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A suspected hitman from the Camorra or Neapolitan Mafia has been arrested after police obtained a security video which seemingly shows him gunning down a rival mobster last December in a cheese factory as reported by ANSA: "the 20-second security-camera footage allegedly shows Gianluca Troise pursuing a member of a rival Naples mafia clan, Luigi Felaco, bringing him down with a shot, racing after him after he gets up, and finishing him off with four shots to the head." [Video] A turf war for control over drug markets in Naples, Italy between the rival Scissionisti and Di Lauro clans has...

Italian authorities have seized a record $1.7 billion in assets from a Sicilian green energy entrepreneur with alleged ties to the Mafia.

Willie Sutton, a notorious theif from the 1930's, was once asked why he robbed banks. "Because that's where the money is," he replied. So where's the money today? Government subsidies for renewable energy - massive subsidies with little oversight. In Europe, this means easy pickings for organized crime. And the Sicilian mafia is cleaning up. Washington Post: The still-emerging links of the mafia to the once-booming wind and solar sector here are raising fresh questions about the use of government subsidies to fuel a shift toward cleaner energies, with critics claiming huge state incentives created excessive profits for companies and...

People around the world have embraced the local food movement as a way to support local economies, eat healthier and reduce their carbon footprint. Residents of Naples, Italy, however, are doing just the opposite. Napolitanos like Antonio Trotta read grocery store labels to avoid eating local fruit and vegetables, meat, even the region’s famed buffalo mozzarella produced in eastern Campania, outside Naples. The area north of Naples* was once an important agricultural center. But the local mafia, the Camorra, has been dumping waste from European factories and hospitals on the land for decades—an environmental problem compounded nightly when dozens of...

It's not your grandpa's Mafia anymore. The Charbonneau Commission is conducting hearings to confront allegations that wise guys and dirty politicians are in bed together in the award of public works contracts in Montreal, QB Canada, and yesterday veteran detective Mike Amato from neigboring Ontario testified about the reach of the Italian Mafia in his province as reported by CBC News: "the veteran officer says the modern-day Mafioso is dressed in business suits, works 9-to-5 hours and holds jobs ranging from banker, to accountant to bus driver," and "Mafia-controlled legitimate businesses in his region include everything from garden centres to...

ROME, - An Italian journalist and author known for exposing the Naples mafia was honored by having an asteroid named after him, officials said. Roberto Saviano had asteroid No. 278447 named after him Friday, Italy's ANSA news agency reported. Saviano was given the honor by the International Astronomical Union for exposing "the Camorra's organized-crime activities in his 2006 best-seller 'Gomorrah.'" Saviano received death threats for his novel and was placed under round-the-clock police protection after its publication. "Gomorrah" was later turned into a film and won second prize at Cannes and five European Film Awards in 2008. "Thank you Dr....

Struggling banks in the EU and beyond are becoming more willing to launder dirty cash for organized crime. Italy's anti-mafia prosecutor Pietro Grasso drew attention to one of the lesser known aspects of the crisis at a hearing in the European Parliament's new anti-mafia committee on Tuesday (19 June). He told press: "The current economic crisis is making criminal groups even more powerful because they've got liquid cash, they've got ready money ... and not just in Europe, but in other countries where there are fragile economies and they can influence politicians." His line was echoed by Jean-François Gayraud, the...

The EU special envoy for Somalia is looking into a fresh report that pirates are in business with Italian gangsters on toxic waste. The Paris-based criminologist, Michel Koutouzis, who carries out investigations for the UN and for EU institutions, described the problem in a new book—Crime, Trafficking and Networks—published in May. He said organized crime groups in south Italy—the Camorra, 'Ndranghetta and La Sacra Corona Unita—supply Somalian warlords with black market small arms from the Western Balkans in return for permission to dump waste. "Tonnes of waste are discharged every year off the coasts of Somalia, Sudan and Eritrea under...

Over the week Italy remembered those courageous souls who gave their lives in challenging the Mafia. Placido Rizzotto, a union leader killed sixty years ago by Cosa Nostra or the Sicilian Mafia, received a state funeral yesterday after his remains recently were discovered in a cave as reported by Alan Johnston for BBC News: "Italian President Giorgio Napolitano was in attendance to see him being buried in the place where he made his stand - in Corleone." And on Wednesday, in marking the 20th anniversary of the assassination of anti-Mafia prosecutor Giovanni Falcone, Prime Minister Mario Monti urged the country's...

Village of Corleone lives

A bomb at a vocational school in the port city of Brindisi on the Adriatic coast in Southern Italy has killed two students and injured another five as classes were preparing to start this morning as reported by David Batty for The Guardian. The school was named in honor of the wife of anti-Mafia prosecutor Giovanni Falcone after both were slain almost exactly twenty years ago as reported by Nick Squires for The Telegraph: "the prosecutor, his wife and their three bodyguards were killed on May 23 1992, when the Sicilian Mafia planted half a tonne of explosives on the...

Last week, Pope Francis warned Italy's Mafia leaders that if they continue their evil ways, they will go to hell. Hooray for the pope. More power to him for threatening evil people with hell. I had begun to despair that in my lifetime I would hear such talk from mainstream Christian or Jewish leaders. For the past two generations, God has rarely been depicted as judging and punishing. Instead all we have heard is the phrase, "God Is Love," which, when offered as the one description of God, is morally meaningless -- and even morally dangerous. If your aim...

Pope Francis has a warning for Italy's mobsters: They will go to hell if they don't repent and renounce their "blood-stained money and blood-stained power."

Pope Francis delivered a fire-and-brimstone message to the Mafia on Friday: "Repent." "Blood-stained money, blood-stained power — you can't bring it with you to your next life," the pontiff said during a prayer vigil in Rome for victims of mob violence.

The anti-corruption stance of Pope Francis has riled Italy’s powerful mafia groups, according to a prosecutor who specializes in mob cases. State prosecutor Nicola Gratteri – who works in the southern Italian region of Calabria, where the ‘Ndrangheta mafia is active – told the Italian daily Fatto Quotidiano that Francis’ statements on transparency and dismantling economic power in the Vatican are making mobsters “nervous and agitated.” “I cannot say if the organization is in a position to do something like this, but they are dangerous and it is worth reflecting on,” Gratteri said. “If the godfathers can find a way...

Police believe Francesco Raccosta - who disappeared from his home in Calabria back in 2012 - was kidnapped by rival mobsters and fed alive to a herd of pigs. Francesco Raccosta, who vanished without a trace from his home in Calabria in March 2012, is now believed to have been kidnapped by opposition mobsters. They then severely beat him before throwing him into a herd of pigs - who swiftly ate his body as he screamed and begged for mercy. Cops say they found out about his fate earlier this month while investigating the southern 'Ndrangheta mafia organization. Officers claim...

Italian anti-Mafia prosecutor Vincenzo Macri says that the 'Ndrangheta or Calabrian Mafia "certainly" is behind the 1989 killing of Australian Federal Police assistant commissioner Colin Winchester as reported by Richard Guilliatt for The Australian: "he said he believed the Winchester murder was carried out by the same organisation that murdered Griffith anti-drug campaigner Donald Mackay in 1977 and federal police officer Geoffrey Bowen in 1994." In recent years Cosa Nostra or the Sicilian Mafia has been eclipsed by the Calabrian Mafia as Italy's most powerful crime group due to its obscene profits from the cocaine trade in Europe. The Calabrian...

Bars and clubs often are drug marketplaces for organized crime in many cities throughout the world, and woe to the owners who do not allow the illicit trade be conducted at their premises. The 'Ndrangheta or Calabrian Mafia brutally beat Rosy Canale after she refused to capitulate to their demands to allow party treats to be sold out of her disco in Reggio Calabria, and now that she's releasing a book about her experiences the thugs once again are targeting her as reported by John Hooper for The Guardian. However, the courageous mother insists "I'm not the sort of person...

The 'Ndrangheta or Calabrian Mafia has emerged as the world's most powerful crime group due to its obscene profits from the cocaine trade in Europe, and it further has become entrenched in Australia, Canada and the United States with surprisingly little push back from law enforcement in those countries. Indeed, Nicola Gratteri, a top anti-Mafia prosecutor in Italy warns that "this mafia is quickly spreading in the United States, particularly in Florida and New York" as reported by Beatrice Borromeo for The Daily Beast: Gratteri's latest operations have led to the sentencing of 34 'Ndrangheta members and have uncovered a...