United States of Europe

On Bank Holiday Monday 29 May 2006,Leon Johnson flew into Liverpool airport and, together with others, drove into the middle of a Caribbean festival which was taking place in Broadfield Park, Moss Side. Within minutes a shooting occurred between rival gangs, including Johnson. SOCU officers who witnessed the incident were able to provide vital evidence. After a joint investigation between Lancashire Constabulary and GMP Johnson was arrested and charged with serious firearms offences. "a leading light in a gang of armed thugs" has today been jailed for firearms offences. The judge at Manchester Crown Court directed that the custodial period for Leon Johnson, of Annis Street, Preston, should be nine years and eight months. It comes after Lancashire police carried out a covert investigation into gun crime across Preston. Operation Decathlon was set up in February 2006 by officers from Lancashire Constabulary's Serious and Organised Crime Unit (SOCU) who targeted 30 year old...

Ruben "Nite Owl" Castro, 46, a leader of the Mexican Mafia prison gang who authorities said controlled the two cliques of the 18th Street gang targeted in the indictment, the Shatto Park Locos and the Hoover Locos. Castro allegedly ran the enterprise from the Administrative Maximum facility in Florence, Colo., where he is serving a life term after being convicted on similar gang racketeering charges in 1997. With the highest level of security in the nation, the Supermax houses Unabomber Theodore Kaczynski, shoe-bomber Richard Reid and 9/11 plotter Zacarias Moussaoui. Under constant surveillance, Castro had to use cryptic phone conversations and hidden messages to get his directives to his deputies on the streets, who are described in court papers as "shot callers." At least two letters seized by the FBI were scrawled in thick pencil marks, which when erased revealed tiny messages written with a fine-point pen. "We have a couple letters with significant messages...

According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Federal authorities have charged the leader and 13 members of a South Florida street gang for organized crime. those charged are members of the gang called Neighborhood Piru or NHP, which has ties with the national organized crime group Bloods. They have committed murders, kidnappings, shootings, assaults, home invasions, robberies and other crimes over the past 18 months. If convicted of the charge, gang leader Earnest Copeland and each of the other defendants, including his wife Sharlene, faces a maximum sentence of 20 years' imprisonment and a fine of $250,000. According to the indictment, Copeland approved shootings and mediated disputes between members. He also took portion of proceeds earned through drug trafficking, robberies and other illegal acts.

"execution-style" shooting death of Albanian national. No arrests have been made in the death of Gezin Vukcaj, whose body was discovered slumped in the front seat of a friend's full-size Hummer on Groesbeck Highway near the Imperial Hall banquet center in Clinton Township. "We've ruled out robbery and it looks like an execution-style slaying," said Detective Lt. Marc Rybinski. Authorities suspect drugs or retribution may be a motive in the slaying of Vukcaj, a divorced construction painter who was born in Albania. Clinton Township investigators are consulting with members of the Balkan Organized Crime Task Force, a panel of local, state and federal law enforcers investigating crimes in Michigan that originated in the Balkan area of Eastern Europe. The township, like several other communities in the tri-county area, has contributed an officer to the task force, which also includes Michigan State Police troopers and FBI agents. The panel has been in existence...

Bulgaria's most notorious crime bosses, nicknamed "The Eyes", has been jailed for for drug trafficking. A court in the Black Sea city of Burgas convicted Dimitar Zheliazkov and 11 members of his gang after they pleaded guilty to charges of founding an organised armed group for drug trafficking, a court spokeswoman said. "For the first time such a key figure from the Bulgarian criminal world has been convicted. This has not happened so far," prosecutor Svetlozar Kostov said on national radio. Last week, Zheliazkov, 32, and the other 11 men reached an out-of-court agreement with prosecutors to plead guilty to the charges. The 11 were jailed for one to five years. Zheliazkov was sentenced to 4-½ years. Commentators criticised prosecutors for not seeking the maximum sentence of 15 years in prison. Zheliazkov had been arrested several times before but prosecutors could not build a successful case against him. The European Union, which Bulgaria joined in 2007, and the...

"The Mexican Mafia is a violent criminal gang. They deal in intimidation. They deal in drugs — heroin and cocaine. They deal in violence, and in this case, they dealt in murder," he said. The slayings go back to 2000 and occurred in San Antonio, Austin and Atascosa County, a rural county south of San Antonio. Most were unsolved before the racketeering charges, said Sutton. The victims were mostly members of the Mexican Mafia or rival gangs. In some cases, they were suspected drug dealers indebted to the Mexican Mafia, which authorities say enforces a street tax on drug dealers who work on gang turf. The defendants were not charged with murder, in part because tying them to a specific crime is harder than proving they ran an operation that committed murder and dealt drugs, Sutton said. Conviction under federal racketeering charges can bring a term of life in prison. Most of the defendants were already in custody on lesser charges before the Tuesday grand jury indictment, which...

Ten reputed members of a violent Camden street gang have been arrested on drug dealing and racketeering charges stemming from a six-month investigation by a joint state and federal violent-crime drug task force. Three of the reputed gang members were already facing charges of conspiracy to commit murder. The New Jersey Attorney General's Office announced the arrests yesterday in a case that targeted the Nine Trey Headbustas, a faction or "set" of what authorities called a local branch of the Bloods street gang. The gang allegedly dealt large quantities of crack cocaine and heroin along Broadway in Camden's business district and in the neighborhood around Stevens and Benson Streets, according to a statement released by Attorney General Anne Milgram, who said the group "utilized violence and intimidation to protect its turf." Federal, state and county law enforcement agencies executed a series of arrests on Friday to wrap up the investigation. One of those arr...

Well-planned gangland hits are making murders tougher to solve, says B.C.'s top cop. "The gangs are very sophisticated," Solicitor-General John Les said yesterday. "They use up-to-date equipment. Our job is to make sure police have the right tools. "[But] these targeted gang-related shootings can be very hard to investigate." Les said he is not concerned about falling success rates at a regional homicide unit based in Surrey. The Integrated Homicide Investigation Team says its success rate has dropped from 80 per cent in 2003 to 62 per cent in 2006. Success is defined when charges are laid. "The province needs more integration in respect to homicides," Les said. He'd like to see Vancouver's large homicide unit join forces with IHIT, which has 17 member jurisdictions from Sechelt to Hope. Vancouver Police Department's success rate was almost identical with IHIT's in 2006, even though Vancouver's staff isn't as large. Const. ...

Commonly known as the enforcement branch of a top tier Mexican drug trafficking organization (DTO) known as the Gulf Cartel, the founding members of this elite group of hit men are former Mexican soldiers who, once trained, left the rank and file to earn money protecting the black market economy. During their tenure as a paramilitary force overseeing the transshipment of multiple tonnes of cocaine across the border into the US, Los Zetas was then given orders and controlled by Osiel Cardenas-Guillen, the former head of the Gulf Cartel now awaiting trial in the US. The extradition of Cardenas in January 2007 caused a rift in his organization’s structure, removing the one power that had been able to contain Los Zetas and solidifying its status as the real power at the border. Both before and after this change in leadership, the brazen nature of their attacks could be easily discerned from the day-to-day violence in Mexico. Some corpses left in the wake of a hit had the letter “Z” carved ...

Obsessed with the lore of the outlaw James Gang, James "Tokie" Caston decided that his first two boys would bear the names of his heroes: Jesse and Frank James. By the time the third son, Sonny, arrived in 1967, the boys' futures were clear. At an early age, Frank Caston recalls, most people in tiny Lake Providence, La., referred to the brothers not as the Castons, but as the "James Gang." "To be named after the worst outlaw in the country, I think you put a stamp on a person," says Jesse James Caston, 42, who was on the FBI's 10 Most Wanted list in 2000. "We never had a chance." Their names were symbolic of a troubled upbringing that Jesse and Frank Caston say was marked by abuse and neglect. Today, all three brothers are convicted killers serving life sentences at Louisiana's state prison. Their story is extraordinary but emblematic of what social scientists and law enforcement officials see as an increasingly complex and persistent...

Sir Stephen Lander, SOCA's chairman, warned that large-scale "cannabis factories" run by Vietnamese and Chinese criminals are springing up across the country. Home-grown: Vietnamese and Chinese criminal Gangs have set up large-scale 'cannabis factories' hidden in ordinary houses Hidden in ordinary houses, the factories are producing huge quantities of high- strength skunk cannabis on an "industrial scale". Sir Stephen told the Commons Home Affairs Select Committee: "There are wide areas of the country where this is being grown commercially. "It's not as though people are growing it in a couple of pots on their window sills." Sir Stephen also expressed concern about the growing number of migrants from outside the EU seeking to exploit lax European border controls to enter Britain. He revealed that new visa requirements for all South African visitors could be introduced because thousands of illegal immigrants are using the country as a g...

The Australian Crime Commission yesterday painted a disturbing picture of just how powerful organised crime gangs have become. It said Australians were largely unaware of organised crime's involvement in legitimate business activities. The nation's gigantic superannuation stockpile has even become a major target. The ACC said it was concerned about the association between criminals and potential terrorists. "Terrorists use crime to support their political objectives," the ACC said in its Organised Crime in Australia report, released yesterday. "In Australia, the relationships between criminals and terrorists have generally been short-term and limited to providing specific services, such as false identity documentation, non-traceable communications, and/or money laundering." But the ACC said it was unlikely crime gangs and terrorist groups would forge stronger links, because each wanted to avoid scrutiny. The ACC report also revealed: technology has given cr...

Assaulted and bashed by men who are believed to be members of the so-called Gang of 49. Adelaide police say five men were involved in nine violent attacks over two hours late last night. A 19-year-old woman who does not want to be identified says she was walking home with her mother after using an autoteller machine on Prospect Road when they were approached by two men demanding money. The pair refused to hand over a handbag. "They threw my mum to the ground and they were just hitting her in front of me and I couldn't stop them," the teenager said. "They were just hitting her and hitting her and I didn't know what to do. "They were dragging her along the ground and I tried to fight them off but I couldn't." Police say five offenders assaulted a woman outside the Entertainment Centre at Hindmarsh. The men also tried to steal a car from a woman at the corner of Sturt and Marion Roads. Another target was a taxi driver at Noarlunga Hospital who was forc...

gang of young men from affluent Durban families trashed an upmarket pub, leaving two people seriously injured and causing damage estimated at thousands of rands. The bloody brawl, captured by closed-circuit camera, lasted more than two hours at the Hillcrest franchise of the trendy Franki Bananaz pub in the early hours of Thursday. The pub's management said police failed to respond to their calls despite the station being only about 200m away. In CCTV footage, traumatised patrons watch from inside as the group of 10 to 12 men, mostly in their 20s and carrying baseball bats and golf clubs, throw chairs at the pub's windows. A male patron, as well as one of the pub's managers, who have both asked not to be named for fear of reprisals, underwent surgery after sustaining cuts to their heads. The cause of the attack is still a matter of conjecture. While some Hillcrest locals reported that the fight may have been ignited by the turning away of an Indian man from the venue on New...

18-person crime ring that may be responsible for the theft of up to $100 million worth of medicine and health and beauty goods from convenience and grocery stores statewide, Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said Thursday.The investigation started with two shoplifters at a Publix supermarket on Shepherd Road in Lakeland on June 26, Judd said at a news conference in Lakeland on Thursday afternoon.Rita Maddox and Elisha Cordle of Dover stole nearly $4,500 worth of Oil of Olay products that day, placing them into special bags designed to conceal stolen goods, Judd said.To law enforcement, it seemed like a regular shoplifting incident and the two were charged with grand theft. But after speaking with confidential sources, Judd said, a sheriff’s detective uncovered something more: the single largest organized crime ring of its kind in Polk County Sheriff’s Office history.On Thursday, after executing five search warrants, 14 people were arrested and charged with racketeering and conspiracy to c...

In London alone 27 teenagers were stabbed to death last year. There have been at least four deaths this year already. Two weeks ago, in a London suburb, a schoolgirl was beaten, gang-raped and then had caustic soda poured over her to eliminate traces of her attackers’ DNA. She is in a burns unit and fighting for her life. Three youths are awaiting sentencing for kicking to death a harmless disabled man in Sunderland. In Warrington a father of three was beaten to death for protesting at youths who were vandalising cars. A few miles away a woman of 60 had to be put on life support after a thug fractured her face for refusing him a cigarette. She will be permanently blind in one eye.

Three young men were being treated at local hospitals after a Monday afternoon brawl fought with knives, according to San Jose police. The injuries were not life-threatening, police said. And police said the fight occurred over an argument. It was possibly gang-related. The fight began about 3:30 p.m at Winter Park Drive and Cunningham Avenue. It left three juveniles injured, one seriously. The victims are 15, 16 and 17 years old. Police were looking for four suspects, but there was no descriptions available as of Friday evening.

A confidential operation was conducted against the Ergenekon organization, which has been monitored for 2.5 months. Thirty-three people were taken into custody in an operation which hit 43 different locations. Those arrested for founding a terrorist organization include the Kuvayı Milliye Association chairman, Fikri Karadağ, and retired general Veli Küçük. Charges brought against the deep-state linked Ergenekon organization by a Turkish court have shown that the gang was after a military takeover in Turkey while records of phone conversations of its members in the hands of German police show that they were also involved in the drug trade. The Ergenekon organization -- 14 of whose members were arrested Saturday in one of the biggest operations ever against deep-state-linked groups in Turkey -- was working to create a chaotic atmosphere so that its counterparts in the military could overthrow the government, charges brought against the group by a law court in İstanbul has confirmed. All ...

Abkeen Cochran, who was gunned down on a Hempstead street last Thursday, stands in stark contrast to the fact that the rate of violent crime in Nassau County is low and dropping. Any gun violence is too much. So it's welcome news that officials are targeting gun crimes, one category of offenses that ticked up last year. The goal is sustained crime reduction, which is the right target. The plan, announced last week by Nassau District Attorney Kathleen Rice and county Police Commissioner Lawrence Mulvey, includes undercover gun investigations, tougher prosecutions aimed at rooting out gun traffickers, an anonymous "Gunstoppers" tip line and help for paroled gun offenders to find alternatives to a life of crime. Nassau isn't awash in gun violence. But there were 67 shootings with injuries last year, up from 54 in 2006. The rise is troubling, coming, as it does, when major crimes, including murder, rape and robbery, are down 12.6 percent. declines may be difficult to sus...

Jamaican national and gang member is back in his homeland after being deported by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers. USICE officers recently deported Raymond Jackson, a.k.a. `Renard Harrison,` who is wanted by Jamaican authorities for the murder of two police officers there. Jackson had entered the United States on April 26, 2006 via sea near Jupiter, Florida. He was ordered removed on May 4, 2006 and subsequently deported on May 22, 2006. Jackson then illegally re-entered the United States but was later arrested by the Lauderhill Police Department on Jan. 16, 2007 as a suspect in a murder investigation. The charges were subsequently dropped. But he was charged for re-entry after deportation, on April 17, 2007, and sentenced to time served. Jackson, who ICE officials say is a top lieutenant of the Clansman gang, was recently deported again. He was transferred into the custody of Jamaican authorities upon his arrival in Jamaica. `Criminals who think that they can use the...

ICE takes custody of suspected Lynn gang members Some of the seven suspected MS-13 gang members arrested Saturday at the Strawberry Avenue Playground are currently in custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement for possible immigration violations, authorities said. At least two of the seven men arrested, Manuel Mendes, 23, of 58 Kirtland St., Lynn and Jose Recinos, 17, of 299 Lexington St. #2, East Boston are currently in ICE custody, according to court documents. A Lynn police spokesperson said others were likely detained by ICE but didn't have specific information about who else was being held. "Some of the individuals who were arrested had immigration issues," Lt. Dave Brown said.

Execution-style murder of a man at a Gold Coast home today. The child, aged about 2 1/2, was in the pool in the back yard of the house when the man was shot three times in the chest by another man who fled in a black BMW. Police are now searching for the gunman, who is in his late 20s or early 30s. Officers wearing bullet-proof vests rushed to the property in Cayuga Street, Nerang, after shots were heard. It is understood they found a man at the house who had been shot three times in the chest. Paramedics were unable to resuscitate him. It is understood the victim and the gunman were known to police. Police are searching for a man who was seen leaving the area in an older-style black BMW sedan. He is described as being in his early 30s, Caucasian, 178cm tall with shaved brown hair and a goatee. Police believe that the man and victim may be known to each other, however investigations are continuing to establish their association. A number of witnesses are assisting police and the scene ...

Mexican gangs in Los Angeles, like Florencia 13, are waging a bloody campaign to drive blacks from neighborhoods.Gangbanging is responsible for much of the carnage. Greater Los Angeles is now home to some 500 Mexican gangs—compared with some 200 black ones—and they’ve aggressively tried to push blacks out of mixed-race neighborhoods. More than just turf wars, the Latinos’ violence has included attacks against law-abiding African-Americans with no gang involvement; a horrifying example was the December 2006 murder of 14-year-old Cheryl Green by Mexican gang members in Harbor Gateway, a brutal crime designed to terrorize local blacks. Three years earlier, the same gang had killed a black man because he dared to patronize a local store that they considered “For Hispanics Only.” Meantime, federal authorities have indicted members of another Los Angeles–based Latino gang, Florencia 13, for random shootings of blacks in South L.A. The indictment chillingly accuses a gang leader of giving mem...

In a daring strike during the early Sunday morning hours, armed robbers raided the Boardwalk Casino in Port Elizabeth, South Africa. While the casino was passing through a relatively slow time of both the day and week, a large group of between ten to fourteen men carrying pistols and rifles entered through the casino's main entrance. The Casino Gang then overpowered security guards on the premises and made their way to the cashier's cage, which they ransacked, stealing an undisclosed amount of cash. The Boardwalk Robbery Plan was followed by casino employees during the episode. This meant remaining calm and cooperating with the gang so as to avoid harm to gamblers and staff, while an alarm that silently notified police and security forces was activated. Police arrived as the armed gang were fleeing the casino. Gunshots were fired, although there are conflicting reports as to whether the shots were fired by police or robbers. No injuries were inflicted, and the thieves escaped i...

Jamaica Police are reporting that a significant dent has been made in the number of drug mule gangs smuggling narcotics out of the country. Statistics from the Narcotics Division show that the number of drug mules arrested last year fell by 19 per cent when compared with the figure for 2006. "Throughout 2007 we arrested a total of 5,496 persons for drugs, a significant reduction from the 6,793 persons arrested in 2006," Acting Assistant Commissioner of Police, Carlton Wilson disclosed. The Acting ACP, who heads the Narcotics Division, pointed out that of the persons arrested, 5,257 were Jamaicans, with 4,927 being males and 330 females. Foreign males and females accounted for 174 and 65 arrests, respectively. Britons accounted for 119, Americans 51 and Canadians 22. According to Wilson, of the 6,793 drug mules arrested in 2006, 6,039 were Jamaican males and 403 were females. Foreign males accounted for 257 and females 94. Meanwhile, he explained that 171 persons were arrested...

"For too long the gangsters of the criminal underworld have been able to direct their evil enterprises and operate with apparent impunity, profiting on the backs of decent hard-working Scots and their families. Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill is proposing new offences of directing or being involved in organised crime. A consultation on the details of any new legislation is to seek the views of law enforcement organisations and other stakeholders involved in the fight against organised crime. When introduced the legislation's main objective would be to make it easier to convict those organised criminals who direct criminal operations. The proposals are expected to be endorsed today at the second meeting of the Serious Organised Crime Taskforce. The Scottish Government will then develop proposals to be introduced to the Parliament at the earliest opportunity. Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill said: "This Government has already made clear its determination to tackle seriou...

"Scissionisti" clan Rome flying squad, working alongside those of Naples, Caserta, Perugia and Macerata, with activities coordinated by the central anti-crime headquarters of state police and the central anti-drugs headquarters, is in the process of arresting a large number of members of a vast criminal organization, made up of Italian and Nigerian citizens involved in international drug trafficking. Two hundred and fifty state police are working in several Italia cities, backed by helicopters and dog units. The operation, name "Black Shoes", led by the Naples anti-mafia district headquarters, has reconstructed the route of drug trafficking from South America to Europe, with traffickers attentive to ever single detail of drug imports. Receivers for the drugs were organizations with links to the Camorra, who then distributed the "goods" across the Italian peninsula. From Suriname and Guyana cocaine and heroin were brought into Italy with Nigerian runners wh...

British authorities have linked recent thefts of John Deere tractors in rural England to the criminal gang responsible for similar thefts across Europe over the past four years. The National Plant Equipment Register (TER) fears that this gang has set up a base in southwestern England and intends to target dealerships there. According to the TER, this gang changes the identities of the stolen tractors and then sells them as far afield as Australia.

50 police commandos in Moscow captured Semyon Mogilevich, one of the world’s most feared mafia bosses accused of arms dealing, drug running, uranium trafficking and multiple murders. Authorities estimate his worth to be around $100 million. The FBI, Interpol and the UK police have sought Mogilevich for numerous international crimes including fraud, racketeering and money laundering. Monya Elson, a known associate of Mr Mogilevich, claimed in an interview given ten years ago that Mogilevich was “the most powerful mobster in the world”. During a 2005 speech in Hungary Robert Mueller, then FBI director said: “Right here in Budapest, Ukrainian-born Semion Mogilevich established the headquarters of his powerful organized crime enterprise.”

"The organized Bulgarian bandit groups dealing with car thefts get involved more and more seriously into the coca traffic coming from South America. Just in Malaga, Marbella, Benalmadella and Toremolinos act 5-6 such bands formed by Bulgarians. They are very closely connected with the Columbian cartels and very active as well.", Alfledo Marihuan, a Director of "Criminal department" in Malaga says for "168 hours" weekly and adds: "Approximately 20 Bulgarians are arrested in Malaga after they had been captured with different quantity of coca starting from 1 and reaching 50 kilos. The arrested people are mules. We have almost no information about their bosses, but soon will bring them into the spot light." According to Alfredo Marihuan, the Bulgarians in Latin America are in touch with the people responsible for the Distribution in Europe. Our countrymen constantly travel to Columbia and Venezuela. They negotiate the deals and organize the transport...

Martin Foley remains in a critical condition in hospital today after he was shot repeatedly in an assassination attempt yesterday. A garda at the scene of the shooting of Martin Foley, at Kimmage Road West, Dublin, yesterday.Foley (55) and also known as 'The Viper' is reported to have been hit by up to six bullets from the ten fired by the gunman who shot Foley as he was driving out of the Carlisle gym on Kimmage Rd Lower just after 3pm. Foley has undergone surgery in St James' Hospital to remove at least one bullet and his condition is described as "critical". It is understood he has been hit a number of times in the upper and lower body. Gardai investigating the shooting have also recovered a white Ford van which they believe was used by the gunman. This vehicle is being examined by Garda technical experts. It is understood that Foley had spotted the gunman as he approached and tried to escape in his car before crashing after a short distance. He then tried to c...