objective is to keep them (students) safe

Educational officials in the northeastern Mexican state of Tamaulipas authorized schools in the Gulf port of Tampico to end classes early amid growing gangland violence in the city, the municipal education chief said Thursday.

“The objective is to keep them (students) safe,” Lorena Vazquez told reporters.

She said the early dismissal policy will apply to at least 40 elementary schools in Tampico, where a score of people have died in Tampico over the past two weeks in shootouts, chases and murders-for-hire related to organized crime.

An ongoing turf war between the Gulf drug cartel and former allies Los Zetas has left hundreds dead across Tamaulipas, which borders Texas.

Read More

Sean Connery and Micheline Roquebrune’ fight in the Goldfinger case

Sean Connery and Micheline Roquebrune’ fight in the Goldfinger case, the Costa del Sol development deal of Casa Malibu, has taken an unlikely turn. Sean Connery is now ignoring summons to appear, claiming he is too old to travel. Yet, as the Telegraph reports, Sean Connery was not too old in June to fly to the Edinburgh Film Festival (and even dance for the cameras during a news briefing), and he was not too old to fly to New York in April.

The couple have been ordered to appear in a case dubbed the “Goldfinger” case. There are no beautiful ladies in this case, just beautiful real estate. And while the case has sparked international news coverage, the logic of the case remains baffling to U.S. fans. Connery, himself, is equally baffled why he is being bothered over real estate dealings for a former property.

Sean Connery and his wife bought Casa Malibu in 1975 after their wedding, 11 years after Goldfinger. Richard Burton, Michael Caine, Omar Shariff and George Best were among their guests at the famed home.

Then in 1999, the couple sold the property for £5.5 million. The developer tore down their house, and built 70 flats, eventually sold for £45 million. Investigators have since claimed there were
irregularities in the reclassification of the land by the buyer. Police raided the officer of Connery’s local attorney Diaz-Basten & Truan. Multiple local officials are under investigation. Connery now lives in the Bahamas and has an NYC apartment on the Upper East Side, reports the Telegraph.

A “court worker” issues the following news statement to the Daily Mirror that “Mr Connery has informed the court in writing he won’t be coming today. He has cited health reasons and his advanced age and said he has not been able to prepare the journey in time. The court is now considering its next move. The emission of an international arrest warrant is a possibility but a remote one. The most likely scenario is that the investigating magistrate will make a formal request through a rogatory commission to question Sir Sean at his home. The logistics of this will become clearer next week. It could be that a delegation goes to the Bahamas to quiz him. The other option would be that a team based locally is tasked to interview him.”

Connery’s wife has said of the matter “We have nothing to do with this. We sold the property and that is it.” Connery and his wife have not been charged with any crime. But prosecutors claim tax evasion and money-laundering operations were at play with their lawyers and local council of

Read More

Crown Currency Exchange collapses

Crown Currency Exchange collapses
Running: The BBC track down Benstead

We hate to say "told you so" but we're not surprised Peter Benstead's currency trading has ended in tears.

Last year we revealed how his Dream Island TV Productions was charging a £29.75 upfront fee to audition reality TV wannabes and, although the fee was later dropped, we can find no evidence of the show actually being made.

We've also reported that a ludicrous 0% commission deal for Benstead's Travel Money ­Services to provide currency exchange for Manchester United fans was scrapped.

Now another of his firms, Crown Currency Exchange, has gone belly up owing a reported £20m to 13,000 victims. The firm's based in Cornwall but Benstead, 67, lives in a nice country pile near Bergerac, France.





There was always an accident waiting to happen in the unregulated currency trading market where there are no rules on ring-fencing cash owed to customers who pre-book foreign currency, often months in advance.

Crown Currency's most recent accounts, signed off by director Edward James barely a month ago, show the firm was £188,000 in the red last November.

He and James, 70, a Tory ­councillor and the former mayor of Glastonbury, need to explain how things went from bad to disastrous in just 10 months.

Read More

Gang of seven violent British bank robbers arrested in Alicante

Gang of seven violent British bank robbers arrested in Alicante: "National Police have arrested seven members of a British gang of robbers who specialised in taking money from bank cash dispensing machines. They made their violent attacks on staff as they were refilling the machines, either attacking with large hammers from the street or inside. The thefts rarely lasted more than a minute in total.

The police first arrested two men who were caught ‘in fraganti’ when attacking a bank branch in Benissa, Alicante, and five more were arrested shortly afterwards at a petrol station at Torrente when they were trying to flee along the AP-7 motorway.

The Police say the group always chose banks where the dispenser was not built into the wall, and where it was placed in an entrance hall away from the main bank public customer room.

SOCA, the British serious organised crime agency has collaborated in the investigation, given that two of the accused already have European warrants issued against them after they had taken part in similar thefts in the U.K.

One of them, wanted for causing a fire which resulted in damage of more than a million pounds, escaped from a British police van which was assaulted on his way to court in Salford."

Read More

Bulgarian-born Dimitrov threaten to cut off the ears ,Eurasian syndicates target car dealers, credit cards in Las Vegas

Eurasian syndicates target car dealers, credit cards in Las Vegas - News - ReviewJournal.com: "FBI agents knew from the moment they began investigating Dimitar Dimitrov that he was not a typical criminal.
In secretly recorded conversations, they overheard the Bulgarian-born Dimitrov threaten to cut off the ears of a former associate and use them as cigarette holders. He also suggested tying a witness to a tree, pouring gasoline over him and then standing nearby with cigarettes and a lighter.Agents believe Dimitrov, a 58-year-old felon, is one of the leaders of a Bulgarian crime ring that defrauded local car dealers out of $1.6 million through an elaborate credit scheme and stole hundreds of thousands of dollars more from ATMs with the help of stolen PINs.
This is the new organized crime in Las Vegas, where running numbers and hustling high-interest loans on the street take a back seat to the art of the high-tech scam"

Read More

Death penalty ordered for killer of two in Harbor Gateway - latimes.com

Death penalty ordered for killer of two in Harbor Gateway - latimes.com: "Los Angeles jury ordered the death penalty Monday for a 22-year-old Latino gang member convicted in the hate-crime killing of a 14-year-old black girl and the stabbing death of a potential witness in the Harbor Gateway area.

Jonathan Fajardo, who was 18 at the time of the killings, nonchalantly looked around the courtroom as the verdict was read. The jury found that he should receive death for his first-degree murder convictions for the slayings of Cheryl Green and Christopher Ash.

Fajardo was eligible for the death penalty because the jury accepted special circumstance allegations including multiple murder, killing a witness, committing a hate crime based on race and committing the crime for a gang. Fajardo was a member of the 204th Street gang, which prosecutors said intimidated and attacked African Americans in Harbor Gateway."

Read More

Gang member convicted of murdering DePaul student :: CHICAGO SUN-TIMES :: Chicago Crime

Gang member convicted of murdering DePaul student :: CHICAGO SUN-TIMES :: Chicago Crime: "22-year-old gang member was convicted Tuesday of murdering DePaul University student Francisco “Frankie” Valencia outside a Halloween party in Logan Square last year.
“Without Berly Valladares, this tragedy wouldn’t have happened,” Assistant Cook County State’s Attorney Mark Shlifka said in his closing arguments. Valladares also was convicted of aggravated battery with a firearm for the shooting of Valencia’s girlfriend Daisy Camacho, who was also wounded in the gangway outside the party in the 1700 block of North Rockwell."

Read More

Gang member gets 20 to 40 years for Pittston homicide - News - Citizens Voice

Gang member gets 20 to 40 years for Pittston homicide - News - Citizens Voice: "robbery that turned deadly landed Sinard Ballard 20 to 40 years in prison, punishment for the Philadelphia gang member who arranged the botched crime from a jail phone.
Luzerne County Senior Judge Chester B. Muroski levied the sentence upon Ballard on Tuesday, the culmination of a July plea agreement in which Ballard pleaded guilty to third-degree homicide and robbery in connection with the October 2007 fatal shooting of 19-year-old John Johnson.
While in jail on drug and weapons possession charges, Ballard arranged for Marcellus Thomas to rob Jason Paglianite of Pittston, apparent retribution for a previous robbery in which Ballard said Paglianite stole heroin and cash from his girlfriend, Corissa Breznay. He offered the 21-year-old Thomas of Philadelphia up to $1,500 for the mission and arranged for Breznay to provide him a handgun, prosecutors said."

Read More