Bulabog Boys, and Walang Sawa sa Alak (Wasalak).
Most of these gangs are involved in crimes like robbery and even drug trafficking.

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Gang Targets in Operation Axe Montreal-based street gangs and Hells Angels

Targeted in Operation Axe, following a lengthy investigation into drug trafficking in Montreal, Ottawa and Kingston, Ont., and targets both dealers and gang leaders who is an influential member of the Hells Angels former underling network who is currently serving time at a penitentiary in Kingston.The inmate is serving time for offences that took place during the biker gang war in the1990s, but he is now facing new charges related to the current investigation which targeted at least two major Montreal-based street gangs.The inmate was scheduled to have a parole hearing in the coming weeks.Another inmate at a federal penitentiary, the Leclerc Institution in Laval, is also expected to be placed under arrest.In executing search warrants Thursday, the police hope to seize drugs and firearms.Some of the people targeted in the operation are currently in jail

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Prison GANGSTER libraries

Memoirs by the notoriously violent jailbird Charles Bronson, the Krays, and former drug smuggler David McMillan's Escape, which tells how he broke out of Thailand's Klong Prem prison.The party also criticised prison libraries for stocking the autobiography of "mad" Frankie Fraser - the legendary gangster who was a peer of the Krays - and bare knuckle fighter/armed robber Roy Shaw's Pretty Boy, as well as Hitler's Mein Kampf."Jack Straw has said that he wants to prevent criminals from profiting from their memoirs, yet prison libraries have been purchasing their books to lend to other criminals," said shadow justice secretary Dominic Grieve. "It beggars belief that books glorifying crime and violence are being made freely available to prisoners."Party research also found that inmates in HMP Erlestoke in Wiltshire are able to borrow books including Nine Lives by Bill Mason, subtitled "confessions of a master jewel thief", Charles Bronson's memoir Bronson, Pretty Boy by Roy Shaw and Dennis Stafford's Fun-loving Criminal, subtitled "the autobiography of a gentleman gangster".Gloucester Prison library, meanwhile, stocks Gitta Sereny's Cries Unheard: the story of Mary Bell, Charlie Kray's Doing the Business and former gangster Dave Courtney's Dodgy Dave's Little Black Book.

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Francisco Velasco Delgado is being questioned by prosecutors in the AG office's organized-crime division.

Francisco Velasco Delgado is being questioned by prosecutors in the AG office's organized-crime division.They said prosecutors planned to ask a federal judge to allow them to hold the police chief without bail.Retired Gen. Mauro Enrique Tello Quiñones, 63, was found dead last week inside a van on the Cancun-Merida highway together with army Lt. Gertulio Cesar Roman Zuñiga and a civilian, Juan Dominguez Sanchez

."The result of the autopsy shows that they were tortured before being riddled with bullets,"

the Quintana Roo state Attorney General's Office said.Velasco's arrest followed the arrival at police headquarters in the municipality of Benito Juarez, which includes Cancun, of some 25 soldiers who locked down the station for about an hour Monday morning.Before he was taken into custody, Velasco told reporters the soldiers were conducting a routine inventory and inspection of police weapons and that the military presence did not mean the army was taking charge of public safety in Cancun, as it did earlier in violence-wracked Tijuana, which lies near San Diego, California.Tello Quiñones, who served as military attache at the Mexican Embassy in Spain and as commander of the military zone of the western state of Michoacan, was laid to rest with full military honors after a ceremony attended by Mexican President Felipe Calderon.The mayor of Benito Juarez, Gregorio Sanchez, said that Velasco was "comparing information" with federal prosecutors, and named Gumercindo Jimenez Cuervo acting police chief.Since taking office in December 2006, Calderon has deployed more than 30,000 soldiers and federal police to nearly a dozen of Mexico's 31 states in a bid to stem the wave of mainly drug-related violence blamed for more than 8,000 deaths over the past two years.
The anti-drug operation, however, has failed to put a dent in the violence due, according to experts, to drug cartels' ability to buy off the police and even high-ranking prosecutors.

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Joaquin "Shorty" Guzman, has declared war .Bodies were strewn across the desert outside the nearby town of Villa Ahumada

Mexican soldiers fought gun battles with drug cartel hitmen near the U.S. border on Tuesday after gangsters abducted local police in violence that killed 21 people, including an army sergeant.Soldiers pursued the hitmen through freezing desert in the northern state of Chihuahua after they dragged nine people, including some police, out of houses and shot six of them at a ranch in the early hours of Tuesday, the army said.Heavily armed soldiers burst into the ranch, near the Texan border, and shot dead several of the hitmen, later chasing another group by helicopter before killing them too, army spokesman Enrique Torres said from the area.

"The bodies were strewn across the desert outside the nearby town of Villa Ahumada," said Torres.

It was one of the bloodiest scenes this year in a spiraling drug war that killed more than 5,700 people across Mexico in 2008.
President Felipe Calderon deployed the army and federal police to tackle drug violence at the end of 2006, triggering a series of vicious turf battles. Daylight shootouts are on the rise in northern border cities.Chihuahua state and its main border city Ciudad Juarez have become the deadliest flashpoints in the drug war as cartels fight over trafficking routes into Texas and murder police accused of working for rival gangs.Residents in Villa Ahumada, a cattle ranching community in the state, said they saw a convoy of SUVs ride through the snow-covered town before dawn on Tuesday and several people were abducted from their homes. Some people later heard shots in the countryside.
"People are really afraid of a revenge attack by hitmen after this violence," a local journalist who asked not to be named told Reuters from Villa Ahumada.More than 2,000 of the drug war deaths recorded last year were in Chihuahua state, including the murder of 13 people at a party in August.The presence of more than 3,000 troops and federal police in Chihuahua has done nothing to contain the violence. Ciudad Juarez, a manufacturing city in the desert across from El Paso, Texas, has seen beheadings, daily shootouts and a surge in kidnappings and extortion.Mexico's army and drug trade analysts say the country's most-wanted man, Joaquin "Shorty" Guzman, has declared war on Chihuahua's drug baron Vicente Carrillo Fuentes, and the Gulf cartel based around the Gulf of Mexico has joined the fight.

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"Whitey" Bulger.on the run for 14 years wanted for the murders of 19 people.

"Whitey" Bulger. Bulger has been on the run for 14 years wanted for the murders of 19 people. F.B.I.doubling the reward for information leading to his capture to $2 million.Bulger, the former head of the notorious Winter Hill Gang and an FBI informant, fled in January 1995 after being tipped by a former Boston FBI agent that he was about to be indicted on federal racketeering charges. He was later charged in connection with 19 murders.The FBI announced the new reward on Wednesday with federal prosecutors, state police and state prisons officials. Bulger , on the FBI's "Ten Most Wanted" list, provided the FBI with information on his gang's main rival, the New England mob, in an era when bringing down the Mafia was one of the bureau's top national priorities.Authorities say that the last credible siting of Bulger was in London back in 2002. Bulger sits next to Osama Bin Laden on the FBI's ten most wanted list. On Tuesday, special agents from Boston flew to Washington to meet with members of the foreign press, trying to generate an international buzz about the 79 year-old gangster.Authorities are hoping someone will recognize Bulger or his travelling companion Catherine Greig and contact them. Bulger is considered a source of embarrassment for the FBI after it was revealed the South Boston gangster had a cozy relationship with FBI agent John Connolly. Bulger and his crew continued to commit crimes during the ‘80s and ‘90s all while under the protection of the feds as a government informant.Connolly is now serving ten years in a federal prison for tipping off Bulger to a pending indictment. The government is offering a $2 million dollar reward for the fugitive’s capture.

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Casalesi Clan operating in the southern part of Lazio, illegally acquiring numerous commercial activities, mostly car dealers

mafia group, connected to the Casalesi Clan was discovered after two years of investigation by the Roman branch of the Carabinieri. The criminal organisation was operating in the southern part of Lazio, illegally acquiring numerous commercial activities, mostly car dealers, that were gathering enormous patrimonies. 40 arrest warrants were released form people accused of association with the mafia, money laundering, fraud, extortion, falsified invoices, tax evasion worth millions of Euros and fraudulent transfer of goods. Over 500 agents from the Carabinieri were involved in the investigation in the provinces of Rome, Latina, Frosinone and Caserta. Numerous seizures are in progress in different areas of Italy and abroad of goods and businesses controlled by the criminal organisation worth over 80 million Euros.

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Stephen Corso will live the rest of his life with a target on his back

Accountant Stephen Corso was in deep trouble. His clients, including longtime friends, told federal authorities in Connecticut in 2002 that he had stolen more than $5 million.Then the Ridgefield man who loved to gamble took the biggest risk of his life: He decided to become an FBI informant in Las Vegas, known as an open city because the Mafia felt it could operate freely.Corso’s fateful decision came as federal agents in New York were struggling to build a case against two former police detectives long suspected of collaborating with the mob. Investigators were dealing with uncooperative witnesses and a statute of limitations.After a secret meeting with an FBI agent at a hotel, Corso was fitted with a wire and went to work taping conversations of suspected mobsters from around the country. He would spend years recording conversations on more than 900 tapes as he lived a transient life sleeping on the couches of friends, including what authorities called some unsavory characters.“We came across anything and everything,” said FBI agent Kevin Sheehan.
Soon Corso was introduced to Louis Eppolito, one of the detectives suspected of carrying out mob hits.“It was divine intervention,” Robert Henoch, a former New York prosecutor who handled the case, said at Corso’s sentencing Tuesday when he received a year in prison. Or maybe it was dumb luck, he added.Either way, Corso began to fill in the holes in the case. The former detective bragged about dunking someone’s head in acid and threatened to decapitate another person, Henoch said.At one point, Corso was threatened with execution if he turned out to be an informant, authorities said. He had no backup as he secretly recorded the conversations.
“I don’t think he would have lived too long in Las Vegas or anywhere,” Sheehan said.
Corso offered the detectives drug money to finance a film project at a 2004 meeting in Las Vegas. Eppolito, a decorated former detective and son of a mobster, was living in Las Vegas and trying to peddle screenplays and was unconcerned about the source of the cash.Eppolito and the other detective, Stephen Caracappa, were accused of participating in eight mob-related killings between 1986 and 1990 while working for the Luchese crime family in one of the worst cases of police corruption in New York history.A New York jury found the detectives guilty in 2006, but a judge dismissed their racketeering case after determining the statute of limitations had passed on the slayings. A federal appeals court later reinstated the verdict after prosecutors argued that the murders were part of a conspiracy that lasted through a drug deal in 2005 with Corso.“There never would have been justice without Mr. Corso’s cooperation,” Henoch said.Corso’s intelligence led to other prosecutions and saved investigators millions of dollars, authorities said.Authorities said they offered to put Corso in a witness protection program, but he declined because he would not be able to see his wife and three children.Corso, who faced the possibility of more than seven years in prison but won the reduced sentence for his extraordinary cooperation, is scheduled to surrender May 6.Susan Patrick, whose family lost more than $800,000 to Corso, said he was a family friend before the thefts. Corso has been ordered to pay restitution to the Patricks and other victims.
“This started a six-year nightmare,” she said at his sentencing. “We will never be whole for our losses. I don’t believe Mr. Corso is at all sorry.”Corso, who apologized to the victims and his family, said at the time that he ripped off millions from his clients to finance a life of “girlfriends, jewelry and going out.” Prosecutors say he also had significant gambling losses while living a second life in Las Vegas.Corso told the judge his parents were first-generation Italian immigrants who struggled so that he could have a better life. His family, who helped pay for his education at New York University, hated the mob, he said.“And I threw it all away,” Corso said. “I simply lost the way I was raised, how I was raised, but I know for the last six years I functioned and there was never a moment, never a second, that I ever considered doing anything wrong.”Authorities say Corso remains in danger because of his cooperation with them.“Mr. Corso will live the rest of his life with a target on his back,” said his attorney, J. Bruce Maffeo.

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Deadly shootouts between police and organised crime gangs are now a defining feature of police work and life in South Africa.

New war on the streets. Deadly shootouts between police and organised crime gangs are now a defining feature of police work and life in South Africa.In the past two weeks in and around Durban, more than 16 criminal suspects, and an innocent bystander, it seems, have been killed in shootouts with police, bringing to the fore the use of deadly force in apprehending suspects.Do these incidents reflect a new, tougher, if not gung-ho approach to combating crime? Have some policemen interpreted too literally the recent shoot-to-kill utterances of some leading politicians?
'Mkhize opened fire when police tried to pull his car over' And how do we know that vital witnesses are not being deliberately taken out by cops on the take? These are just some of the questions various commentators, including violence monitor Mary de Haas, are asking in the wake of yet another suspect killed in Durban this week.
Police said former Maphumulo taxi boss Bongani Mkhize, 44, had been "positively linked" to the recent murder of inkosi Mbongeleni Zondi in Umlazi, and had opened fire when police tried to pull his car over. He was killed when police returned fire.
The Mercury disclosed this week that Mkhize had applied to the Durban High Court in October last year for an interdict restraining police from "killing, injuring, threatening, harassing or in any way intimidating" him.In applying for this order, Mkhize claimed he was being sought by the organised crime unit in connection with the murder of Kranskop policeman Supt Zethembe Chonco.At the time seven other suspects wanted for Chonco's murder had been killed in separate incidents, either allegedly resisting arrest or while accompanying police on investigations.
Police consider the Chonco murder case closed, with all suspects killed, but could there be a link between the Chonco case and Zondi's murder?Head of the provincial organised crime unit, Johan Booysen, would not elaborate on this, but said two suspects in the Zondi murder were in custody, and one had made a full confession.
The day before Zondi's murder, five alleged criminals died in a shootout on the N3 near Camperdown after police received a tip-off about nine men headed to Pietermaritzburg to commit a robbery.Ordered to pull over at a roadblock, the suspects opened fire on the police, who returned fire in self-defence, killing five men, said SAPS spokesperson Director Phindile Radebe."This serves as a warning to everybody that the police are serious about fighting fire with fire," responded KwaZulu-Natal Safety and Security MEC Bheki Cele.Since then another 11 suspects have been gunned down in separate incidents in and around Durban, described as "Wild West-style" clashes.In reality, though, such shootouts bear little resemblance to the Wild West.

They are more violent, involving sub-machine guns, AK47s, R4 rifles, hijacked vehicles, criminal syndicates operating with military-style efficiency and elite police units often operating undercover.

"Indeed, it is a war out there," said Institute for Security Studies (ISS) director Johan Burger.Burger said the number of suspects killed had risen significantly recently, as had the number of policemen killed.He said this was despite the actual number of attacks on police having decreased over the past few years.He said concerns that police had become "trigger happy" were understandable, but needed to be seen in the context of the dangers of combating organised crime, and legislation governing use of deadly force."The legislation is very clear. Police can shoot to kill to protect lives, but any incident where police do kill someone is independently investigated by the Independent Complaints Directorate (ICD), irrespective of the circumstances."Burger said he shared editors' concerns that "shoot-to-kill" rhetoric from politicians might have led to a perception that police were "protected and entitled to use more force than they were legally entitled to"."If they are implying that the police must use deadly force when justified, that's fine, but when it is interpreted by police on the ground that they have wider authority to use more force than legally empowered, it becomes very dangerous."He said incidents where police did shoot to kill also needed to be balanced against the realities of crime in South Africa, particularly the fact that criminal gangs had becoming organised, dangerous, and prepared to kill.
Burger said it was a fallacy that police had to wait until they were being shot at before resorting to deadly force."The moment they judge that their lives are in danger, or members of public are threatened, they are entitled to shoot to kill," said Burger.And it's happening - a new era in the war on crime has begun. Who is winning remains to be seen.

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Vancouver-area gang wars gained national attention in October 2007, when two innocent bystanders were murdered along with four men with gang ties

Six shootings in six days have prompted British Columbia's attorney general to appeal to the public for help in stemming the gang violence plaguing Vancouver-area streets.Wally Oppal said members of the public have a large part to play in ending the gang strife behind the six shootings - four of them fatal."We're very concerned, very, very concerned with what's going on," Oppal told reporters in Victoria on Monday."The fact is we've got a number of factors at play; One, you have a public out there that apparently wants drugs. Drugs are illegal. They are not governed by any laws, so you have a bunch of outlaws out there who are selling drugs. They are fighting for territory."Oppal said the police need the public to come forward with information instead of clamming up about the outlaw gangs that are fighting a deadly turf war on the streets of Metro Vancouver."The police go to these scenes and they get no help from anybody," he said."There are people out there who know what's happening. People out there who are privy to information, yet nobody goes to help the police. Everybody abides by this code of silence."The gang war has been going on for years but the latest carnage began a week ago when a man was found shot dead in an apartment in Surrey.Within 24 hours another man was gunned down while in his truck at a busy mall in Surrey, while a woman was found shot to death in her pick up truck in Coquitlam.Then on Friday a man was shot in his truck at a mall in Langley. He died over the weekend.It appears most, if not all, of the shootings were gang-or drug-related, although a shooting in Coquitlam on Saturday that left a man wounded was a robbery.The sixth shooting happened Sunday night and targeted a man on Vancouver's west side, with one report suggesting the victim had gang ties.Over the last couple of years the area has seen dozens of gang-related shootings, including brazen daylight attacks in crowded public places.The murder in the mall parking lot in Langley took place during the day, and a stray bullet shattered the window of one nearby vehicle.The Vancouver-area gang wars gained national attention in October 2007, when two innocent bystanders were murdered along with four men with gang ties in a Surrey apartment building.Oppal said the government, from Premier Gordon Campbell on down, is concerned about rising gang violence in British Columbia."We all need to get involved. We have to take back the streets from these people who are out there." We need to help the police."

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Sara Vandeneynde said yesterday that she narrowly escaped death after being shot in the neck by a U.S. deputy marshal

Sara Vandeneynde said yesterday that she narrowly escaped death after being shot in the neck by a U.S. deputy marshal, who had been hit by a car driven by a wanted man.
Deputy Marshal Rodney Hartzell stopped a vehicle driven by Terry Moll, 33, of 18 City Park Ave., Apt. 45, at East Broadway and Starr Avenue about 6 p.m. Wednesday and ordered him out of the car at gunpoint, authorities said.Moll fled and struck Mr. Hartzell with his car. Ms. Vandeneynde was in the passenger's seat.The federal officer then fired a shot through the driver's side window, striking Ms. Vandeneynde in the neck, authorities said."I felt like I wasn't going to make it," Ms. Vandeneynde, 22, said from her hospital bed at St. Vincent Mercy Medical Center, where she remained in fair condition last night.Mr. Hartzell hurt his knee when he was knocked to the ground by the car. He was treated at St. Vincent.

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Gun madness is gripping Jamaica

Gun madness is gripping Jamaica, with 61 murders recorded in the 34 days already gone this year. The last six murders were committed within a ten-hour span yesterday.
The latest murder victims have been identified as: Joel Victor, 22; Keon Murphy, 29; Denver Massiah, 30; Kevon Henry, 21; Jean Paul Pierre, 25, and Kenneth Chandler, 41.
The rampant murders this year, come as a slap to the face of National Security Minister Martin Joseph, who during a recent post-Cabinet press conference, confidently assured the nation that TT would not see a repeat of 2008, the year when the all-time murder record of 545 was set. If the current rate of almost two murders a day continues, the 2008 record would easily be surpassed. Pressed for comment on the murders, Joseph yesterday said: “I remain committed to ensuring that law enforcement will do all in its power to ensure the homicide figures will change in 2009”. The latest killing spree began at about 5 am yesterday when an acquaintance of Joel Victor went to a house in St Barb’s, Laventille and found a door to the back broken down. The man later discovered the bullet-riddled bodies of Victor and Keon Murphy on a bed. Up to late last night, investigators said they had no motive for this double-murder. Also at 5 am, an off-duty police officer discovered the body of ‘PH’ driver Denver Massiah of Upper Dundonald Hill, Long Circular Road, St James, lying in a track near his (Massiah) home with gunshot wounds to the head and hand. Police are unsure if Massiah was killed where he was found or if he was killed elsewhere and dumped there. Two hours later, at 7 am, residents of St Augustine Terrace in Diego Martin found the body of Kevon Henry of Mercer Street, Diego Martin on the roadside. Henry who was shot multiple times, was well-known to the police.

Three and a half hours later, at about 10.30 am, 24-year-old delivery truck driver Jean Paul Pierre who worked with LJ Williams Ltd, was shot and killed outside Chang Su Young Mini Mart at Tenth Avenue in Barataria, while off-loading goods from the delivery truck.

Pierre of Morne Diablo Road in Penal, was accosted by a gunman who opened fire before running off. Police believe this was a case of a failed robbery. His relative, Shelly Ann Paul-Huddling said Pierre began working with LJ Williams two months ago and left home at about 4 am everyday in order to get to work on time.
Paul-Huddling said the family was very traumatised by Pierre’s violent death and she wondered aloud what was this country coming to. “Life is no longer respected...the innocent ones are being killed,” she cried. In the final incident, at about 2.40 pm, Kenneth Chandler of Building II, Apartment 3-1, Laventille went to a mechanic shop at Reyes Road near Wharton Street in Laventille to have his vehicle repaired.
Without warning, a man walked up to Chandler and shot him several times before running off. The police were called in and officers took Chandler to Port-of-Spain General Hospital where he was pronounced dead-on-arrival. Police sources said no autopsies were carried out at the Forensic Science Centre in St James yesterday which means today will be an extremely busy day at Forensic with autopsies on at least eight murder victims (six from yesterday and two from over the weekend) being scheduled to be carried out.

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Two gunmen opened fire inside a crowded coffee shop, killing one man and wounding six others

Police on Friday sought two gunmen who opened fire inside a crowded coffee shop, killing one man and wounding six others, several critically, in a suspected gang-related revenge attack. Sheriff Lee Baca said it appeared the masked gunmen were targeting a specific person. "The manner in which it was done suggests it was a payback situation or a revenge situation," Baca said. "They had a specific person they were trying to shoot." Sheriff's officials said it did not appear to be a robbery because the shooters opened fire immediately and did not demand money. "The preliminary investigation would lead homicide detectives to believe this is gang-related," sheriff's spokesman Steve Whitmore said. The shop was crowded with at least 40 people when the attack occurred late Thursday, but deputies were having a hard time finding witnesses. "We know people saw something," Whitmore said. "And we need them to come forward and help us solve this crime." The Coffee House cafe is located in a strip mall along a busy street about 20 miles east of Los Angeles. A Chinese bakery, foot massage parlor and Vietnamese restaurant are nearby. An initial report by authorities said two people had died in the attack, but Whitmore said only one was dead. The victim's identity was not immediately released. Two of the wounded people were taken to hospitals in critical condition, authorities said.
Four people who appeared to work at the cafe declined to speak to a reporter as they mopped up pools of blood and swept away blood-soaked playing cards and glass from a smashed table top. Owners and customers at surrounding businesses were reluctant to discuss the attack. Some said they did not speak English. One person, who asked to remain anonymous because of fear of retaliation, said the shop was a popular nighttime hangout for young people, and police had been called there in the past.
The shop's surveillance cameras were not working properly and did not record the attack, San Gabriel police Sgt. Rene Hernandez said.

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Man was shot dead in a liquor store parking lot Friday night

About 8:30 p.m., a 36-year-old man was shot in the face outside the Glass House Party Supply liquor store, 2547 N Cincinnati Ave. The man, whose name was not released Friday night, was pronounced dead at the scene, police said. A witness told police that three men ran from the scene and that the shooter ditched a hooded shirt and a handgun in front of a house before running inside it. Police took three people from a nearby house into custody and recovered the shirt and gun, authorities said.
One of the people taken into custody matched the description of the shooter "to a T,” said Tulsa police Capt. Shawn King."We’re pretty certain that we do have the shooters in custody,” King said of the arrests.Officers were having crowd-control issues at the crime scene, as about two dozen onlookers and distraught family members stood in the parking lot where the shooting occurred, some going beyond the crime-scene tape.

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Police shot and killed a gunman early Friday morning

Reginald Bernard Smith, 27, of Fort Valley, died on the scene after police responded to a large fight at the restaurant at 2:18 a.m. Smith had a gun and was described by police as an “active shooter.” Police shot and killed a gunman early Friday morning outside the Waffle House at 1287 S. Houston Lake Road. An autopsy showed that Smith was shot multiple times by both officers involved in the shooting, according to a Warner Robins police news release issued late Friday afternoon. Police declined to release the exact number of times Smith was shot.The fatal shot was in the upper torso, the release said.At a news conference earlier Friday, Warner Robins Police Chief Brett Evans said the shooting stemmed from a fight inside the restaurant during which a gun was pulled. There were visible signs inside the restaurant that a fight had taken place before the altercation moved outside, he said.Two responding city police officers heard shots fired and went around the back of the restaurant, confronting the gunman, Evans said.Evans said he could not say whether a verbal command was given by police to the gunman before he was shot. The chief said it was a matter of seconds between when the officers heard at least two shots fired by the gunman and when police fired.One officer was armed with a rifle and the other with a handgun, he said.Police do not know how many people were involved in the altercation with Smith, and the person or people involved may have fled before police arrived, Evans said.Evans declined to release the names of the officers. One officer is a one-year member of the force, and the other has been with the department for three years, Evans said. The department has launched an internal investigation, which is standard policy in a lethal-force incident, Warner Robins police Maj. John Wagner said in an interview outside of the news conference. The officers are on paid administrative leave pending the completion of the internal investigation, Evans said. A separate criminal investigation is also being conducted into the general incident itself, he said.Because of the nature of the incident, Wagner said, officers responded from the sheriff’s offices in Houston and Peach counties and the cities of Centerville, Perry and Fort Valley. However, the two responding Warner Robins police officers were the only officers on scene when the shooting happened, Evans said.In an interview outside of the news conference, Warner Robins police Lt. Chris Rooks estimated it would take at least two days to interview all the people who were on scene when police arrived. Evans estimated the crowd at 50 to 75 people.
The restaurant was closed Friday.The last fatal shooting involving Warner Robins police was Jan. 16, 2008, when a suspected armed robber was shot and killed during a holdup of the Food Lion at 2607 Moody Road.Leon Stafford, 38, of 266 Forest Ave., Macon, was shot once in the side after he opened fire on law enforcement officers inside the grocery store, police said.An internal Warner Robins police investigation found that the officer was justified in using deadly force. Houston County District Attorney Kelly Burke upheld those findings.

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Tina Lester was arrested Friday on suspicion of first-degree murder in the death of 36-year-old Ronald Schlatter of LaPorte, Colo.

65-year-old woman wanted in a 1968 slaying in Denver has been arrested in Dayton, Ohio. where police say she's been living under an alias.Denver police spokeswoman Sharon Avendano says Tina Lester was arrested Friday on suspicion of first-degree murder in the death of 36-year-old Ronald Schlatter of LaPorte, Colo.According to a Denver Post article from the time, Schlatter was playing pool at the Blue Chip Bar on Nov. 8, 1968, when he and Lester got into a scuffle.Lester allegedly pulled out a gun and shot Schlatter in the chest. Witnesses told police Schlatter grabbed the gun and fired at Lester as she fled. He then collapsed and died.Avendano says Denver's homicide unit obtained a warrant for Lester's arrest in 1968 and has been looking for her since.

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It is not unusual for one gun to be used in one member state or territory for one crime, and then show up in another member state for another crime

In Trinidad, 544 people were murdered last year and official statistics show that 295, or 54.2 per cent, were killed as a result of gang-related activities involving the use of firearms.

Figures are staggering. About half a billion small arms are in use around the world and nearly half a million people are killed by them annually.For Caribbean countries, such as Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago (T&T), where more than 100 people have so far been murdered in January, the illicit trade in small arms is especially worrying.“It is not unusual for one gun to be used in one member state or territory for one crime, and then show up in another member state for another crime,” said Lynne Anne Williams, executive director of the Trinidad-based Implementation Agency for Crime and Security (IMPACS).“Sometimes, there is connectivity between the victims and the perpetrators of the crime and we have not been able to aggressively pursue those links,” she said.Both the Jamaican and T&T governments have linked the illicit gun trade to illegal drugs, identifying Colombia, Haiti, Honduras and Venezuela as countries from which sophisticated small arms find their way into the local markets.Martin Joseph, chair of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Council of Ministers responsible for national security and law enforcement, said that in a significant number of cases, there is a correlation between the illegal narcotics trade and that of the illegal trade in small arms and light weapons.

“These weapons are used to protect contraband goods, intimidate users and competitors, protect turf, coerce recruits into gangs, maintain discipline within these gangs and to execute those who threaten to curtail the lifeline of the trade,” said Joseph, who is also T&T’s national security minister.

Joseph said that gun-related violence was also weighing down public-health systems, as well as creating social and economic problems for many CARICOM states.In its 2007 report, Crime, Violence, and Development: Trends, Costs, and Policy Options in the Caribbean, the World Bank said that “the high rates of crime and violence in the Caribbean are undermining growth, threatening human welfare, and impeding social development”.Last year, the United Nations (UN) called on the Jamaican Government to institute strict gun-control regulations as a means of stemming the heavy inflow of guns and ammunition into the island. In Trinidad and Tobago, Joseph told Parliament recently that “we had a situation in 2008 that was totally unacceptable in terms of homicide”.A recently commissioned UN report on the impact of small arms on children and adolescents in Central America and the Caribbean said illegal arms dealers earn millions in foreign exchange annually from the deadly trade.“Small arms are widely available in the region, and the trade in arms is highly lucrative, with US$3.5-US$10.1 million for the legal trade and much more for the illegal trade,” the report said.According to the report, Latin America and the Caribbean account for 42 per cent of all homicides globally, and this region has “the highest rate of armed violence in the world”.Figures released by the Jamaican police indicate that between January 1, 2005 and May 31 last year, 5,068 people were murdered. Of that number, 78 per cent were killed with a gun. More than 2,000 others were shot and injured during the same period.Three years ago, Caribbean governments agreed to the formation of IMPACS. Now the agency is developing a regional integrated ballistic information network (RIBIN) to help member states combat the illicit trade in small arms and light weapons and the crimes involved in their use.“The rise in gun-related crimes in the region is indeed a troubling aspect of our current reality,” Joseph told a meeting of firearm examiners and ballistic experts from the region in Port-of-Spain last month. “Virtually every member state of CARICOM is being afflicted by this scourge.”“In 2000, firearms were responsible for less than one-third of all homicides in many CARICOM states. However, by May 2006, gun-related crimes accounted for over 70 per cent of criminal activity. Illicit firearms are now a significant aspect of a growing culture of violence within the region,” Joseph said.Williams said that the meeting, which allowed the high-level delegations to further formulate plans for RIBIN, represented an important step forward “and a concrete example of how we are working to improve investigative and prosecutorial capacity to support law enforcement”.RIBIN is intended to support Caribbean territories that lack the forensic technology to identify the “fingerprint” of the ammunition used in a crime and to record the details about the firearm used.“There are three or four member states that own such systems and we are seeking to establish at least one or two systems in strategic locations across the region where member states that do not have resources to have their own system can have access to a system,” Williams said.She said the initiative would allow for greater cooperation with countries like the United States and Canada.Washington has already warned Jamaica, where 1,611 people were murdered last year, that the high crime rate was affecting businesses and that it could impact negatively on investments.Karen Hilliard, the United States Agency for International Development mission director to Jamaica, said data from a World Bank report showed that small companies in Jamaica spent, on average, 17 per cent of their annual revenue on security costs.
“This is alarmingly comparable to an approximate 23 per cent spent by small firms in war-torn Iraq,” Hilliard said.The World Bank study indicated that the costs of crime totalled five per cent of Jamaica’s gross domestic product and the World Bank’s Doing Business Report 2009 gave Jamaica a ranking of 63 out of 181 economies assessed, showing a minimal decline from 62 in the 2008 report.

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Most feared gangsters in Edmonton, a high-ranking lieutenant in Redd Alert with the street name Crewboss.

Most feared gangsters in Edmonton, a high-ranking lieutenant in Redd Alert with the street name Crewboss. Now he's a bedridden paraplegic living in a city hospital, the victim of a vicious swarming by his own gang that put him in a coma for weeks.
"For the past two years, he's just been lying here like this," says his older brother, Andrew Reid. "He's not getting any physical therapy. They told me he's too violent to work with, but look at him. What could he possibly do?" A spokesman for the hospital (the location won't be revealed for security reasons) was not able to explain yesterday why Sinclair has languished there for two and a half years, at an estimated cost of $1,400 per day. Sinclair's feet, legs and right arm are slowly bending and twisting as his muscles atrophy. He has only partial use of his left hand and he's subject to involuntary ticks and twitches. Reid, 51, who helped raise his brother, wants Sinclair to get some therapy so some day he will be well enough to move out of Edmonton, change his identity and start life over away from gangs.
"If we can get him in a wheelchair, we can take care of him," Reid said. "They could still come after him and finish him off." "I want to work," Sinclair says with a broad smile and thumbs-up. Reid gives Sinclair a hug. "He was such a happy kid, always smiling. And funny. He loved to laugh." Things began to unravel, Reid says, when Sinclair fell in with a rough crowd as a teenager. At age 22, he was sentenced to eight years in prison for aggravated assault for a fight in Boyle, 100 km north of Edmonton. He was sent to the maximum-security Edmonton Institution, home to some of the most dangerous criminals in Canada. "I knew it was going to be bad for him," Reid says. "I warned him. Keep your head down and stay away from the gangs."
Six years into his sentence, Sinclair called Reid to proudly tell him he had joined Redd Alert and was moving up the ranks. "He was really pleased with himself," Reid recalls. "Things just kept getting worse after that." In 2004, Sinclair was charged in connection with a brutal robbery of a 77-year-old man lured to a downtown apartment by a prostitute. Sinclair was accused of waiting at the apartment, then pulling a gun on the victim and smashing out his teeth with it until the man gave up his bank card and PIN number. Sinclair was in the Edmonton Remand Centre waiting for his trial on those charges in May 2006 when he was swarmed by up to 10 other Redd Alert members. Reid says they wanted to get rid of Sinclair because someone wanted to take over his position in the gang hierarchy. "He wanted out anyway," says Reid.
According to testimony at three of his attackers' trial, Sinclair got into a fight with Johnny Jacknife, another RA member. It was broken up but later flared up again in Sinclair's cell. Two more men joined in and Sinclair was knocked to the ground. Several others streamed into the cell and kicked him while he lay unconscious.
Sinclair was rushed to hospital, where he clung to life with a severe brain injury. He's been in hospitals ever since. The charges in connection with the robbery were stayed. "Now he's stuck here in limbo," Reid says. "Maybe if we can get him well enough, he can still make something of himself. All that time he spent in jail just made him angrier and more violent. He's not the same guy. He wants to do something good." "I was bad," Sinclair says, giving another thumbs-up. "I'm not any more."

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sentenced James Marcello on Thursday after a federal jury held him responsible for the deaths of Tony "The Ant" Spilotro and his brother Michael.

Reputed Chicago mob boss convicted in the murders of the organization's Las Vegas link and the man's brother has been sentenced to life in prison.U.S. District Judge James B. Zagel sentenced James Marcello on Thursday after a federal jury held him responsible for the deaths of Tony "The Ant" Spilotro and his brother Michael. Tony was the inspiration for Joe Pesci's character in the movie "Casino."Marcello was convicted in September 2007 with four others in the landmark Operation Family Secrets trial.Zagel says Marcello had to pay for his crimes.Marcello declined to address the court before he was sentenced.Former police officer Anthony Doyle is the last defendant convicted at the trial who has yet to be sentenced.

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Genovese soldiers reportedly took over the businesses after the owners could make their payments on loansharking debts.

In the state of New York it has become common place to have police bust up mafia operations. It occurred again on Wednesday when thirteen alleged members of the Genovese crime family were charged with various crimes. Gambling, as it is in most mafia cases, was at the forefront of the charges. The indictment that was unsealed refers to the "operation of illegal gambling businesses." The men were also charged with extortion, narcotics trafficking, and loansharking. Of the thirteen people that were charged, six of them were arrested early Wednesday morning. The other seven were either in the process of turning themselves in or were already in custody from other charges. Among the arrests was a former acting boss for the Genovese crime family. Several of his soldiers were also picked up in the raid. Thomas Tassiello, another Genovese family member was charged in a separate indictment on charges of extortion and racketeering. The sting stems from the crime family shaking down local businesses, mainly bartending school owners in both Jersey City and Manhattan. Genovese soldiers reportedly took over the businesses after the owners could make their payments on loansharking debts.

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Daniel Rendon, known as Don Mario, has offered his gunmen nearly $1,000 US for every police officer they murder

Colombia's most-wanted drug lords has offered his gunmen nearly $1,000 US for every police officer they murder in a major coca-growing region, a senior official said on Friday.National police chief Gen. Oscar Naranjo said Daniel Rendon, known as Don Mario, had made the offer in a bid to halt police operations targeting his drug trafficking ring and coca crops in the hills of Antioquia province."When a criminal gives an order like Don Mario's, to pay two million pesos for the death of each and every one of my police officers, I know my officers are fulfilling their duties," Naranjo told local television.Colombia's most infamous drug lord Pablo Escobar, who was shot dead by security forces in 1993, used a similar strategy in the 1990s and his hired gunmen killed dozens of police officers in Medellin, Antioquia's main city.Rendon is one of the three most-wanted drug traffickers in the Andean country, the world's biggest cocaine producer, and authorities are offering a reward of up to $2.2 million for information leading to his capture.
He belonged to one of the paramilitary groups that began demobilizing after a 2003 peace deal with the government of President Alvaro Uribe, but he refused to confess his crimes as required under the accord and went into hiding.Early last year, Rendon's group kidnapped 25 men he had accused rivals of sending to kill him in a turf war.Uribe has sent troops to secure areas once controlled by armed groups and violence has ebbed, but leftist rebels and former paramilitaries still battle for control of the nation's vast cocaine trade.

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Genevese organized crime family arrested 13 alleged Mafia gangsters

Police in New York have arrested 13 alleged Mafia gangsters believed to be involved in various crimes including racketeering, extortion and cocaine distribution.Most detainees are suspected members of Genevese organized crime family.They are facing lengthy sentence if found guilty.The arrests, trials, inner bickering and turncoats in mafia organization, have weakened the five mafia crime families in New York, including the Bonnano, Colombo, Gambino, Genevese and Luchese.

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Jersey City police said that two teens were stabbed at the Newport Centre Mall

Jersey City police said that two teens were stabbed at the Newport Centre Mall Saturday night during a melee that involved at leat 18 persons and was reported to be a gang fight.Responding to a disturbance on the first floor of the mall around 8:53 p.m., police and mall security found a 15-year-old boy who had been stabbed in the stomach, reports said.Another juvenile, of unknown age, ran from the mall after being stabbed and went to the Jersey City Fire Department station on Marin Boulevard.
Firefighters said that he had stab wounds in the shoulder.Additional police units responded to the area and rounded up some of the teens.One of the victims told police that he was with three 15-year-old friends when around 15 males approached them. One youth wearing a ski mask and with his forearm in a cast asked if he was affiliated with a certain street gang and then stabbed him, reports said.

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Outlaw bikie gangs warring for dominance in the illegal drug market could be a motive for the bombing of a Sydney Hells Angels base

Outlaw bikie gangs warring for dominance in the illegal drug market could be a motive for the bombing of a Sydney Hells Angels base, police say.Officers said it was lucky no one was killed by the powerful explosion about 4am (NZ time) yesterday, which left sheets of roofing iron, rubble and shattered glass scattered across Crystal Street at Petersham.As investigators look into the bombing, police fear revenge attacks may follow."Tit-for-tat revenge attacks are not unknown obviously within outlaw motorcycle gangs," Gang Squad Detective Superintendent Mal Lanyon told reporters.Furthermore, he said investigating incidents which involved the gangs often proved difficult."One of the problems with investigating any outlaw motorcycle gang incident is the code of silence that operates within the actual gang structure itself," he said."People ... within gangs are reticent to come forward and provide information to the police and that's why we have to be dedicated and professional in the way we investigate so we can make arrests."Supt Lanyon said detectives were keeping an open mind about the motive for the bombing, but said involvement in the illicit drugs trade was a big part of bikie gang culture."There is obviously a large number of factors that may influence people or may influence other gangs to come in conflict, obviously drug supply and the proceeds from drug supply is something that fuels outlaw motorcycle gangs ... and that would certainly be a motive," he said.
Witnesses have told police they saw two men in a dark four-wheel drive leaving the scene of the bombing on Wednesday, Superintendent David Eardley said.Investigators are also looking at any links between the blast and shots fired into a nearby tattoo parlour."The cause of the explosion is still being determined, but we are satisfied it is as a result of a deliberate act," Supt Eardley told reporters.He was unclear about what role the Petersham building played in the Hells Angels operation and did not say what police had found inside the property."Whether it is the headquarters I'm not quite sure, but it is certainly a premises that's linked to the Hells Angels motorcycle group," Supt Eardley said."I believe it is a premises that has come under notice previously."Nearby resident Kenneth Goodman told News Ltd the explosion damaged windows in his building."I heard the four explosions which we figured were gunshots, then approximately two minutes after, we heard the loud explosion," he said."I came out, walked up the street and then saw all the glass, rubble and carnage, pieces of tin, all across the road."There was heaps of smoke. It smelt like a gun powder, plastic-like smell."Supt Eardley said he was concerned about the potential harm the explosion could have caused."It was probably by sheer luck that no person was killed in the incident ... that no innocent bystanders were killed," he said.

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