[I listened to this on the scanner]
Suspect in weekend shootings pleads not guilty
UNION-TRIBUNE
6:36 p.m. November 21, 2007
SAN DIEGO – A 23-year-old man arrested for a weekend shooting that led to a police gunbattle on Interstate 805 pleaded not guilty Wednesday to murder and conspiracy to commit robbery.
Prosecutors said Tri Vo drove the gunman to a 34th Street apartment in City Heights, where the gunman opened fire on the occupants, including his ex-wife.
Prosecutors said narcotics agents had been watching Vo, whom they suspected of gang involvement and drug and gun trafficking. The agents believed Vo was planning a robbery on Nov. 17.
Instead, Vo drove Cao Lam to a house where Lam picked up a gun and extra ammunition, and then to the apartment.
Prosecutors said Lam, 41, shot and killed Oeuth Saem, 47, who tried to keep Lam from the residence. Lam wounded five other people, including his ex-wife, who was shot in the chest. Acquaintances said that Saem was dating Lam’s ex-wife.
Lam shot and wounded a state drug agent while fleeing. As Lam ran across Interstate 805, police fatally shot him.
If convicted, Vo could be sent to prison for 31 years to life. San Diego Superior Court Judge David M. Szumowski ordered Vo held without bail.
– Dana Littlefield
Find this article at:
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/20071121-1836-bn21trivo.html
[This does not say it, but you could hear it and the calls from the people on the freeway, as he ran down the middle island of the freeway, he kept firing shots at the police, and I would assume any of the passing cars............they had no choice to shoot him, at the point he was killed the call had already gone out that a Policeman had been shot............granny]
By Jerry Capeci
Allie’s Secret Talks With Linda Schiro
http://www.ganglandnews.com/lastweek.htm
http://www.ganglandnews.com/thisweek.htm
November 22, 2007
By Jerry Capeci
Scarpa Gave Huge Help To FBI & Rudy Giuliani
A Gang Land Exclusive
Greg ScarpaThere is no question that Colombo soldier Gregory Scarpa (right) was a murderous, double dealing gangster who used his long relationship as a top echelon FBI informer to skate away from any serious prison time until he was a shell of his old self and dying of AIDS.
But lost in the shuffle of the stunning end to the murder trial of former FBI agent R. Lindley DeVecchio is just how valuable Scarpa was at getting and passing along important information to the feds during their onslaught against the mob in the 1980s.
Scarpa’s top-secret stuff helped launch prosecutions that sent mob leaders away for life, including seven in the much-lauded “Mafia Commission” case that Presidential hopeful Rudolph Giuliani has long pointed to as a major accomplishment of his, according to FBI reports that were filed during the DeVecchio trial.
In 1983, for example, Scarpa gave the FBI important insight about two key mobsters in the Commission case, which centered on a multi-family extortion and bid rigging scheme that gave the mob a 2% surcharge on all Manhattan construction projects over $2 million.
On one occasion, Scarpa told DeVecchio that Colombo soldier Ralph Scopo, then president of the powerful cement workers union that enforced the scheme by refusing to work on jobs in which the payoff wasn’t made, was “getting kickbacks from employers.”
In September, 1983, he reported that Anthony (Fat Tony) Salerno, who would be convicted as Genovese boss in that case, was “one of the most powerful men in that family.” Scarpa detailed
Fat Tony Outside The Palma Boys Social Clubthe days that Fat Tony would hold court at his East Harlem headquarters, the Palma Boys Social Club, which the FBI successfully bugged.
The FBI, and prosecutors under Giuliani, for that matter, would have avoided some embarrassment down the line if they had paid closer attention to what Scarpa was telling them about the secretive and powerful Genovese leadership.
On January 17, 1984, nearly three years before Salerno was convicted in the Commission case as the family boss – erroneously, the feds would later concede – Scarpa reported “that Vincent ‘Chin’ Gigante has been definitely established as the boss of the Genovese family.”
In addition to the historic Commission case, Scarpa provided crucial details that enabled federal prosecutors in Brooklyn and Manhattan to obtain bugs and wiretaps that led to separate prosecutions of leaders of the Colombo, Luchese and Genovese crime families.
In late 1983, six years before the feds would indict Gigante and leaders of three other families in the “Windows Case,” Scarpa reported that mob associate Peter Savino, who would ultimately cooperate and bring Gigante down at trial, was “involved in a bid-rigging scheme” involving the installation of storm windows in city housing units.
His knowledge also extended beyond the Five Families. He furnished information about the 1980 murder of Philadelphia boss Angelo Bruno that was later confirmed by other sources. He also
Donny Shacks Social Clubgave dirt about Russell Bufalino, the boss of the Pittstown family in Northeast PA, and New England capo Nicholas Bianco. Both were later convicted by the feds in New York.
And Scarpa, whose informant work began in the early 1960s, was an equal opportunity snitch. He gave up intelligence not only against rival wiseguys and leaders of his own family. He also fingered lesser members of his own crew, according to the reports.
In addition to Scopo – who was “not well liked” by other wiseguys – Scarpa gave the FBI details about the social clubs and other haunts frequented by many Colombo gangsters, including boss Carmine (Junior) Persico and legendary capo John (Sonny) Franzese.
He even drew a sketch of a social club that was the province of capo Dominick (Donnie Shacks) Montemarano and mobster John (Jackie) DeRoss in the early 1980s.
The same club would be the scene years later of a tense confrontation between Scarpa and mob rival William (Wild Bill) Cutolo that ended without bloodshed, ironically, in a dispute about a Scarpa crew member whom he had once fingered to DeVecchio.
In 1991, though, Cutolo, who would be the victim of a mob rubout eight years later, chose Scarpa as the target for the first shots fired in the bloody mob war that ended with 12 dead and many wounded in 1993, a year before Scarpa died in prison from AIDS.
Schiro: I Said Nothing About Wild Bill
Linda Schiro testifies in sketch by Chris CornellMeanwhile, Scarpa’s longtime lover Linda Schiro, whose testimony at DeVecchio’s trial contradicted tape recorded accounts of four murders she gave to reporter Tom Robbins and me 10 years ago, denies giving Cutolo’s mob rank to an FBI agent 12 years ago.
Schiro chimed in with rambling, angry words – via email and voice mail – about a mention in last week’s column that she told the FBI in 1995 that “word on the street” was that Wild Bill was the family’s acting underboss, four years before he was whacked, allegedly by acting boss Alphonse (Allie) Persico.
“I have no knowledge about that at all,” she said, disputing that she told then-FBI agent George Gabriel the statement about Cutolo that he attributed to her in a summary of an interview the agent had with her in February 1995.
A Happy Thanksgiving Story
John GambinoOver objections from the Manhattan U.S. Attorney’s office, a Federal Judge made today a Happy Thanksgiving for wiseguy John Gambino (left).
At a brief proceeding Tuesday, Judge Peter Leisure ended the mob capo’s three year term of supervised release even though the 67-year-old cousin of the late family patriarch, Carlo Gambino, had served only 13 months of it since getting out of prison last year.
Gambino underwent heart surgery behind bars and suffers from a myriad of physical ailments. But the actions of Manhattan Judge Peter Leisure, who gave the mobster 15-years and a $250,000 fine for drug dealing in 1994, were based on “fundamental fairness” and doing the right thing, not sympathy.
In May of 2005, six months before his scheduled release date, Gambino had paid his fine, and was set to be placed in a halfway house, when things suddenly went wrong. He was held 17 additional months on a deportation warrant until October of 2006, when it was dismissed as improper.
The least the feds should do, argued Gambino’s lawyer Charles Carnesi, was give his client credit for the 17 additional months he
spent behind bars, and terminate his strict supervised release next April.
The right thing to do, the lawyer said, was to end his restrictions now. He argued that the extra 17 months more than made up for the five month slide he would get if the feds ended his supervision, which is similar to what defendants face while on bail and what ex-cons endure while on probation or parole.
Nothing doing, countered Assistant U.S. attorney Arlo Devlin-Brown, citing several technical reasons Leisure could use to deny all relief.
When the judge stated that “fundamental fairness” seemed to be on Gambino’s side, however, the prosecutor quickly softened his position, and found another technical reason the judge could use to give Gambino partial relief, but not all that he wanted.
But Leisure, noting that “if justice is done, the government wins” released Gambino from all restrictions and gave him a reason to be thankful this Thanksgiving Day.
[photos and maps]
http://www.nagia.org/Gang%20Articles/East%20Coast%20Gangs.htm
East Coast Gangs
Introduction to East Coast Gangs
by Sergeant Lou Savelli, Vice President,
East Coast Gang Investigators Association
With some of the world’s most lucrative drug markets, the East Coast is ripe for gangs to flourish. There is plenty of opportunity, potential recruits, and money for savvy gang members to gain fortune and power. Influences from the West Coast and the Midwest (”Super Gangs” such as the Bloods, Crips, Latin Kings, and Gangster Disciples) have become prevalent throughout the eastern United States.
GANG HISTORY
Gangs have been in existence for thousands of years. The word thug dates back to India in the year 1200 A.D. and refers to a gang of criminals (Thugz) that roamed the country, pillaging towns along their path. These Thugz had their own symbols, hand signs, rituals, and slang. In the United States, we grew up with tales of our own form of thugs like pirates and gangsters, therefore, gangs, undoubtedly, are not a new concept.
Throughout the 1800s, Americans were fascinated by gangs and gang members. The James Gang, Billy the Kid, and other outlaws ruled the Wild West according to legend. As the late 1800s roared in, the new generation of gangs and gang members was created by the new immigrants. Irish gangs like the Whyos, Dead Rabbits, and Plug Uglies, and Jewish gangs like the Monk Eastman Gang terrorized New York City streets. The most notorious gang during this era formed in New York City during the late 1890s and early 1900s. This gang, called the Five Points Gang, because its home turf was situated in the Five Points (Bowery) section of lower Manhattan, would change the mold of the American outlaw.
The Five Points Gang, led by Italian immigrant Paolo Antonini Vaccarelli, also known as Paul Kelly, and his second in command, Johnny Torrio, was the most significant street gang to form in the United States to this point. Johnny Torrio, who became a significant member of the Sicilian Mafia (La Cosa Nostra), recruited street hoodlums from across New York City to the Five Points Gang. The Five Points Gang became the “major league” to many young street gangsters, and a farm club for the Mafia. The most notorious recruit into the Five Points Gang was a teenaged boy of Italian descent who was born in Williamsburg, Brooklyn in 1899 to immigrant parents. His name was Alphonse Capone, but he was better known on the streets as “Scarface.” He became a member of the James Street Gang, which was a minor league, of sorts, to the Five Pointers. One of Capone’s childhood friends, and a fellow member of the Five Points Gang, was another street thug named Lucky Luciano.
In 1919, while being sought by authorities in connection with a mob-related murder in New York, Al “Scarface” Capone moved to Chicago when summoned by Johnny Torrio, who needed his assistance in maintaining control of Chicago mob territories. Capone eventually became the most violent and prolific gangster in Chicago, if not the United States, of that era. The “Al Capone” style of gangster has molded the American gang experience, and continues to influence America’s street gangs.
As street gangs, influenced by mobsters such as Capone, flourished during the 1920s and 30s, gangs became a symbol of lower income neighborhoods and ethnic ghettos. America’s new immigrant communities and ghetto neighborhoods saw their youth forming gangs. African-Americans, Asians, and Hispanics made up the majority of street gangs that sociologists studied during this period, but the majority of large American cities were experiencing street gangs to some degree. During the early 1900s, Mexican street gangs formed in the western U.S., and during the 1940s and 1950s, gangs like the Latin Kings and Vice Lords were formed in Chicago. During the 1960s, street gangs, with names like the Savage Skulls, La Familia, and Savage Nomads, formed in New York City. Another New York Street gang which was created during this time period was the Rampers. One Rampers member who has now achieved name recognition across the U.S. is Sammy “The Bull” Gravano.
By the late 1960s and early 1970s, Los Angeles and Chicago-based gangs had become violent and entrenched, and gangs from these cities, including the Bloods, Crips, and Surenos (Los Angeles) and the Latin Kings and Gangster Disciples (Chicago), had formed. These gangs would go on to evolve into “Super Gangs” during the 1980s and 1990s, serving as the models for street gang culture around the United States. Gang culture had spread even to the most rural areas of the U.S. by the end of 1999.
SUPER GANGS
Super Gangs can be defined as gangs with a large membership, and whose normal operations meet the following criteria: Membership exceeds 1,000 members nationally.
*
The gang can be documented in multiple states.
*
The gang maintains extensive drug networks.
*
The gang exercises aggressive recruiting strategies.
*
The gang has a multiethnic membership.
*
The gang has advocated ambition for power and massive membership.
Groups in the Northeast which fit this criteria include:
ALMIGHTY LATIN KING AND QUEEN NATION (AKA LATIN KINGS)
Started in Chicago, Illinois, during the 1940s, this group is made up primarily of Hispanics. By the late 1970s, the Latin Kings were one of Chicago’s largest and most violent gangs. The group spread to the East Coast in the 1980s through the prison system, where two inmates in a Connecticut prison created the Almighty Latin King Nation of Connecticut. They fine-tuned the concept of the Chicago Latin Kings and created a well-written King Manifesto, which incorporated prayers and religious beliefs. This gang, which spread throughout the Connecticut prison system, quickly became the largest gang in Connecticut. In 1986, the manifesto was added to in the New York prison system, and a group called the Almighty Latin King Nation was formed at the Collins Correctional Institution. Within a few years, the Latin Kings had spread through the New York state prison system, and onto the streets. By the early 1990s, New York City had hundreds of Latin Kings members, and this population grew into the thousands throughout New York State and nearby New Jersey within a few years. From 1995 to 1999, the ALKN were the target of a series of RICO investigations, which resulted in the arrests of hundreds of ALKN members in charges connected to racketeering and drug distribution. Today, the Latin Kings on the East Coast remain loosely connected to the Chicago chapters. The Latin King Nation struggles for unity and is seemingly finding difficulty in reorganizing to its previous size.
BLOODS/UNITED BLOOD NATION/EAST COAST BLOOD NATION
The Pirus first evolved in Los Angeles during the 1970s as a black street gang which formed for self-protection from the Crips gangs which predominated in Los Angeles during this era. The Pirus were later known as the Bloods, because they claimed the color red. Blood gangs began to spread across the United States during the 1980s, and were frequently portrayed in music, movies, and other media formats.
The United Blood Nation, simply called the Bloods, formed in 1993 within the New York City jail system on Riker’s island. Prior to the formation of the Bloods, the Latin Kings were the most prevalent and organized gang in the NYC jail system. The Latin Kings and the Netas were large Hispanic gangs, who began targeting African American inmates with violence. The African American inmates, organized by some of the more violent and charismatic inmates, formed a protection group which they called the United Blood Nation (UBN). UBN emulated the Bloods street gangs in Los Angeles. Several of the leaders of UBN then formed eight Blood sets to recruit in their neighborhoods across New York City. By the mid 1990s, thousands of members of Bloods street gangs were establishing themselves as a force among gangs and were continuing steady recruitment. At this time, the Bloods were more violent than other gangs, but much less organized. A common ritual among these gangs involved shedding blood, through stabbings or slashings, as an initiation ritual. By the year 2000, the Bloods have become the most violent gang on the East Coast.
CRIPS
The Crips gangs originally formed in East Los Angeles during the 1960s and 1970s. By the mid 1980s, offshoot Crip gangs could be found in most major cities around the U.S. During the 1980s, several Crip and Blood gangs developed in Belize (Central America). Gang-affiliated youth from this country immigrated to the United States during the late 1980s, especially into East Coast states like New York, New Jersey, Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia. In 1989, Belizian immigrants in New York City formed the Harlem Mafia Crips in Harlem, as well as several other Crip sets such as the Rolling 30s Crips, 92 Hoover Crips, and Rolling 60s Crips. During the late 1990s, Crip gangs were well-established in New York, New Jersey, North Carolina, Georgia, Connecticut, Florida, Pennsylvania, and other East Coast areas.
GANGSTER DISCIPLES
According to Gang Specialist John Guzman of the Chicago Police Department, several gangs in the Englewood area of Chicago formed the Gangster Disciples (GD) “nation” of gangs in the 1960s and 1970s. The 1990s showed an increase in the Gangster Disciple presence on the East Coast. Data gathered by the National Drug Intelligence Center (NDIC) indicates that Gangster Disciples can be found in most East Coast states. The Gangster Disciple’s recruitment strategies, drug networks, and large membership make the GD a force to contend with around the U.S. When incarcerated, GD are called Brothers (or Sisters) of the Struggle (BOS). Gangster Disciples is the largest Folk Nation gang in the U.S.
THE FUTURE
Oddly enough, while crime rates are down across the United States, gang membership is flourishing. Even more odd is the rapid increase in gang membership in suburban and rural areas. Gangs have reached across geographic, ethnic, and racial boundaries. Gangs are no longer true to their origins, but their traditions and identifiers have been distorted, diluted, and changed as they have relocated across the U.S. Gangs no longer match their media stereotypes, and law enforcement professionals need to take the time to understand their individual community’s unique gang problem. The face of the gangster has changed, and we must be prepared to change with it.
Sergeant Lou Savelli is the co-founder and Vice President of the East Coast Gang Investigators Association, an 18 year veteran of NYPD, a former member of the Broward County Sheriffs Department (FL) and Hollywood Police Department (FL) and a published author.
Copyright © 2000 Louis Savelli. All rights reserved.
http://www.projects.ex.ac.uk/RDavies/arian/scandals/
[live links at url]
Financial Scandals
A Guide with Links to Information Sources
Classic Financial and Corporate Scandals
BCCI, Barings, Daiwa, Enron, Sumitomo, Credit Lyonnais, Bre-X, Lloyds, NASDAQ, Savings and Loan, WorldCom, Parmalat etc.
Scandals involving Central Banks
Criminal or scandalous activity involving the pillars of the international financial system.
Political Corruption
Corruption in governments and official organisations in Great Britain, Europe, the United States, Japan and other countries.
Organized Crime: the Mafia etc.
The Cosa Nostra or Mafia, the Yakuza and other major criminal organisations and their role in financial scandals.
Money Laundering
How it is done and what is being done about it.
Bankers Behaving Badly
Cases of sexual harassment, racism, embarrassing e-mails, and outrageous extravagance.
Official Regulatory and Anti-Fraud Organisations
Links to the web sites of official organisations combating fraud.
Other Organisations Fighting Financial Crime
Professional Bodies, Investigative Services and Forensic Accounting.
Finding More Information about Business Scandals
Links to other sources of information.
Derivatives, non-existent gold reserves and impenetrable accounts, have been the stuff of frauds on an almost incomprehensible scale. The activities of Nick Leeson, Toshihide Iguchi, Yasuo Hamanaka, John Rusnak, and the bosses of Enron and Parmalat have made the bank robbing activities of Jesse James and the outlaws of the old Wild West seem like pathetic, kindergarten stuff in comparison. This is a guide with lots of links to information on these and other lesser-known financial scandals. While most of the cases in these pages involve real or suspected criminal activity a few are included simply because the scale of the incompetence or greed makes them scandalous.
Financial Scandals in Fiction
Is truth always stranger than fiction or can fiction forewarn us of dangers lying in wait? Information about the works of Linda Davies, former investment banker and now a novelist. A new edition of Into the Fire new! is just out!
Essays on Particular Kinds of Scandals
Dangerous Diamonds
An article on the history of the diamond industry and its role in wars, including civil wars, terrorism, and other, less threatening controversies.
Gambling on Derivatives: Hedging Risk or Courting Disaster?
A review of some of the reasons why there have been many cases of enormous losses associated with the use of financial derivatives.
The Psychology of Risk, Speculation and Fraud
What are the motivations that turn some people into lawful speculators and others into financial criminals? The text of a speech given at a conference on European Monetary Union.
The Rise and Fall of Alberto Fujimori
How the man who saved Peru from terrorism and hyperinflation became an exile in Japan, forced to flee after his right-hand man was implicated in bribery, arms trafficking, moneylaundering, and human rights abuses.
The largest section, Classic Financial and Corporate Scandals, in the collection of links above, includes the best known cases of recent years, e.g. Parmalat, Enron, Barings Bank, BCCI, BRE-X, etc. and some other very large ones that have received less publicity. In addition there are sections on related topics such as political corruption, money laundering, organised crime, official regulatory and anti-fraud organisations, other bodies fighting fraud, and financial scandals in fiction. That section is about the work of my sister, the novelist and former banker Linda Davies. Among the links from that page is one to a set of pages on the financial crime genre in general.
Disclaimer
The Financial Scandals site contains links to sources of information on various frauds, scams, swindles or corporate scandals in banking, finance and related areas, and on corruption involving governments and business. It is maintained by Roy Davies. I make no judgements as to the reliability of the information. Presumably that from official bodies should be more reliable and authoritative than information from satirical magazines or individuals with an axe to grind - but then again it could be argued that official bodies have a vested interest in playing down their own shortcomings! Readers will have to make up their own minds about these issues.
[ Top ]
[ Banking Thrillers by Linda Davies ]
[ History of Money ]
[ Biography of Glyn Davies ]
[ Other Money links - Past, Present & Future ]
[ Inca Trail to Machu Picchu ]
[ Roy Davies’ Home Page ]
Asian American Gangs
In recent years, the issue of Asian American youth gangs has gotten a lot of attention from the media and law enforcement. This phenomenon shares many similarities with other “gang problems” in the Black and Latino communities. However, certain ethnic and cultural aspects come into play with Asian gangs that make their situation and consequences of their actions unique.
http://www.asian-nation.org/gangs.shtml
Yakuza diary : doing time in the Japanese underworld / by Christopher Seymour.
http://magic.msu.edu/record=b3107229a
Organized Crime and Gangs:
http://dir.yahoo.com/Society_and_Culture/crime/organized_crime/
Title: The Threat of Russian Organized Crime
Series: Issues in International Crime
Author: James O. Finckenauer and Yuri A. Voronin
Published: National Institute of Justice, June 2001
Subject: International Issues: transnational/international organized crime
http://www.ncjrs.gov/txtfiles1/nij/187085.txt
The Threat Posed from the Convergence of Organized Crime, Drug Trafficking, and Terrorism
Statement of
Frank J. Cilluffo
Deputy Director, Global Organized Crime Program
Director, Counterterrorism Task Force
Center for Strategic & International Studies
to the
Subcommittee on Crime
U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary
The Challenge We Face As the Battle Lines Blur
As we begin the 21st Century, America is faced with a new national security challenge that is both vexing and complex. The once clear lines between the international drug trade, terrorism and organized crime are blurring, crossing and mutating as never before. Unfortunately, Washington is only beginning to come to grips with this deepening phenomenon. The continued use of an inflexible 20th Century bureaucratic entanglement of government agencies will not answer this call. We must see this threat clearly. We must understand its roots. We must understand what it means to our future.
continues......
http://www.globalsecurity.org/security/library/congress/2000_h/001213-cilluffo.htm
Statement of
Chris Swecker
Assistant Director, Criminal Investigative Division
Federal Bureau of Investigation
Before the
Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere
House International Relations Committee
April 20, 2005
Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee. I appreciate the opportunity to testify before you today about the FBI’s efforts to combat gangs in the United States, including Latin American or Hispanic gangs, such as MS-13.
Gangs and other criminal enterprises
continued.
http://www.fbi.gov/congress/congress05/swecker042005.htm
Country Reports on Terrorism 2006 (html format)
U.S. law requires the Secretary of State to provide Congress, by April 30 of each year, a full and complete report on terrorism with regard to those countries and groups meeting criteria set forth in the legislation. This annual report is entitled Country Reports on Terrorism. Beginning with the report for 2004, it replaced the previously published Patterns of Global Terrorism.
Background Information: Country Reports on Terrorism and Patterns of Global Terrorism
— Table of Contents
— Chapter 1 — Strategic Assessment
— Chapter 2 — Country Reports: Africa Overview
— Chapter 2 — Country Reports: East Asia and Pacific Overview
— Chapter 2 — Country Reports: Europe and Eurasia Overview
— Chapter 2 — Country Reports: Middle East and North Africa Overview
— Chapter 2 — Country Reports: South and Central Asia Overview
— Chapter 2 — Country Reports: Western Hemisphere Overview
— Chapter 3 — State Sponsors of Terrorism Overview
— Chapter 4 — The Global Challenge of WMD Terrorism
— Chapter 5 — Terrorist Safe Havens (7120 Report)
— Chapter 6 — Terrorist Organizations
— Chapter 7 — Legislative Requirements and Key Terms
— National Counterterrorism Center: Annex of Statistical Information
— International Conventions and Protocols on Terrorism
—04/30/07 Briefing on Release of 2006 Country Reports on Terrorism; Frank C. Urbancic, Acting Coordinator for Counterterrorism; Washington, DC
http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/crt/2006/
Balkan Organized Crime
The term “Balkan Organized Crime” applies to organized crime groups originating from or operating in Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Kosovo, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Serbia and Montenegro, Bulgaria, Greece, and Romania.
Balkan organized crime is an emerging threat in the U.S. While several groups are active in various cities across the country, they do not yet demonstrate the established criminal sophistication of traditional Eurasian or La Cosa Nostra (LCN) organizations. However, they have proven themselves capable of adapting to expanding criminal markets and becoming involved in new activities, much like the historical growth of other organized crime groups.
History of Balkan Organized Crime
Organized crime in the Balkans has its roots in the traditional clan structures. In these largely rural countries, people organized into clans with large familial ties for protection and mutual assistance. Starting in the 15th century, clan relationships operated under the kanun, or code, which values loyalty and besa, or secrecy. Each clan established itself in specific territories and controlled all activities in that territory. Protection of activities and interests often led to violence between the clans. The elements inherent in the structure of the clans provided the perfect backbone for what is considered modern-day Balkan organized crime.
Many years of communist rule led to black market activities in the Balkans, but the impact of these activities was limited to the region. When communism collapsed in the late 1980s and early 1990s, it led to the expansion of Balkan organized crime activities. Criminal markets once closed to Balkan groups suddenly opened, and this led to the creation of an international network. Within the Balkans, organized crime groups infiltrated the new democratic institutions, further expanding their profit opportunities.
Balkan criminal organizations have been active in the U.S. since the mid-1980s. At first, these organizations were involved in low-level crimes, including bank robberies, ATM burglaries, and home invasions. Later, ethnic Albanians affiliated themselves with the established LCN families in New York, acting as low-level participants. As their communities and presence have become more established, they have expanded to lead and control their own organizations.
There is no single Balkan “Mafia,” structured hierarchically like the traditional LCN. Rather, Balkan organized crime groups in this country translated their clan-like structure to the United States. They are not clearly defined or organized and are instead grouped around a central leader or leaders. Organized crime figures maintain ties back to the Balkan region and have established close-knit communities in many cities across the nation.
Albanian organized crime activities in the U.S. include gambling, money laundering, drug trafficking, human smuggling, extortion, violent witness intimidation, robbery, attempted murder, and murder. Balkan organized crime groups have recently expanded into more sophisticated crimes including real estate fraud.
Organized Crime home
http://www.fbi.gov/hq/cid/orgcrime/balkan.htm