Posted on 10/02/2006 8:07:33 AM PDT by Valin
WASHINGTON, (AP) - The FBI's top counterterrorism official harbors lots of concerns: weapons of mass destruction, undetected homegrown terrorists and the possibility that old-fashioned mobsters will team up with al-Qaeda for the right price. Though there is no direct evidence yet of organized crime collaborating with terrorists, the first hints of a connection surfaced in a recent undercover FBI operation. Agents stopped a man with alleged mob ties from selling missiles to an informant posing as a terrorist middleman.
That case and other factors are heightening concerns about a real-life episode of the Sopranos teaming with Osama bin Laden's followers. "We are continuing to look for a nexus," said Joseph Billy Jr., the FBI's top counterterrorism official. "We are looking at this very aggressively." The new strategy involves an analysis of nationwide criminal investigations, particularly white collar crime, side by side with intelligence and terrorist activity. "We have developed an ability to look harder and broader in a greatly enhanced way to see if there is any crossover," Billy said in an interview with The Associated Press.
Organized crime syndicates could facilitate money transfers or laundering, human smuggling, identification fraud or explosives and weapons acquisitions, officials said. The options are many for terrorists groups. There are the five reputed La Cosa Nostra families in New York, Russian criminal enterprises from Brighton Beach in the New York borough of Brooklyn to Moscow, and the emerging Asian crime syndicates that operate in many Islamic countries with al-Qaeda offshoots.
A contract study produced recently for the Pentagon and obtained by the AP warned that the potential for organized crime assisting terrorists is growing. "Although terrorism and organized crime are different phenomena, the important fact is that terrorist and criminal networks overlap and cooperate in some enterprises," the study said. "The phenomenon of the synergy of terrorism and organized crime is growing because similar conditions give rise to both and because terrorists and organized criminals use similar approaches to promote their operations."
The traditional mafia has highly developed networks for acquiring goods and services and money, all for a price. The mob's potential interest in helping a terrorist has nothing to do with ideology or sympathy but with greed, said Matt Heron, head of New York FBI's organized crime unit. "They will deal with anybody, if they can make a buck," Heron said. "They will sell to a terrorist just as easily as they would sell to an order of Franciscan monks. It's a business relationship to them." "If the mob has explosives and a terrorist wants them and they have the money, they could become instant friends," he said.
Pat D'Amuro, a retired senior FBI official and now chief executive of Giuliani Security, said a Mafia boss once acknowledged that the mob would help terrorists. "I am aware of a high-level Mafia figure, who was cooperating with authorities, being asked if the Mafia would assist terrorists in smuggling people into Europe through Italy," D'Amuro said. "He said, 'The Mafia will help who ever can pay.'"
Officials said they have no specific evidence that such a relationship has been cemented. But concerns were heightened last year after an Armenian immigrant was arrested in New York for allegedly leading a plot to sell military weapons to an FBI informant posing as a middleman for terrorists. Arthur Solomonyan had claimed to be able to deliver shoulder-fired missiles from his connection in Russian organized crime to the informant, who claimed to have ties to al-Qaeda, federal prosecutors said. Solomonyan and 17 others in New York, Florida and California were charged in the case. Solomonyan is scheduled for trial this month. His lawyer, Seth Ginsberg, said he plans to "vigorously contest" the charges and call the government's confidential informant to the stand to challenge his motives. The Italian, Russian, and Asian mafia remain active, particularly in New York, even though the government has successfully prosecuted numerous figures in recent years. In the past three years, well over 100 associates from all five La Cosa Nostra families have been arrested in New York, Heron noted.
While the potential of a gangster-terrorist marriage is on the FBI's radar, homegrown terror cells and weapons of mass destruction are also big concerns for those in the FBI given the job of stopping the next terrorist attack. "We are not only aware that they want to come across the ocean to attack us but they may be physically here developing in our own homeland," Billy said.
The Internet has become the new Afghanistan, allowing terrorist sympathizers to promote their radical ideas and to recruit and train followers right their home computers. That makes it far more difficult for investigators to identify them. Billy said his biggest concern remains weapons of mass destruction. While Hezbollah and Hamas are more defined terrorist groups, with a territorial focus and a political platform, al-Qaeda is more unpredictable. "We know they were trying to acquire it prior to 9/11, bin Laden's own words said that," said Billy. "What makes us think they are still not trying?"
TV and Hollywood have romanticized the Mob. They have people believing that they all operate by some unbreakable ethical code.
Gotti is/was a tool
?
Luciano helped us against the Krauts in WWII
For easy time and a get out of jail free card.
http://www.crimelibrary.com/gangsters_outlaws/mob_bosses/luciano/index_1.html
It was business as usual and Lucky was able to continue to run his empire from the walls of Dannemora. On one particular visit, two narcotics agents dropped by thinking that Luciano might be ready to talk. As soon as he saw the agents he said, "Take me out of here. I won’t talk to these people." Another visit brought none other than his sentencing judge, Phillip J. McCook. In an interview attributed to Luciano in a book whose authenticity has been questioned, The Last Testament of Lucky Luciano, by Martin A. Gosch and Richard Hammer, Judge McCook is alleged to have fallen to his knees, pleaded for forgiveness, and begged Luciano to remove a Sicilian curse that was ruining his life. Nobody who knew the rugged, no-nonsense judge believed this—and it never happened. Actually, McCook was visiting Luciano to check out a rumor that turned out to be unfounded -- that Luciano had been threatened with underworld violence.
World War II was grinding on in 1942 and the United States had entered it in 1941 when Japan bombed Pearl Harbor. Luciano was ready in the spring of 1942 for almost any idea that would help get him out of dreary Dannemora. As it was, he was not even eligible to apply for parole until April 24, 1956. Meyer Lansky, in trying to help his friend get out of prison, sent out feelers that suggested that Lucky could help the United States war effort in Sicily and at home. Some serious thought was made to enlist Luciano’s help in securing the waterfront docks in New York from Nazi saboteurs.
Naval Intelligence got wind of the idea, and eagerly decided to approach Luciano with their proposal. But first, they needed to get him out of Dannemora and send him to a more secure location. The place they had in mind was Great Meadow Prison in Comstock, New York. Luciano was ecstatic and jumped at the opportunity to leave Dannemora to what he felt like was a country club. On May 12, 1942, he was headed for Great Meadow Prison.
Luciano felt that Great Meadow was a great place to visit, but didn’t want to live there. Shortly after his arrival there, he was hospitalized for iritis of his right eye, the eyelid which had drooped ever since his ordeal back in 1929. He recovered and would soon be healthy enough to be assigned chores in the cement shack . He attended no chapel services and never set foot in a classroom. Afterall, what trade could he learn for life on the outside?
Lucky didn’t break a single prison rule and was considered a model prisoner. Friends dropped by on a frequent basis, especially Meyer Lansky. However, there were other visitors that Lucky didn’t know, but expected.
The Allies in war torn Europe were about to launch an invasion of Sicily. The U.S. could use some help in acquiring intelligence on German troop movements and other vital military information. The U.S. had reason to believe the Mafia wanted the Axis forces off the island, so that they could get back to peace and prosperity for its own purposes. Naval Intelligence made numerous unrecorded visits to Great Meadow to solicit help from Lucky. Can he get word to the Mafia leaders on Sicily asking for help? Lucky assured them he could, and it was later proven he did.
Lucky enjoys a glass of wine in retirement
Lucky did what you would call easy-time at Great Meadow. He could get anything he wanted—booze, good food, and reportedly women. With his service to the U.S. government, he felt this justified an early release from prison. At war’s end and in a strange twist of fate, the person who could grant commutation of sentence was also the person who put him in jail, Thomas Dewey, who was now the Governor of New York.
Maybe Dewey felt obligated in giving Luciano a break because he had heard about Dutch Schultz’s intention on having him killed and how Luciano disposed of Dutch instead. At any rate, in January, 1946, Dewey granted commutation of sentence with the condition that he be deported to Italy. Dewey found that Lucky never became a naturalized citizen in his own right.
TV and Hollywood have romanticized the Mob. They have people believing that they all operate by some unbreakable ethical code.
Wouldn't you like to belong to a club where you get to dress snazzy, stay up late, and don't have to worry about mowing the lawn?
Truth is stranger than fiction.
Two that don't (IMO)
"GoodFellas" & "Donnie Brasco". Wat to many people think that "The Godfather" is accurate, it's not.
Yes, but some folks from the middle east may not be familiar with our quaint customs.
I agree. I've never figured out how a bunch of ruthless, cruel thugs who would sell their own grandmothers got to be considered cute, cuddly, patriotic folk-heroes.
I don't think they'd have any problem working with AQ, for the right price. They might want to make sure the nuke went to some other city than their own, of course, but then again, they might just try to be out of town that day.
I agree. I've never figured out how a bunch of ruthless, cruel thugs who would sell their own grandmothers got to be considered cute, cuddly, patriotic folk-heroes.
Because deep down many folks envy the way they are portrayed in the movies. A bunch of guys who do what they please, inspire fear, and have a circle of loyal friends.
Take your typical junior vice president of accounting in a $200 suit and a crushing mortgage who has to say "yes sir" all day to some shlub in a corner office and doesn't even get respect from the chick ringing up his order at the local Mickey D's -- the "as advertised" lifestyle of the bad guys looks pretty good.
"Yes, particularly since the word "mafia" is an arabic word..."
A little known point but you are indeed correct. I think it comes from the arabic word for "sanctuary" or "refuge"
Oh, I think there is lots of evidence that the Democrats.....Oh you mean THAT mob. Silly me, I thought you were talking about the MOB on the left....
But give us more money please. The only mob connected with Islamic terrorists in the U.S. is the government, whose policy of colonizing their own nation is the source from which such terrorism springs.
Bonanno Crime Family:
Joe Banana's criminal empire was brought down by drugs and infiltration by federal agents.
http://www.crimelibrary.com/gangsters_outlaws/family_epics/bonanno/1.html
(snip)
Bonanno felt he deserved the vaunted position since in his estimation he, unlike his so-called peers, was the only remaining "man of honor" in the tradition of the Sicilian Mafia. "Wealth," he would later write in his controversial 1983 autobiography, was a "by-product of power." According to Bonanno, Lucky Luciano and his ilk concerned themselves with "the most primitive consideration: making money"-an interesting statement coming from a man whose crime family made most of its profits from the sale and distribution of narcotics. During his unprecedented 33 year reign, Bonanno used his considerable ill-gotten gain to extend his empire beyond the New York City area, acquiring major interests in Arizona, California, Canada, Cuba, and Haiti.
(snip)
"Pat D'Amuro, a retired senior FBI official and now chief executive of Giuliani Security, said a Mafia boss once acknowledged that the mob would help terrorists. "I am aware of a high-level Mafia figure, who was cooperating with authorities, being asked if the Mafia would assist terrorists in smuggling people into Europe through Italy," D'Amuro said. "He said, 'The Mafia will help who ever can pay.'"
AQ = MOB = UNIONS = DEMOCRAT
Ditto.
IIRC the mob worked with the FBI during WWII to help protect the US against possible foreign saboteurs and infiltrators.
I agree. I think it is law enforcement just trying to conflate the two so that they can use all their new terror-fighting tools against common crimes by labeling them as "terror related." Any sector of government tries to expand their empire -- law enforcement included. They now have enormous powers granted them to sidestep certain legal restrictions as along as they are going after terrorists. And it's just too temping to use those against common criminals since terrorists are hard to find, track, and infiltrate. It's much easier to go after what they know -- and what they know is common crime. And they can claim to be showing progress on terror (where the big funding is) when they are actually working on the much easier common crime targets.
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