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Argentina's federal police arrested a top Italian mobster on the outskirts of Buenos Aires, the security agency said in a statement Monday, bringing a years-long manhunt to an end. Carmine Alfonso Maiorano, a 68-year-old leader of the Italian 'Ndrangheta mafia, was captured last Wednesday in the town of Guernica in the province of Buenos Aires, the statement said. The Italian-born Maiorano has been accused by international authorities of carrying out drug trafficking and arms trafficking operations between Latin America and Europe.

ROME (AP) — A convicted mobster who was one of Italy's most-wanted fugitives and reputedly one of the world's most powerful drug brokers, arrived in Rome Wednesday, extradited by Brazil after 28 years on the lam. FILE - In this Sept. 3, 2017 file photo released by the Italian police, a man identified by police as longtime fugitive Rocco Morabito, looks down after being arrested at a hotel in Montevideo, Uruguay. A convicted Italian mobster, one of Italy's most sought-after fugitives, has been extradited from Brazil. Italian police said that Rocco Morabito, who was No. 2 on the list of...

An Italian mafia fugitive who has been evading police since 2014 was arrested last week after police recognized him on YouTube. Marc Feren Claude Biart, who is wanted by police for allegedly trafficking cocaine, had started a cooking show on YouTube with his wife, BBC News reports. 53-year-old Biart hid his face in the videos – but did not hide his tattoos. Italian police saw the videos and arrested Biart in the small town of Boca Chica, Dominican Republic, they said in a statement, according to BBC News. Biart has been wanted by police for nearly six years for allegedly...

HUNDREDS of alleged mobsters from Italy's most powerful mafia group will face justice in the country's biggest organised crime trial in decades. The Uncle, The Wolf, Fatty, Big Nose and Blondie are among the 355 suspected mobsters and corrupt officials charged following a long inquiry into the influential 'Ndrangheta group. There are so many of the accused mafia members and their accomplices involved in the trial that it took more than three hours to read out their names and the 438 indictments in a recent pre-trial hearing, reported news agency AFP. But like the classic Godfather films, this trial revolves...

There is a risk of mafia interference in Italy’s upcoming general election, some of the country’s top politicians warned on Wednesday. Interior Minister Marco Minniti said it was a “fact” that there was “a concrete risk of the mafia conditioning the free vote”. “To say that the mafias are a threat to democracy does not seem irrational on the eve of an electoral competition,” Minniti said in a speech at the Italian Senate. He went on to say there had been “too much silence on these issues” in the election campaign so far, and that Italy faced a “double threat”...

The drug trafficking 'Ndrangheta or Calabrian Mafia has been long-entrenched in Australia, and the Herald Sun has run an enlightening three-part series based on confidential law enforcement intelligence reports: Part I, Part II and Part III. Australian authorities became aware of the 'Ndrangheta's presence in the early-1960s when a turf war among rival clans attracted attention, and notwithstanding repeated investigations over the next fifty years little has been done to bring down the crime group. Of course, a little corruption apparently goes a long way in Australia. A 1991 report by the Australian Bureau of Criminal Intelligence states that Mafia...

THE ‘NDRANGHETA, the Calabrian Mafia, is believed to have played a pivotal role in three days of conflict between local residents and African migrant workers in the small Cababrian town of Rosarno. Over the weekend, police bused 1,300 Africans, mainly seasonal agricultural workers, out of the town in order to end three days of tension, road blocks and drive-by shootings which were directed at the Africans. In an interview with daily L’Avvenire, senior public prosecutor Alberto Cisterna of the National Anti-Mafia Squad yesterday said: “There’s no doubt but that men from the ‘Ndrangheta shot at the immigrants, just to remind...

Published: Sunday, 12 November, 2006, 09:58 AM Doha Time BERLIN: Italian organised crime is gaining a strong foothold in Germany and has invested proceeds of its illegal activities in energy companies listed in Frankfurt and Russian gas monopoly Gazprom, a newspaper reported yesterday. Citing a secret study by Germany’s foreign intelligence service (BND), the Berliner Zeitung said the Calabrian mafia, known as the ‘Ndrangheta, was using Germany to invest cash from drugs and weapons smuggling. The group had invested double-digit millions of its profits in German hotels, restaurants and real estate, especially in former communist eastern Germany and along the...

Last week Adrian Humphreys reported for the National Post on allegations that the 'Ndrangheta or Calabrian Mafia had established itself in the greater Toronto area, and today he further reports that Italian investigators believe the crime group may be extending its reach deep into northern Ontario: "Authorities say men from Canada went to Italy to discuss the initiation of 12 new members into the Thunder Bay branch of the 'Ndrangheta — the proper name of the Mafia from the Italian region of Calabria — and to offer assurances they will now 'do something' after decades of such lethargy that no...

A Canadian man from Thunder Bay, Ontario is on trial in an Italian court for alleged association with the 'Ndrangheta or Calabrian Mafia as reported by CBC News: "prosecutors allege that Giuseppe Bruzzese, 66, was caught on tape in a high-level meeting in an Italian laundromat with a top crime boss" although "Bruzzese's lawyer contends his client was only having coffee with a friend." In recent years the 'Ndrangheta has eclipsed Cosa Nostra or the Sicilian Mafia as Italy's most powerful crime group due to its obscene profits from the cocaine trade in Europe, and it has become entrenched in...

"Cosa Nostra, perhaps because of its links to the United States, and in no small measure because of the Godfather books and films, continues to exercise an irresistible fascination. It was demonstrated most recently by the publicity given to the arrest of its "boss of bosses", Bernardo Provenzano. But the evidence suggests that, while the Sicilian Mafia, like the US Mafia, has been fading to a shadow of its former self, the little-known 'Ndrangheta (pronounced "en-drang-ay-ta") has been taking over as Italy's true public enemy number one and has become a criminal empire with global clout. For a start, it...

In an unprecedented move Italian authorities last July busted more than 300 suspected mobsters from the 'Ndrangheta or Calabrian Mafia. The enforcement action did not sit well with the underworld which issued a series of ominous threats against government officials. In August the 'Ndrangheta detonated a bomb at the entrance to the apartment building of Salvatore Di Landro who is the top anti-mafia magistrate in Reggio Calabria, and earlier this month it left a bazooka outside the courthouse offices of chief prosecutor Giuseppe Pignatone. A Sicilian prosecutor announced last week that Italy's three dominant organized crime groups – Cosa Nostra,...

Mafia killings don’t typically shock Italians—as disturbing as the occasional hit may be, the tragedy usually affects only friends and families of the victims. But a cold-blooded point-blank killing this month in southern Italy has a nation grieving—for a 3-year-old child. Nicola “Coco” Campolongo was shot in the head along with his grandfather, Giuseppe Iannicelli, and his grandfather’s 27-year-old companion—victims of an apparent mob hit over money. […] The killing even caught the attention of Pope Francis, who called Coco’s death “unprecedented.” He asked worshipers at his Sunday address to say a prayer for Coco and called on the boy’s...

Pope Francis (CNS) Pope Francis’s life is in danger from ‘ndrangheta, Italy’s most feared crime group, a leading anti-mafia judge has said.Nicola Gratteri, a magistrate in the southern city of Reggio Calabria, near ‘ndrangheta’s heartland, has said that Pope Francis’s crackdown on financial corruption in the Vatican, has angered bosses in the notorious crime squad.Gratteri said: “I don’t know if organised crime is in the position to do something, but it’s certainly thinking about it. It could be dangerous.”He said Francis was “on the right path” in attempting to clean out the stables at the Vatican.But Mr Gratteri, who has...

ROME (RNS) Pope Francis could be at risk from the ‘Ndrangheta organized crime organization, according to a leading anti-mob prosecutor who has himself been the target of threats from the mafia. Nicola Gratteri, 55, a state prosecutor in the southern Italian region of Calabria, where the ‘Ndrangheta is most active, said the pope’s effort to reform the church is making the ‘Ndrangheta “very nervous.” The organization is considered by experts in Italy to be the most dangerous, most unified and most difficult to penetrate mafia-type organization in the country. “I cannot say if the organization is in a position to...

The toughest guy in Sicily is a gay man. Nine months ago Rosario Crocetta was elected as Sicily's governor on an anti-Mafia platform, and his fearless campaign against the degenerate mobsters has so impressed an otherwise conservative electorate that his sexuality has become an irrelevancy as reported by Anthony Faiola for The Washington Post: "'Having Crocetta in Sicily is like having an openly gay man elected governor in Alabama,' said Ivan Scalfarotto, a member of the national parliament and a Milan-based gay rights advocate. 'But the most telling point is that his sexuality became a small detail for voters. This...

According to the European Union’s law enforcement agency handling criminal intelligence, Italy’s mafia has infiltrated the nebulous “Green Energy” industry, not only for traditional money laundering purposes, but also to capitalize on lucrative EU subsidies. On Thursday, Europol published a report suggesting that the mafia is making investments into the renewable energy industry, with a special focus on wind farms due to generous grants paid for by European Union member states. For an industry that is no stranger to scandals...

Matteo Messina Denaro, the so-called "boss of bosses" from Cosa Nostra or the Sicilian Mafia, has been a wanted man since 1993, and his days on the run may be drawing to a close as authorities seize the wealth -- $3.8 billion since 2009 -- that props him up as reported by Tom Kington for the Los Angeles Times: "investigators will not say whether they believe an arrest is imminent, but police have ramped up seizures of businesses they believe are fronting for Messina Denaro," and are hoping that he "could yet be betrayed by otherwise loyal entrepreneurs exasperated by...

...The pontiff exhorted Mafiosi to change their ways, issuing the call Sunday, a day after the beatification of an Italian priest in Palermo who was slain in 1993 by mobsters after he defiantly preached against the Mafia...

Two senior members of the Canadian mafia have been murdered in Sicily and their bodies incinerated, victims of what police suspect is a vicious turf war in Canada which has spilled over into the Cosa Nostra's Italian heartland. After an anonymous tip-off, the bodies of Juan Ramon Paz Fernandez and Fernando Pimentel were discovered near a rubbish dump in the countryside outside Palermo on Thursday. Police described the double killing as an "old-fashioned" gangland hit. Spanish-born Fernandez, 57, a notoriously tough enforcer for Montreal's Rizzuto clan, was expelled from Canada last year for the third time after serving a 10-year...