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PHOENIX (Reuters) - The criminal underworld in the sun-baked Arizona capital of Phoenix has long enjoyed the hot money profits from illicit smuggling of drugs and people over the border from Mexico. But now its members are living in fear as they are stalked by kidnappers after their proceeds, authorities say. Police in the desert city say specialized kidnap rings are snatching suspected criminals and their families from their homes, running them off the roads and even grabbing them at shopping malls in a spiraling spate of abductions. "Phoenix is ground zero for illegal narcotics smuggling and illegal human smuggling...

"... the community organizer ... must first rub raw the resentments of the people; fan the latent hostilities to the point of overt expression.'     -- Saul Alinsky, Rules for Radicals "THERE IS ONLY THE FIGHT --- An analysis of the Alinsky Model."  -- Hillary Clinton, BA Honors Thesis, Wellesley College, 1969. "(Barack) Obama worked in the organizing tradition of Saul Alinsky, who made Chicago the birthplace of modern community organizing...."  -- The Nation  A psychopath is a person without conscience; someone who constantly breaks the moral rules of the community. Saul Alinsky was a "community organizer" who found a career that...

Terrance Aeriel, 18, Dashon Harvey, 20, and Iofemi Hightower, 20 Murdered, execution-style, for the crime of being black. Murdered as a part of an enthic-cleansing program being run by Mexican gangs here in the U.S., with operational control coming from a criminal syndicate in Mexico. The plan? To clear neighborhoods of blacks so that they will be 100% hispanic. No, it's not a joke. It's not overwrought xenophobia (something for which this site is NOT known.) It's very very real, and Harvey, Hightower, and Aeriel and his sister are not the only victims.Michelle Malkin, bless her, has been staying...

"wenty-four corpses were found bound and shot execution-style in the Mexican city of Atlapulco on Friday, according to Humberto Benitez, secretary-general of government in the State of Mexico. A criminal investigation is now under way to determine if the killings were a result of organized crime, a news release from Mexico's attorney general said Friday. Atlapulco is just south of Mexico City. The killings come roughly two weeks after tens of thousands of Mexicans marched on the nation's capital calling for greater government action to prevent the wave of violent crime sweeping the country. Non-governmental groups estimate there have been...

PHOENIX -- The fastest-growing gang in the world is coming to Arizona -- a trend that makes federal agents along the U.S.-Mexico border uncomfortable. Mara Salvatrucha, or MS-13, is known for its violence and guerilla warfare training, experts said. "From Oct. 1 until the end of July we've seen over 50 different people involved in not only MS-13, but a number of different gangs affiliated with them," Scioli said. "Just in the past week we've had five." According to law enforcement personnel, MS-13 members come to Arizona because its position on the border makes it a hot spot for drugs...

NJ Lotto sells tickets after winners are redeemed "That's the lottery for ya…they make money, on top of money, on top of money. It's ridiculous."

As organized crime galvanizes their hold on Mexico, their network infiltrates our colleges, street gangs, and our communities. Our country is being raped and ravaged as our elected leaders remain insulated and uncaring within the halls of Congress.

Ten people have been indicted in connection with a killing prosecutors allege was a botched kidnapping attempt carried out by members and associates of the Texas Syndicate prison gang on behalf of the Zetas. Juan Manuel "Pugs" Marquez Rodriguez, 27, is charged in the indictment with murder in the Dec. 21, 2006, death of Julio A. Serrano. He and nine others were indicted last week in state district court. Only Marquez is charged with murder. All 10 face charges of criminal conspiracy and engaging in organized criminal activity involving the attempted kidnapping of Serrano, which resulted in Serrano's death. The...

MEXICO CITY — Unknown assailants shot to death a Federal Police commander and his bodyguard in a Mexico City restaurant at mid-day on Thursday, Mexican officials said. Igor Labastida, head of the Traffic and Contraband office of the Federal Preventive Police (PFP), was shot dead along with one of his bodyguards, spokesperson Minerva Amado with the attorney general's office (PGR) said. "Two subjects got out of a black vehicle, entered a restaurant where the commander was eating and opened fire on him and his escorts," said Amado. Two other Labastida bodyguards were wounded and hospitalized, Amado said. Police are searching...

Mexico City, Jun 22 (EFE).- Police found the bodies of five people who were killed with AK-47 assault rifles in Novolato, a city in the northwestern Mexican state of Sinaloa, in an apparent settling of scores between organized-crime groups, prosecutors told Efe. The bodies were found early Saturday lined up on the edge of an irrigation canal at the main entrance to the city's San Pedro neighborhood. "The five bodies had the hands tied behind their backs and were betweeen 25 and 30 years" old, a spokesman for the Sinaloa Attorney General's Office said. Police found 104 bullet casings from...

The Hunt for American al Qaeda The United States is turning up the heat in the hunt for the California boy turned al Qaeda operative, Adam Gadahn, who has been charged with treason and is believed to be hiding in Afghanistan. If caught and convicted, Gadahn could face the death penalty. The State Department along with the Department of Diplomatic Security announced the beginning of a publicity campaign in Afghanistan urging locals to provide any information on Gadahn's whereabouts, with a reward if the information leads to his capture. Radio advertisements with information concerning the $1 million reward have...

The city of Chicago is one of the few major metropolitan areas which runs away from its past at every opportunity. Yet, indeed, the very construction of the city led to the term "underworld." And with rampant corruption controlled by infamous individuals like "Big Jim" Colosimo, Al Capone, Paul "The Waiter" Ricca, Murray "The Camel" Humphrey and Tony "Joe Batters" Accardo, Chicago can hardly bury its past--no pun intended. Since the turn of the 20th century, what Carl Sandburg referred to as the "City of Big Shoulders" was perhaps the center of organized crime in the United States. Though New...

Sen. Barack Obama won the endorsement of the Teamsters earlier this year after privately telling the union he supported ending the strict federal oversight imposed to root out corruption, according to officials from the union and the Obama campaign. It's an unusual stance for a presidential candidate. Policy makers have largely treated monitoring of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters as a legal matter left to the Justice Department since an independent review board was set up in 1992 to eliminate mob influence in the union.

BUFFALO, N.Y. - A dozen leaders and members of a construction union were arrested Tuesday and charged with a decade of attacks against nonunion workers and their families, and prosecutors said some of the crimes were aided by the local's access to state motor vehicle records. The president of Operating Engineers Local 17, Mark Kirsch, was among those charged with extortion and racketeering after a five-year investigation. The union, headquartered in Buffalo, operates in six western New York counties. At job sites where non-Local 17 members were hired, union members caused more than $1 million in damage to more than...

The athletic director and a guidance counselor at North Bergen High School were arrested Tuesday in a drug and gambling ring sting that authorities say was controlled by the Genovese crime family. Athletic Director Jerry Maietta and Guidance Counselor Ralph Marino were among 45 swept up in raids that began at 5 a.m. Tuesday. Bergen County Prosecutor John Molinelli described the two as lower level operatives in an expansive network of bookies, package holders, drug dealers and drug distributors. Mark Iafelice, 49, of Edgewater; Brian DiGuilmi, 48, of Emerson; James W. Skinner, 69, of Allenwood; and his son James J....

NEW YORK - The federal investigation into a high-end prostitution ring linked to Gov. Eliot Spitzer apparently began last year as a financial probe by the Internal Revenue Service. The investigation into the Emperors Club VIP gathered more than 5,000 telephone calls and text messages, and more than 6,000 e-mails, along with bank records, travel and hotel records and surveillance. But it was unclear whether Spitzer was a target from the start or whether agents came across his name by accident while amassing evidence. Conversations were recorded about someone identified as "Client 9," including that a prostitute identified as "Kristen"...

Every day, thousands of Americans look to invest their money in stocks, and many of them go through brokers and traders to simplify the process. Unfortunately, according to Overstock.com CEO Patrick Byrne, a majority of those purchasers will be victims of Wall Street's criminal tactics and will help line the pockets of corrupt brokers and lawyers. Byrne, a Utahn who founded Overstock.com, talked to a crowd in the Union on Monday about how New York financial media and law firms have teamed up with big-wig business elites to create massive amounts of profit at the cost of American consumers. Byrne...

Mob Sweeps in NYC, Italy Target Gambinos TOM HAYS NEW YORK (AP) — Authorities arrested dozens of people Thursday in a sweeping Mafia takedown aimed at closing the book on decades-old gangland killings and other crimes and knocking out what's left of the once-mighty Gambino family. A federal indictment in Brooklyn named 62 people, including the three highest-ranking members of the Gambino clan and the brother and nephew of the late John Gotti, the notorious boss who ran the family in its heyday. State prosecutors separately charged 26 others with running a gambling ring that took nearly $10 million in...

The Geopolitics of Dope January 29, 2008 | 2103 GMT By George Friedman Over recent months, the level of violence along the U.S.-Mexican border has begun to rise substantially, with some of it spilling into the United States. Last week, the Mexican government began military operations on its side of the border against Mexican gangs engaged in smuggling drugs into the United States. The action apparently pushed some of the gang members north into the United States in a bid for sanctuary. Low-level violence is endemic to the border region. But while not without precedent, movement of organized, armed cadres...

Over recent months, the level of violence along the U.S.-Mexican border has begun to rise substantially, with some of it spilling into the United States. Last week, the Mexican government began military operations on its side of the border against Mexican gangs engaged in smuggling drugs into the United States. The action apparently pushed some of the gang members north into the United States in a bid for sanctuary. Low-level violence is endemic to the border region. But while not without precedent, movement of organized, armed cadres into the United States on this scale goes beyond what has become accepted...

MORELIA, Mexico -- Sergio Gómez roared into town in a big SUV, entourage in tow, pressed suits, fancy cowboy boots. Everything about him said superstar. He had an international following and a star on the walk of fame in Las Vegas. More than 20,000 fans swarmed the parking lot of this colonial city's soccer stadium to dance and hear him sing romantic "Duranguense grupero" pop songs backed by a driving drumbeat. After the show, in the small hours of Dec. 2, Sergio Gomez was kidnapped. Police found his body the next day. He'd been strangled and beaten. His face --...

A 20-year-old legal fight over protests outside abortion clinics ended Tuesday with the Supreme Court ruling that federal extortion and racketeering laws cannot be used against demonstrators. The 8-0 decision was a setback for abortion clinics that were buoyed when the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals kept their case alive two years ago despite the high court’s 2003 ruling that had cleared the way for lifting a nationwide injunction on anti-abortion leader Joseph Scheidler and others. Anti-abortion groups appealed to the justices after the lower court sought to determine whether the injunction could be supported by findings that protesters...

Shooting outside downtown restaurant left 6 dead, 3 wounded RIO BRAVO — The Mexican army cordoned off Rio Bravo early Friday, one day after a shooting outside a downtown restaurant left three hospitalized and six dead, including prominent political figure Juan Antonio Guajardo Anzalduá. Soldiers searched vehicles leaving and entering the city, which sits in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas across the Rio Grande from Donna(Texas). Some residents of the city said the incident has frightened them, and the residents fear violence in the city could escalate. “We are afraid. We are very scared,” one Rio Bravo woman said in...

PALERMO, Italy (Reuters) - Italian police burst into the room of a suspected Mafia mobster in Sicily and arrested him as he watched a television show about the arrest of a Mafia boss, investigators said on Friday. Police said Michele Catalano was watching the concluding chapter late on Thursday of the TV mini-series "The Boss of Bosses", recounting the arrest in 1993 of real-life Cosa Nostra leader Salvatore "Toto" Riina, when he was detained. They Catalano, 48, was suspected of being a senior commander serving under the latest "boss of bosses" Salvatore Lo Piccolo, who was arrested this month after...

People who have been smuggled into Sweden should be deported, a leading Social Democrat politician has said. Allowing those who have paid thousands to people smugglers to stay is not fair on people who can't afford to pay to leave their homelands. Göran Johansson, leader of Gothenburg Council, said he based his views on the fact that many of the 20,000 Iraqis expected to come to Sweden this year came here illegally, often with the help of people smugglers. "If it is obvious that someone has been smuggled in they should be sent back again," Johansson told newspaper GT. People...

Nine days after registering his presidential exploratory committee last November, Rudolph Giuliani appeared in Singapore to help a Las Vegas developer make a pitch for a $3.5 billion casino resort. Though the bid ultimately failed, and there was nothing illegal about the involvement, it drew Giuliani into a complex partnership with the family of a controversial Hong Kong billionaire who has ties to the regime of North Korea's Kim Jong Il and has been linked to international organized crime by the U.S. government. ... Giuliani's public involvement in the gaming bid began at a September 2006 news conference in Singapore...

When the dust settled following a bus explosion in Togliatti, Russia, on Oct. 31, few explanations emerged as to who was responsible for the attack, which killed eight people and injured at least 50. Although terrorism is a possibility, two leading theories place the blame on Russian organized crime. One such theory suggests that a person (or people) riding the bus was a target of the Russian mob and the other casualties simply collateral damage. Though this act might seem excessive, Russian organized crime has a history of ensuring that it eliminates its targets through excessive use of explosives. A...

To an outsider, Sweden would seem an unlikely place to find rising gang crime. But the problem has snowballed since the nineties, leaving police clamouring for better tools to deal with the problem.

Italian police struck a mortal blow against the Sicilian Mafia today when they arrested Salvatore Lo Piccolo, the recently appointed boss of all the bosses. Salvatore Lo Piccolo is flanked by police in Palermo Salvatore, 65, and his son Sandro, 32, were captured after a gun battle at a small villa in Giardinello, a small town near Palermo. Lo Piccolo, who is nicknamed The Baron, had been on the run for 24 years. Cheering crowds gathered outside the police station in Palermo as the news broke, while senior policemen inside could be seen punching the air in joy and embracing...

Tasting gun of FBI 'rat,' Mississippi Klansman revealed graves of 3 -- NEW YORK -- The FBI used underworld ties to solve the 1964 disappearance of three civil rights volunteers in Mississippi, a gangster's ex-girlfriend testified Monday, becoming the first witness to repeat in open court a story that's been underworld lore for years. Linda Schiro said that her boyfriend, Mafia tough guy Gregory Scarpa Sr., was recruited by the FBI to help find the volunteers' bodies. She said Scarpa later told her he put a gun in a Ku Klux Klansman's mouth and forced him to reveal the location...

The bosses of New York's five Mafia families in the mid-1980s came a hair-trigger away from sanctioning a hit on then-federal prosecutor Rudy Giuliani, according to bombshell FBI records made public today. Before cooler heads prevailed - the mob bosses decided by a razor-thin 3-to-2 margin not to try to whack the future mayor and presidential candidate - at least two of the dons argued fervently that the mob-busting U.S. attorney should sleep with the fishes. Bonanno boss Philip “Rusty" Rastelli, Genovese chief Vincent “The Chin" Gigante and Lucchese honcho Anthony “Tony Ducks" Corallo all cast votes to spare the...

<p>MEXICO CITY: A deadly attack on federal intelligence agents in northern Mexico was a botched kidnapping attempt orchestrated by drug traffickers with increasingly advanced counterintelligence capabilities, a state government official said Monday.</p> <p>Natividad Gonzalez, governor of the northern state of Nuevo Leon, said federal intelligence officers were tipped off that alleged members of Mexico's Gulf drug cartel "wanted to kidnap two or three agents" prior to the attack last Tuesday in the state capital of Monterrey. Two officers were killed and two more wounded in the ensuing shootout.</p>

ExclusiveDaily News probe finds WTC contractors with mob ties, fraud BY GREG B. SMITHDAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERSunday, September 9th 2007, 4:00 AM   Seven contractors cited for everything from mob ties to tax fraud to fatal accidents are getting a slice of the $16 billion reconstruction at Ground Zero, a Daily News investigation has found. The problem firms are found every day working the bulldozers, cranes, jackhammers and pile drivers rebuilding the site of the World Trade Center.All of the companies work for the Port Authority, the Dormitory Authority or the Lower Manhattan Development Corp. on taxpayer-funded contracts worth millions...

Peter Caporino stood in a Jersey City courtroom last week in a green prison jumpsuit and blue slippers, with his hands cuffed behind his back. He held his head high but looked tired. "Mr. Caporino, are you thinking clearly today?" Superior Court Judge Peter Vazquez asked him. "Yes," Caporino replied, nodding. The exchange began the final ironic twist in the strange, sorry tale of "Petey Cap," one of the better-known and well-liked mobsters to grace or -- depending on your view -- plague North Jersey. Caporino was the Hasbrouck Heights wiseguy who traded four decades of service in the mob...

Nolan Accused Of Stealing 33,000 Pounds Of Metal. Attorney General John Suthers said Timothy Allan Nolan pleaded guilty for violating the Colorado Organized Crime Control Act. He was indicted by a grand jury this year for allegedly stealing nearly 33,000 pounds of metal from businesses in Denver, Longmont and Northglenn.

The FBI is investigating an NBA referee who allegedly was betting on basketball games - including ones he was officiating during the past two seasons - as part of an organized-crime probe in the Big Apple, The Post has learned. The investigation, which began more than a year ago, is zeroing in on blockbuster allegations that the referee was making calls that affected the point spread to guarantee that he - and the hoods who had their hooks in him - cashed in on large bets. Federal agents are set to arrest the referee and a cadre of mobsters and...

Hot on the Hoffa trail Taylor cop thinks he has the answer to 1975 vanishing of union leader July 1, 2007 BY JOEL THURTELL FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER Jimmy Hoffa's last car ride took less than two minutes. On July 30, 1975, he rode one long block south from a two-story house at 17841 Beaverland in Detroit's tough Brightmoor neighborhood and turned right -- west -- on Grand River Ave. He passed the greens of William Rogell Golf Course and a scenic footbridge, crossed the woodsy Rouge River, cruised past the brown brick Redford Granite Co. building and the Mt....

Anguished tales of property taken by state Tom Chorneau, Chronicle Sacramento Bureau Monday, July 2, 2007 (07-02) 04:00 PDT Sacramento -- Years ago, Carla Ruff stored her grandmother's jewelry and a file of personal documents in a safe-deposit box at her bank in San Francisco's Noe Valley, thinking they would always be there when she wanted them. Not so. Without giving her notice or acting on evidence that she'd forgotten about her cache, the bank's staff, under the auspice of the state, determined the contents of her box to be unclaimed property. In July 1997, bank records show, the pearl...

Two PETA employees accused of stealing a hunting dog and discarding its electronic tracking device are scheduled to go to trial today in Southampton General District Court. Carrie Beth Edwards and Andrea Florence Benoit face grand larceny and petty larceny charges. Southampton County police say they pulled over Edwards and Benoit in a van registered to Norfolk-based People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals and found the dog inside.

Yesterday afternoon in Norfolk, Virginia, the Virginian-Pilot newspaper reported that the federal Drug Enforcement Administration has developed a particular interest in People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals . On April 18 a dozen DEA agents searched PETA's headquarters for records related to how the group uses--and trains its staff to use--controlled substances. We already know what the drugs are used for: PETA has killed over 14,000 helpless dogs and cats since it started reporting the practice in 1998. But since the animal-cruelty trial of two PETA employees closed three months ago, we have been wondering whether the feds would...

SPECIAL REPORT: Judge Reminds PETA That Dognapping Is A Felony June 27, 2007 Yesterday, the latest People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) employee to run afoul of the law made her get-out-of-jail-free arguments before a Virginia judge. It didn’t go too well. At the end of a 90-minute “probable cause” hearing in the aptly named town of Courtland, Virginia, PETA worker Andrea Florence Benoit stood charged with the October 2006 felony theft of a hunting dog. And we learned a great deal more about this disturbing case, and just how far PETA will go to substitute its judgment...

HUSTLER magazine in the United States is looking for some scandalous sex in Washington again - and is willing to pay for it. "Have you had a sexual encounter with a current member of the United States Congress or a high-ranking government official?" read a full-page advertisement taken out by Larry Flynt's pornographic magazine in Sunday's Washington Post. It offered $US1 million for documented evidence of illicit intimate relations with a congressman, senator or other prominent officeholder. A toll-free number and email address were provided. The last time Flynt made such an offer was in October 1998 during the drive...

Critics of vulgar, violent, gangster-style rap music make a mistake when they write off rap stars as stupid, immoral and self-destructive. They may be immoral and self-destructive, but they're not stupid. As one of my readers observed in a thoughtful e-mail, they're making a rational economic choice. The reader wrote: "I had to stop and ask this question to myself: 'Would I call my mother a 'ho' or my sister a 'bitch' if I could make a couple of million dollars and get out of poverty and live a pretty good life?" In a line of work that dangles riches...

The question loomed like a cloud over the docks in Hudson County: Would the Genovese crime family try to regain control of the union? After all, Local 1588 of the International Longshoremen's Association in Bayonne had been a money-making machine for racketeers for three decades. Extortion. Embezzlement. Kickbacks. Paychecks for nonexistent jobs. It was all part of the culture. But the mobsters lost their grip in 2003 when a series of waterfront corruption indictments prompted a federal judge to appoint a former New York City police commissioner to clean up the local. The new guys in charge didn't ask for...

Next to that clown Harry Potter, the most anticipated book this summer here in New York City is reporter Wayne Barrett's blockbuster biography of Rudolph Giuliani, the Big Apple's badass mayor. Giuliani, as you might have heard, was recently running for U.S. Senate against Hillary Clinton, but withdrew from that race following a prostate cancer diagnosis and some serious girl troubles. But TSG thinks poor Rudy was also dreading the July 11 release of Barrett's detailed examination of the controversial Republican. While Barrett's book--"Rudy!: An Investigative Biography of Rudolph Giuliani"--is a reporting tour de force filled with revelations about Giuliani,...

How to deflect uncomfortable questions? It might help to talk publicly about policy. PALM BEACH, Fla.--The contrast was jarring. Rudy Giuliani had just finished what was by all accounts a well-received speech to the Club for Growth, a free-market group, at a posh resort here. But at the insistence of his campaign, all of his remarks were off the record. That meant that almost all the questions that Mr. Giuliani had to answer at the news conference he called afterward concerned his relationship with Bernie Kerik, his former New York City police commissioner and business partner. The Washington Post reports...

NEW YORK -- Republican presidential hopeful Rudy Giuliani acknowledged again Friday that he made a mistake when he recommended Bernard Kerik to be the nation's homeland security chief. The acknowledgment followed a report in The New York Times that the former New York City mayor was warned about Kerik's relationship with a company with suspected ties to organized crime even before Giuliani appointed Kerik as New York City police commissioner. Giuliani told a Bronx grand jury last year that his former chief investigator recalled briefing him on Kerik's relationship with the company, Interstate Industrial Corp., before Kerik's appointment. But Giuliani,...

Rudolph W. Giuliani told a grand jury that his former chief investigator remembered having briefed him on some aspects of Bernard B. Kerik’s relationship with a company suspected of ties to organized crime before Mr. Kerik’s appointment as New York City police commissioner, according to court records. Mr. Giuliani, testifying last year under oath before a Bronx grand jury investigating Mr. Kerik, said he had no memory of the briefing, but he did not dispute that it had taken place, according to a transcript of his testimony. Mr. Giuliani’s testimony amounts to a significantly new version of what information was...

96-Year-Old Gangster Pleads Guilty to Conspiracy Charges Wednesday, February 28, 2007 FORT LAUDERDALE — A 96-year-old gangster who oversaw robberies, money laundering, bank fraud and other crimes for one of the United States' largest Mafia families pleaded guilty Wednesday, but because of his age will likely be sentenced to house arrest. Albert "The Old Man" Facchiano pleaded guilty to a Florida charge of racketeering conspiracy and a New York charge of conspiracy to tamper with a witness. From 1994 to 2006, Facchiano supervised associates of the Genovese crime family who committed robberies, money laundering, bank fraud and possessed stolen property,...