Posts
All Comments
The families of the 157 people killed in a massacre in Guinea last September were barred Tuesday from entering or approaching the soccer stadium where the killings occurred on the one-year anniversary of the slaughter.
It’s not just drugs coming from South America. Weapons, people, toxic waste, diamonds are all trafficked through the region and into Europe. And it’s not just organized crime, Annemie Turtelboom, Belgian minister for home affairs, told the conference organized by the Belgian presidency of the European Union and Interpol. Terrorist organizations such as Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb are increasing their influence in the region, she said.
The Prime Minister added that national governments alone cannot solve the problem because of its global dimension and reiterated a call by former T&T President, Arthur Robinson, for international drug trafficking to be included as a crime within the jurisdiction of the ICC.
According to Malaysian police, the majority of drug smugglers arrested in Malaysia are from Nigeria, Turkey, Iran, and Bulgaria.
One year after the massacre of 157 people in Conakry, no army official suspected of taking part in the killings has been brought before a court in Guinea, which is still riven by political divisions.
Italian authorities claim that they have uncovered a new face to the Mafia operating in Toronto. They claim that there are now seven dominant mafia families in the city of Toronto , Canada and they each have a boss who sits on a influential board of control or commission. These families took control of the criminal underworld in Toronto by taking control of the global drug trade and establishing a consistent flow of cocaine mostly from Argentina. A report from Italian prosecutors says these seven families are made up mostly of member who are of Calabrian origins. Each of these families are active in extortion , drug trafficking , illegal gambling , and production of forged materials among many other criminal operations.
In Saturday’s Post, Adrian Humphreys writes about the ‘Ndrangheta Mafia. For a gang of outlaws, the ’Ndrangheta has a lot of rules and etiquette to adhere to, according to a prosecutor’s report in Italy:
There is a police station situated on the eastern border of Chibolya and John Howard. The police station bears the township’s name, but the locals just call it “Pentagon”. The police, however, are clearly not welcome in Chibolya where they are treated as outlaws.
There is even an invisible off-limit line for cops right at the mouth of Gaza Street.
“We can’t go there in uniform,” one female police officer once told me.
And the gangs do not hesitate in showing their indignation at the mere sight of a cop in uniform who over-steps the off-limit line.
About three years ago, while reporting on the Muslim community in the area during Ramadan, I witnessed first hand a violent scene when scores of stone-throwing residents forced a police vehicle out of their compound.
The police officers had been in pursuit of a minibus driver who had apparently thrown away the traffic rule book. Hence, Chibolya has also become a safe haven for law-breakers.
Yet, things do turn even nastier for the police on Gaza Street.
About three months ago, two police officers were beaten after they tried to help a man whose phone had been stolen. When the victim and the two police officers arrived on Gaza Street in a taxi, all hell broke loose.
The taxi had its windows shattered, while the two cops were stripped of any valuables. They escaped from the scene bare-footed.
The United States says it plans to strengthen ties with two breakaway regions in Somalia to try to undercut a growing threat from Islamist extremists.
MEXICO'S drug-fuelled violence is flooding across Central America as cartels deepen roots in a region that needs more aid to counter organised crime, the presidents of Panama and Costa Rica said.
Deep in his heart, Mr Mwaura wants to leave the sect and lead a normal life. However, the man from Kangema is in a dilemma.
“If I dissociate myself with them (colleagues), they will know that I have developed cold feet. I don’t know what will befall me. I don’t even want to imagine it. Meanwhile, the security people know that I am Mungiki and I don’t know how to convince them otherwise,” said the bitter sect member.
To him, the only option is to go and live somewhere far from Central, Nairobi and parts of Rift Valley like Nakuru, Naivasha and Laikipia, where Mungiki cells are active.
“These people (Mungiki) are very vicious. If you get out of the caucus for some time, they start following you and they are capable of doing anything. At least I have a reprieve because I have come out of jail and I asked to be exempted from extorting money from the matatu operators as a way of evading the police,” he said.
Mr Mwaura is one of the many youths trapped in a catch-22 situation over whether to quit and face the wrath of the other sect members or stay put and continue to suffer under the heavy police crackdowns.
Eight Italian police officers have been arrested in the Mafia-ridden city of Naples on suspicion of drug trafficking, according to reports.
Authorities in Bosnia-Herzegovina have arrested about 60 people, including 22 police officers, on suspicion of smuggling cigarettes and luxury goods.
Soldiers from the NATO mission in Kosovo, KFOR, are suspected of selling fuel intended for military purposes from one of their bases to petrol stations.
KFOR said in a statement last week that some soldiers were suspected of having 'been involved in the case of fuel smuggling, tax evasion, and misuse of economic authorisation'.
Spain continues to be an entry point for cocaine to Europe. Last year nearly 26.5 tons of the drug was intercepted, an amount 9.5% down on 2008.
This fighting left a death toll of 12 on the side of AQIM and six on the side of the Mauritanian military.
After Niger’s consent, about 100 French specialists in anti-terrorism were sent to Niamey.
"Mafia kingpins from the former Soviet Union have moved into the French Riviera and are taking over with “quasi-military” precision.
“Everything from burglary and money laundering to vice is controlled by the Mob from former Communist countries,” said one police officer, who was involved in the arrest of 69 members of a Georgian syndicate in March.
Judging the results, one might even think the drug war solely exists as the principle means through which wealthy elites organize crime.
"'Some KFOR soldiers are under suspicion of having been involved in the case of fuel smuggling, tax evasion, and misuse of economic authorization' the NATO-led peacekeeping mission in Kosovo stated. The KFOR’s announcement came right after the EU rule of law mission (EULEX) stated it has detained five persons within its ongoing investigation into organized crime.
These terrorist activities grow out of the horrific Algerian civil war in the 1990s. AQIM was originally the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC), a slightly-less brutal offshoot of the Armed Islamic Group (GIA), who tactics -- which included the massacres of entire villages -- upset even Osama bin Laden. Both groups had ties to AQ, and the GSPC officially merged with AQ in 2006, becoming AQIM.
But the militia has as many as 1,000 spies living in government areas, many in strategic places near the airport, port and the presidential palace, he said. Cells also operate in mosques and Koranic schools.
Italian police seized 15 billion euros in assets from organized crime groups in the 14 months through August, Maroni said on Aug. 15. Among the seizures was Rome’s Cafe' de Paris, famous for appearing in Federico Fellini’s 1960 film “La Dolce Vita.” Investigators said the cafe' was owned by the Calabrian ‘Ndrangheta mafia.
A new generation of armed drug-trafficking groups in Colombia has replaced a right-wing paramilitary army demobilized in 2006, a local think-tank says.
While the army already had authorization to intervene in case of need, the novelty is that now the Brazilian Air Force (FAB) and the Navy may proceed without waiting for the police.
The Senegalese capital has become a major transit point for drugs coming from Latin America and destined for Europe, according to Customs officials.
Under section Concerns about cocaine along the Balkan route (p 83):“While most cocaine shipments from South America continue to be directed towards Western Europe… some shipments to East Europe and the Balkan countries have been noticed by enforcement agencies.”
Further back in recent times, while the 2005 UN Drug report identifies Kosovo Albanian organized crime groups responsible for controlling heroin market, the 2007report, additionally, identified them as developers of the new traffic routs through which they augment their heroin trade with South American cocaine:
“This raises concerns about the development of new trafficking routes and/or the incorporation of cocaine into the range of products offered by traditional heroin trafficking groups operating along the Balkan route,” says the report then added that Albanian drug gangs control ports in Romania, in addition to ones in Montenegro (Bar) and Albania (Durres).
“Some cases of cocaine shipments via the Black Sea to Romania and via the Adriatic Sea to Montenegro often organized by Albanian criminal groups have already been observed,” says the report.
Thus the traditional narcotics market structure has evolved further over the previous years and now the smugglers are able to exploit both the main road corridors of the region from East to West and South to North, but also got a hold of the main sea trade import bases and revealed themselves into a greater and global role.
The largest contingent comes from South Africa, where an existing drugs problem, alongside a massive gulf between rich and poor, has created an environment in which women are prepared to take huge risks in order to earn quick money. If they are caught, they face prison terms of between three and 15 years, with the right to just two phone calls a year.
With Colombian drug-smuggling networks increasingly targeting the south-west coast of Ireland as a back door for trafficking cocaine into Europe, the Irish navy is playing its part in trying to shut off that gateway
....
"It is a very rugged coastline and there are areas around it which are very isolated. We have many small islands that are sparsely populated so they make ideal areas to land goods or to try and ship goods into this country. It all lends itself to narcotics being landed in Ireland," says Doyle as one of his trainee cadets scans a series of islands to the west with binoculars.
The donkeys have been adopted by the drug smugglers as they are trained to navigate the inhospitable mountain terrain between Herzegovina and Croatia.
"The latest NSW crime statistics, obtained by The Sun-Herald, showed the use of cocaine across the state has increased by more than 50 percent in the past two years"
But some residents of Tivoli Gardens have openly embraced the system, saying that Coke’s presence in the community made them feel safe. Many residents demonstrated and barricaded the community after Prime Minister Golding gave the go ahead for Coke’s extradition request by the United States to begin albeit months of delaying tactics. Even after Coke’s extradition to the US in June and the deaths of more than 70 persons during the civil unrest where gunmen attacked the security forces and burnt at least one police station, the residents maintained that there was order in the community prior to the civil unrest with no incidents of rape and an 8:00 p.m. curfew implemented by Coke for all those who went to school.
Following an ancient trade route across Libya, Sara Wheeler enounters Berber life, and finds that trade and smuggling are still alive and well.
Mr Leistra says the large number of different nationalities that live in the Netherlands is an added bonus; criminals have contacts all over the world. Colombian cocaine traffickers use the Netherlands as the gateway to the rest of Europe by utilising the Colombian community in the Netherlands: 'first the drugs, usually cocaine, leave South America and are transported via the Antilles or Suriname.
However, lately the drugs have gone directly to Nigeria. The gangs use men and women, known as drug mules, to smuggle the coke into the Netherlands. It's a real international network. Slowly but surely, an international Mafia is developing and Dutch criminals and are taking a share of the business'.
"Authorities have dismantled an international drug trafficking ring whose reach extended from drug-producing countries in South America to the shores of the United States.
The polisario's fighters are far more skilled than the typical AQIM recruit, said Pham who wrote several articles on AQIM.
