A MULTI-million dollar family drug empire allegedly run by members of the Italian mafia has been busted this morning following police raids in Sydney and Mildura

At 6 am, 200 officers swooped on properties across south-west Sydney and Mildura in Victoria.
Firearms and Organised Crime Squad Commander Detective Superintendent Arthur Katsogiannis said police would be alleging that the people involved were “very dangerous.
He said the raids were the culmination of an eight-month investigation by officers with Strike Force Baranbali, a joint operation [...]

Key Bulgarian Mafia Bosses Revealed to Be Former Policemen

Bulgaria’s Interior Ministry has presented a list of top alleged mafia bosses who served in police structures in the past.
The inspection was carried out by the Information and Archives Directorate and Human Resources Directorate over recent media claims that some of the top gangsters were collaborators of the Interior Ministry.
It has been revealed that only [...]

Italian mafia creating ‘alternative’ government

Organized crime in Italy is undergoing a “strategic transformation” by seeking to reduce the use of intimidation and violence in favor of “soft power,” a senior MP said on Tuesday, an Italian national news agency reported.
Ansa quoted Giuseppe Pisanu, head of the parliamentary Anti-Mafia Commission, as saying that the mafia’s ultimate objective was to create [...]

Russian Mafia Abroad Now 300,000 Strong

After avoiding any use of the term “Russian mafia” in the last few years, law enforcement personnel in Europe and elsewhere are now speaking about it again, noting that it includes “up to 300,000 people” and dominates the criminal world in many countries around the world, according to a Moscow investigative journalist.
In Monday’s Versiya, Ruslan [...]

Ex Bulgaria Interior Minister Slammed over ‘Octopus’ Behavior

The Director of Bulgaria’s Customs Agency, Gen. Vanyo Tanov, has stated that he is surprised by the behavior of former Interior Minister Rumen Petkov regarding the special police operation ‘Octopus’.
Tanov, who is also the Ex Chief of the Unit for Fighting Organized Crime (GDBOP), questioned Petkov’s reported reasons for meeting mafia bosses – The Galevi [...]

Bulgarian PM: ‘I am at war with the mafia Octopus’

The Bulgarian government is at war with the mafia, Prime Minister Boyko Borissov told journalists in Brussels on Thursday (11 February). He dramatically added that the outcome of a high-profile anti-mafia operation in his country, called ‘Octopus’, was still uncertain.
“It is war,” said Borissov. “It remains to be seen who will withstand.”
The remark came in [...]

Bulgaria Police Bust Organized Crime Group in ‘Octopus’ Special Operation

Bulgaria’s Interior Ministry has detained members of a large-scale organized crime group in Sofia in a special operation codenamed “Octopus” carried out overnight.
Bulgaria’s Interior Minister Tsvetan Tsvetanov announced early Wednesday morning that the special operation codenamed “Octopus” started as an inspection of night clubs in Sofia and grew into a full-fledged raid including a number [...]

African Immigrants in Italy Slave Labor for the Mafia

Xenophobes in homogenous European countries often complain that immigrants will erase their most precious cultural norms. The race riots in southern Italy last weekend may be one indicator that change is inevitable, as African immigrants who don’t live by the country’s infamous omertà code of silence violently protested against the powerful Mafia clans that control [...]

“Stan the Man” gangland heavyweight of the ’80s, dies at 73

ONE of Sydney’s criminal heavyweights for three decades, Stanley John ”Stan the Man” Smith, described during his prime as a Mafia associate, a ‘’stand-over criminal and international shop thief”, has died.
Smith, who was an associate of such luminaries as Len McPherson and George Freeman and featured in Sydney’s ”gang wars” of the mid-1980s, died on [...]

Yakuza

Yakuza images reveal the hierarchy that structures the organization. An obsequious flunky lights a cigarette for a gang leader, who poses with the self-conscious cool of a Hollywood villain; a human pit-bull stands with a bandana tied round his melon-shaped head. Punctuated by gaudy street posters covered in Japanese kanji, the background landscape reveals aged [...]

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