'Ndrangheta laundering money in Germany

Berlin – Italian mafia organisations are investing billions of euros into Germany to hide their profits from the Italian authorities, organized crime experts said in Berlin on Friday.


“Germany is one of the most important sanctuaries, if not the most important,” Italy’s top anti-mafia lawyer Alberto Cisterna told German Press Agency dpa.


Since German reunification 20 years ago, he said former East Germany had become a key area for Italian mafia organizations to launder their profits.


Cisterna was part of an Italian delegation meeting German investigators in Berlin for a conference on ways of tackling organised crime.


Laura Garavini, a mafia expert in Italy’s Democratic Party, said eastern Germany was particular popular with the ‘Ndrangheta organisation from Italy’s southern Calabria region.


“In the first few years, when the east drew capital from all sorts of directions and nobody paid too much attention where it was coming from, the mafia channelled investments into real estate, tourism and the restaurant business,” Garavini said.


German investigators have also traced ‘Ndrangheta money to the Frankfurt stock exchange.


Cisterna said the mafia bosses presented themselves in Germany as serious businessmen, when in fact they were laundering money.


“If they pay 700,000 euros (860,000 dollars) into the bank each day, nobody suspects a thing if they own, say, a supermarket – even if it does not sell anything,” the lawyer said, adding that Germany’s prosperity made the country ideal.


“The best place to hide a grain of corn is in a corn shed,” Cisterna added.


Garavini said the mafia felt safe in Germany, in the assumption that it would be harder to confiscate their assets outside of Italy. She appealed for lawmakers to make use of a new EU regulation which enabled investments to be seized abroad.


Doing so had helped to fight the mafia in Italy, Garavini told

http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/326094,italian-mafia-laundering-profits-in-germany-finds-conference.html

Colombo crime-family POW scam

mobster pleaded guilty yesterday to a bizarre scheme to defraud a former Long Island congressman out of $18,500 in exchange for bogus information about Vietnam POWs.

Charles Guiga, 38, admitted that within the last year he’d sent letters supposedly written by a Russian mobster and giving the locations of 75 prisoners of war supposedly being held in the former Soviet republic of Belarus.

But the letters to one-term GOP Rep. John LeBoutillier were in actuality the scribblings of imprisoned Colombo crime-family captain Frank “Frankie Blue Eyes” Sparaco.

Sparaco, 54, who is serving a 24-year federal sentence, once did time with Russian mobster Vyacheslav Ivankov and claimed to have a line into Eastern European gangs. “Frank Sparaco sent me handwritten letters from prison and asked me to correct his spelling, type the letters and send them . . . to ‘John the Congressman,’ ” Guiga told Brooklyn federal Judge Carol Amon in pleading guilty to mail fraud.

LeBoutillier, 56, who held office from 1980 to 1982, served on a special congressional committee on Vietnam War MIA/POWs. He believes that some are still being held, and he remains committed to freeing them.

And he says he still feels that Sparaco’s letters could lead somewhere.

“I’ve gotten some good information from these guys,” he said

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/mobster_pow_scam_took_li_pol_for_jKzNsJMRyrs1HEplltsTQN

Italy:Calabrian Mafia attack blamed for halting Easter procession

Vibo Valentia, 6 April (AKI) - Prosecutors in the southern Italian town of Vibo Valentia are investigating the alleged intimidation of a local priest by Calabrian mafia gunmen which led to the cancellation of a traditional Easter vigil procession.

Last Saturday's traditional 'Affruntata' procession in the Calabrian village of Sant'Onofrio was cancelled after suspected mafia gunmen fired rounds of bullets outside the home of the procession's organiser, local priest Michele Virdo.

The attack drew condemnation from across the political spectrum.

"This serious act of intimidation must not discourage those who are fighting the 'Ndrangheta (Calabrian mafia)," said historic anti-mafia campaigner Leoluca Orlando, now a member of the centre-left Italy of Values opposition party.

The gun attack against Virdo's residence followed the exclusion of local mafia members from the 'Affruntata' on orders of the bishop of the surrounding Vibo-Mileto-Tropea diocese, Monsignor Luigi Renzo.

The attack was condemned by far-right party La Destra founder Francesco Storace.

"Our solidarity is with the church which does not tolerate mafia bosses," he said.

In a longstanding tradition, young members of the local Calabrian mafia carry statues of the Virgin Mary, Jesus and various saints during the 'Affruntata' procession.

Taking part in the 'Affruntata' is reportedly considered a rite of passage for many young people aligned with the mafia.

Paramilitary 'Carabinieri' police from Vibo Valentia and the surrounding province collected around 30 bullets and cartridges from outside Virdo's home, which were due to be analysed by ballistics experts.

Daniel Leo, a/k/a "The Lion,"Genovese Crime Family boss

The acting Don of the New York-based Genovese Organized Crime Family, Daniel Leo, a/k/a "The Lion," and his nephew and primary lieutenant, Joseph Leo, pleaded guilty to racketeering charges Friday in Manhattan federal court.

According to the Indictment filed in Manhattan federal court: Beginning in about 2005, Daniel Leo became the acting boss of the Genovese Organized Crime Family, from his previous post as a member of the Family’s ruling panel.

During the time Daniel Leo served as acting boss, he continued to supervise a "crew" of Genovese Organized Crime Family members and associates, including Joseph Leo and others, who committed loansharking, extortion, and illegal gambling offenses under Daniel Leo's direction.

Both defendants pleaded guilty today to Counts One and Two of the Indictment, which charged them with participating in, and conspiring to participate in, the affairs of the Genovese Organized Crime Family through a pattern of racketeering activity. Both defendants admitted during the plea proceeding that they participated in the affairs of the Genovese Organized Crime Family by engaging in loansharking, and that they conspired to operate an illegal gambling business.

These two defendants entered their guilty pleas before United States Magistrate Judge Ronald Ellis. They are scheduled to be sentenced by United States District Judge Richard Holwell on April 2, 2010.

Each defendant faces a maximum sentence of 40 years in prison and a maximum fine of $250,000 or twice the gross gain or loss from the offense.

Daniel Leo and Joseph Leo are currently serving prison sentences of 60 months and 46 months, respectively, based on their prior convictions in Manhattan federal court on extortion charges in October 2007.

From Godfather to Godfellas, mob rats william Cutalo jr and Joe Campanella

Meet the Godfellas. In previous incarnations, mob rats Joe Campanella and William Cutolo Jr. were entrenched in the Colombo crime family. The son of Murdered Former Colombo Underboss William ' Wild Bill' Cutolo. Now they want deliverance from evil - as "ministers" in a flock of mob misfits known as Goodfellas4God. "There are people who want to get out of that life and they talk to me," said ministry founder Glenn Hovater, a former pest control inspector who runs the operation from donated offices in Painesville, Ohio

. Hovater started the group two years ago; most members are ex-wiseguys from Cleveland and Pennsylvania. A retired NYPD detective introduced him to Campanella; he and Cutolo Jr. are the only New Yorkers. Hovater will send Campanella, a former made man, and Cutolo Jr., son of underboss Wild Bill Cutolo, on speaking tours to rail against "the life."
Neither Mafia rat is in the witness protection program, so special security arrangements will be made to ensure their safety.
Campanella helped convict Colombo boss Alphonse Persico and underboss John DeRoss of ordering Wild Bill's murder in 2001.
Cutolo Jr., 37, is a marked man for wearing a wire to gather damning evidence against DeRoss after his father vanished. The senior Cutolo, whose remains were found last year in an industrial park on Long Island, came home from prison in 1995 a devout Catholic, his son said.

"It took 10 years to find him and I must say I lost my faith at times," Cutolo Jr. wrote on the Goodfellas4God Web site. "When they confirmed indeed it was my dad, I found my faith again. Still asking why, but I now realize it is not our job to ask WHY. It's the Lord's work. He brought my father home to me

. "When my friend Joe (Campy) Campanella told me about this ministry and minister Glenn, right away I thought of my dad. How proud he would be of me for joining this ministry. I would rather preach goodness than to teach someone how to do something bad."
Campanella, 50, seems to be having some misgivings about the God thing. In a message to the Daily News, he said: "As far as the Goodfellas4God and being part of the ministry and all that other B.S., right now, there's nothing written in stone."
Still, Campanella is listed as head of the "Out of the Life Ministries" on Hovater's Web site. The site asks visitors: "Have you committed adultery, fornicated, lied, stole, lusted etc.? Click here to 'Get Connected' and wash away all the sins you have ever committed." The New Yorkers easily qualify.
Campanella did a three-year prison stint for racketeering. As a Colombo soldier, he took part in shootings, beatdowns, extortion and an affair with a woman whose father-in-law was a made man in the Gambino family.
Cutolo Jr. was sentenced in 2006 to four years' probation for extortion, which got him kicked out of witness protection.
DeRoss' lawyer claimed Cutolo's newfound faith is a scam. "Cutolo's son has chosen the ministry for one reason only, to scam unsuspecting members of his new flock as he victimized innocent people when he was a member of organized crime," lawyer Robert LaRusso said.
Hovater - who grew up around wiseguys in Cleveland - is convinced his newest evangelists aren't acting. "I believe in my heart they're really sincere," he said. "Maybe other people don't, but I do."

"Joey has no money and Cutolo ain't got no money either," he said. "I told them there's no money in this."

Thomas Fiore,and other Florida Bonanno crime Family members, admit guilt

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — Thomas Fiore-One by one, members of a South Florida crew of the New York-based Bonanno crime family stood before a federal judge Wednesday to plead guilty to racketeering charges, including one enforcer who said it was impossible to escape the Mafia life.

Six of the 11 purported crew members indicted in May pleaded guilty to charges that carry a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. All 11 are charged under the federal Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations, or RICO law, which the FBI has used frequently to break up major criminal enterprises. Read The Full Story

Federal Prosecutors Portray John Gotti as Killer as Victoria Gotti Enjoys Star Treatment

NEW YORK — As his sister Victoria Gotti began a book tour like a celebrity author, John "Junior" Gotti sat in court, portrayed as a merciless killer by federal prosecutors who want to show he was far different from his entrepreneurial sister.
Last week, the government used its star witness — childhood friend John Alite — to convince a Manhattan jury that Gotti was as lethal a threat to society as anyone else in the Gambino crime family once led by his late father, John Gotti Sr.

Read The Full Story RatFella Alite