Ten local members of a Brooklyn “Bloods” gang were arrested for allegedly firebombing three houses in Norristown to intimidate those suspected of cooperating with gang investigators.

The local members, two of whom are juveniles, are also accused of assaults and robberies.

A six-month, grand jury investigation found that a 23-year-old Brooklyn man, Augustus Anthony Simmons, of the 700 block of East 23rd Street, allegedly ordered all of the arsons. He is charged with attempted murder, multiple counts of arson and robbery, aggravated assault, causing or risking a catastophe, retaliation against a witness or victim, and related charges. Simmons is being held without bail in county prison.

Also arrested for attempted murder and arson were three Norristown defendants — Leon John Lobban, 19, Anthony Ray Knight, 22, and Arienne Dayna Hernandez, 20.

Facing robbery, corrupt organizations and related charges are Steven Kyle Freas, 26, and Jason Allen Freas, 29, both of Plymouth Meeting. Amber Marie Lucas, 19, also of Plymouth Meeting, is charged with perjury and corrupt organizations.

A Pottstown man, Emmett Pearson, 24, is charged with robbery, retaliation again a witness or victim and corrupt organizations.

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Alleged Boston gang leader James "Whitey" Bulger has been arrested near Los Angeles following 16 years on the run, FBI officials say

A man who is about as notorious in Boston as al-Qaida mastermind Osama bin Laden was captured Wednesday in Santa Monica, Calif.
James "Whitey" Bulger, a gangster wanted for his alleged role in 19 murders who turned his FBI handlers into informants and is accused of using information he got from them to kill his enemies, had been on the run for 16 years.

As our colleagues at WBUR in Boston report, the now 81-year-old Bulger "led the violent Winter Hill Gang, a largely Irish mob that ran loan-sharking, gambling and drug rackets in the Boston area. He was nicknamed 'Whitey' for his shock of bright platinum hair."

And WBUR's David Boeri reminded us on Morning Edition today that there are already FBI agents in jail for their role in both giving Whitey information about his rivals and then tipping him off 16 years ago that he had better hit the road because he was about to be indicted.

"This is what makes this such a treacherous story," David said. "It is corruption within the FBI."

Whitey is a legend back in Boston, said David: "In Boston, where the first two planes on 9/11 left and hit the buildings in New York, Osama bin Laden and Whitey Bulger were equally notorious."

"This guy, used to look out at Boston from Southie — the old town — and say, 'I own this town,' " David added.

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The 81-year-old was detained with his long-time girlfriend Catherine Greig, 60. Both are due to appear in court later on Thursday.

Bulger was on the FBI's "Ten Most Wanted" list, and is accused of involvement in 19 murders.

Bulger was the inspiration for the Martin Scorsese film "The Departed".

He was played by Jack Nicholson in a movie that won four Oscars in 2007.


The couple's arrest in Santa Monica, California, came days after the FBI began airing 30-second public service announcements, focusing on Ms Greig.

They specifically targeted programmes watched by women of Ms Greig's age, and urged them to keep an eye out for her.

Announcing the arrests, Richard Deslauriers of the FBI said the couple were detained "without incident".

The Winter Hill gang was a largely Irish-American mob that ran loan-sharking, gambling and drug rackets in the Boston area.

Bulger disappeared shortly before he was due to be arrested in connection with 21 killings and racketeering.

Following his disappearance, it emerged he had been a long-time FBI informant who turned in rival gangsters.

The revelations left the FBI fighting accusations that it had long been turning a blind eye to the alleged crimes of James Bulger and the Winter Hill gang.

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The Tillicum Park Gangsters are affiliated with the Black Gangster Disciples, and the Lakewood Police Department Gang Unit is familiar with their organization in the low-income neighborhood.

Alleged gang members attempted to increase their drug dealing activity by cornering Tillicum Park apartment complexes in Lakewood, Pierce County prosecutors said Thursday as they charged 11 people with multiple counts of unlawful delivery of a controlled substance.

The drug dealing charges, however, represent a piece of the organization's alleged criminal operations.

The Tillicum Park Gangsters are affiliated with the Black Gangster Disciples, and the Lakewood Police Department Gang Unit is familiar with their organization in the low-income neighborhood. Their cases include narcotics trafficking, weapons violations, witness intimidation, drive-by shootings and murder, according to a Pierce County affidavit.

Seven of the 11 were formally arraigned Thursday, charging documents state, and three remain at large. The court issued warrants for the arrest of the three, and one is being held in the Snohomish County Jail on other charges and is expected to be arraigned next week.

Bail was set at $250,000 for six of the seven defendants arraigned Thursday.

Lakewood detectives have strategically waited to strike. Lengthy examination into the Gangster Disciples, intelligence from informants and search warrants dating back to 2009 resulted in a blow to the criminal gang's membership.

"Our goal is not only to get these defendants off the street, but also to send a message that deters gang violence in our community," said Pierce County Prosecutor Mark Lindquist.

Court documents also state that in 2010 a series of controlled buy operations resulted in a search warrant being served at the Berkeley Apartments on Al Casino Love, a verified and convicted TPG member. A source who did not want to be named told Lakewood Patch that the model of the gangster on the street selling drugs has evolved into a more concealed approach, adding that the Union Crest apartments in Tillicum had been experiencing suspicious activity.

"TPG aren't living the thug life on the street, but they're still selling drugs," the source said. "For the most part, they are aging out."

Trial was set for July 6 for the suspects arraigned Thursday.

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Black Gangster Disciples street gang,Deputy Sheriff’s arrested Rodney King this morning on East Fourth St. in Montgomery.

Deputy U.S. Marshals and investigators with the U.S. Marshals Gulf Coast Regional Fugitive Task Force(GCRFTF) and Montgomery County Deputy Sheriff’s arrested Rodney King this morning on East Fourth St. in Montgomery. During the investigation this morning to locate King, investigators seized a short barreled shotgun and a 9mm pistol.

The U.S. Marshals Task Force in Montgomery received information from the U.S. Marshals Great Lakes Regional Fugitive Task Force (GLRFTF) in Chicago that Rodney King was believed to have fled to Montgomery after his involvement in a shooting in Chicago. Chicago investigators informed the Marshals that on March 16, 2011, King, while armed with a 9mm pistol, shot an individual in Chicago and fortunately the victim survived.

King is charged with Attempted First Degree Murder. He is a known member of the Black Gangster Disciples street gang in Chicago and is a suspect in several other crimes of violence in the Chicago area.

Task Force investigators were able to determine that King was hiding at a house on East Fourth St. and the arrest team converged on the residence as King was leaving. “King was taken in to custody without incident”, said U.S. Marshal Art Baylor. “Even though our task force arrests dangerous criminals and sexual predators every day, it is always rewarding when we are able to get a violent offender like King off the streets of Montgomery”, Baylor added.

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since 1995, Bulger, now 81, has been on the run. He fled the city, and probably the U.S., after receiving a tip from the FBI agent

James Bulger's story reads like the plot of a thousand mobster films. An Irish-American boy grows up in the poor neighborhood of South Boston — Southie — turns to a life of crime and ends up leader of the Irish Mob. Smart, charismatic and generous to those he liked, Bulger — whose blond hair earned him the nickname Whitey — was both feared and revered. At the height of his power in the 1980s, he was allegedly taking a share of almost every drug deal and racketeering operation in Boston.

But since 1995, Bulger, now 81, has been on the run. He fled the city, and probably the U.S., after receiving a tip from the FBI agent he had worked with as an informant that an indictment for federal racketeering was on its way. In the years that Bulger — who is also accused of 19 counts of murder, extortion and drug dealing — has been a fugitive, several of his Mob associates have been arrested and, in some cases, served time. The FBI handler who helped him escape, John Connolly, is currently in prison for his role in the 1982 killing of a businessman who was about to testify against members of Bulger's gang.
(Top 10 Unsolved Crimes.)

There are more than 60,000 fugitives worldwide at any given time, most of whom manage to disappear across international borders, according to Interpol, the global police body tasked with facilitating cooperation among its 188 member countries. And only a small fraction of those fugitives are high-profile crime figures like Bulger. It may have been a stretch when, speaking to the U.S. magazine the Atlantic on May 2, the Pakistani ambassador to the U.S. excused his government's inability to track down Osama bin Laden by pointing to the FBI's failure to find Whitey. But the long, fruitless hunt for Bulger is a perfect example of just how hard it is to track a criminal who has fled to another country.

In 2000 the FBI's Boston branch created a unit with the single purpose of finding the runaway Mob boss. Since then, a team has been following leads across the U.S. and to South America and Asia. Currently the task force thinks he could be in Europe. But even there, where criminals are up against some of the world's best-organized police forces, the search is painfully slow. International crime fighting is painstaking work, and even democracies that cooperate with one another on a whole range of policy matters are reluctant to give up their national prerogatives when it comes to law enforcement.
(Top 10 Notorious Fugitives.)

If Bulger went home to Southie today, he'd find the place much as he left it. The streets are still lined with dollar shops, liquor stores and squat, run-down wooden homes. But Bulger isn't going home. In January 1995 the FBI was readying racketeering charges against him. When former FBI agent Connolly, who had become close to the mobster, heard about the indictment, he warned his old friend. Bulger and his girlfriend Catherine Greig drove out of Southie for good. Almost everything the FBI knows about their movements since has come from interviews with people who knew Bulger, along with clues picked up from searches of his Boston properties. The file on Bulger runs to more than 13,000 separate documents. By talking with FBI task-force members (many of whom asked to remain anonymous for the safety of their families) about what's in that file, it's possible to build a picture that could give clues as to the kind of life Bulger's living.

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16-year-old gang member gets 27 years for 15-year-old's death

Both boys were 15. One jumped from the car and shouted a gang challenge at the other, who had been riding his bike and listening to music on a hot afternoon in Sunnyside.

The shooter fired quickly, sending two bullets into David Baldonado, including one that nicked his carotid artery.

Baldonado, who police say did not appear to be involved in gang life, stopped at two houses before finally finding help at a third, where he collapsed on a couch. He later died, joining several teen victims of gang-related killings that were among the 27 Yakima County homicides in 2010.

"I don't know why they shot me. I don't bang," he said, according to a statement recounted in court by Sunnyside police Detective Erica Rollinger.

She described the murder as a "botched execution" and noted that defendant Alex Bueno now has at least half of a tattoo that would represent a gang symbol for "Norteño Killer" on his arm.

On Thursday, Bueno, now 16, was sentenced to 27 years for the premeditated first-degree murder of Baldonado last July. His guilty plea averted a trial that might have seen him put behind bars for life if prosecutors had opted to pursue aggravating factors.

Baldonado's mother, backed by more than a dozen relatives and supporters, struggled to express her thoughts to Judge Michael McCarthy.

"This is my son," she said, showing Bueno a picture. "This is what you took from me."

She said she wished the sentence was longer.

Deputy prosecutor Gary Hintze, part of the gang unit in the county prosecutor's office, acknowledged that the plea could be seen as an "imperfect resolution, but it makes sense and I stand by it."

The turning point at trial would have been whether Bueno's chance encounter with Baldonado on the way to a barbecue with friends was sufficient for a first-degree murder conviction.

If jurors had favored a defense argument against premeditation, Bueno could have faced as little as 16 years. Under state law, he must serve at least 25 years before earning time off for good behavior.

Defense attorney Mickey Krom said the shooting was a tragedy for all involved. He said the whole situation might have been avoided if his client hadn't reportedly been drinking and using drugs beforehand, and he challenged some of the assertions made by police in describing the severity of the case.

In a brief statement that could barely be heard across the courtroom, Bueno said he wanted to begin serving his sentence.

"I'm sorry for what I did," he said.

McCarthy called the case every parent's nightmare -- which happens to be Bueno's gang moniker, according to police -- and said those who "play the blue and red game" need to realize the foolishness of their actions.

"Killing people because of the color of their shirt is moronic, it's cruel, it's horrible," McCarthy said.

Police said Baldonado was wearing a maroon shirt and a red belt. Although earlier reports from police had suggested he was shot because he was a rival gang member, Rollinger said her investigation had not proven that out.

Baldonado's relatives had said he was not a gang member, although they said it was difficult for a boy of his age to grow up in the Sunnyside area without befriending youngsters with gang ties.

 

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Two injured in Northwest shooting

unidentified gunman riding in a car near the U Street corridor in Northwest Washington opened fire Thursday afternoon, injuring two people, according to police and a D.C. council member.

The shooting took place around 2:40 p.m. at 14th and V Streets NW. The intersection is one block north of the busy U Street corridor.

Council Member Jim Graham (D-Ward 1), who said he was briefed by police, said authorities are investigating whether the shooting stemmed from a rivalry between two gangs, the “7th and O St. crew” and the “9th and R St. crew.”

One victim was shot in the ankle, said Officer Tisha Gant, a police spokeswoman. A second victim also was injured, but the extent of that person’s injuries were not clear. Both were transported to a local hospital.

Graham said authorities are looking for a green Honda that fled the scene. He said police told him that the second victim was also shot in the ankle. Both are around 19 years old, Graham said authorities told him.

Graham said police told him that the victims ran south along 14th St after the shooting, toward U St.

Graham said the daytime shooting heightens concerns about gang violence in the city. “It’s an absolute outrage,” he said. “We’ve got to send a much tougher message to those involved in gang violence.”

The city’s text and email emergency notification system, AlertDC, described the suspect as a male about 5 feet six inches, 130 lbs, wearing a tan jacket and blue jeans.

 

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Drug gangs are beginning to muscle into a new territory: Central America – an action that is likely to cost U.S. taxpayers.

Even by the brazen standards of cocaine cowboys, what happened a few months ago at an air force base here set new levels for audacity: Drug traffickers snuck onto the heavily guarded base and retrieved a confiscated plane.

Confederates at the airbase had already fueled and warmed up the motors of the Beechcraft Super King Air 200, a workhorse of the cocaine trade. Within days, it would be again hauling dope from South America.

The stunt was a black eye for the Honduran military, and just one of many signs that parts of Central America have fallen into the maw of international organized crime, threatening decades of U.S. efforts to stanch the tidal wave of drugs headed to American cities and towns.

Washington has spent billions of dollars to help push drug cartels out of Colombia, and to confront them in Mexico. Now they’ve muscled their way into Central America, opening a new chapter in the drug war that almost certainly will exact further cost on U.S. taxpayers as American authorities confront drug gangs on a new frontier.

The extent of the infiltration is breathtaking. Drug cartels now control large parts of the countries of Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala, the so-called Northern Triangle of Central America. They’ve bought off politicians and police, moved cocaine processing laboratories up from the Andes, and are obtaining rockets and other heavy armament that make them more than a match for Central America’s weak militaries.

Air Force Gen. Douglas Fraser, chief of the U.S. Southern Command in Miami, told a March 30 Pentagon news briefing that Central America “has probably become the deadliest zone in the world” outside of Iraq and Afghanistan. Homicide rates in cities such as San Pedro Sula in northern Honduras are soaring, making them as deadly as Mogadishu, Somalia, or the Taliban home base of Kandahar, Afghanistan.

The political influence of the drug gangs is burgeoning. One former member of Honduras’ Council Against Drug Trafficking estimated that fully 10 percent of members of the Honduran congress have links to drug traffickers.

“The overall situation is alarming, definitely,” said Antonio Luigi Mazzitelli, the head of the U.N. office on Drugs and Crime for Mexico and Central America.

The heavy footprint of the traffickers is visible everywhere.

A month ago in San Salvador, police arrested a 30-year-old man with five bags containing $818,840 in $20 bills. In September, Salvadoran authorities found a total of $15.7 million in cash buried at two locations outside the capital, San Salvador. Honduras seized $14.4 million in drug cash last year.

By many accounts, the tide of cocaine through the region has become a sea.

“We have evidence that about 42 percent of all cocaine flights that leave South America for the rest of the world go through Honduras. That’s a pretty staggering number,” U.S. Ambassador to Honduras Hugo Llorens said.

An accused Venezuelan drug lord, Walid Makled, told the Univision Spanish-language television network this month from his prison cell in Colombia that five to six aircraft loaded with cocaine leave Venezuela every day for Honduras.

In some ways, what unfolded after the theft of the twin-engine Beechcraft Super King Air 200 plane from the Armando Escalon air base in San Pedro Sula on the night of Nov. 7 was as instructive as the heist itself. The plane headed toward Venezuela, anti-narcotics officials said. Then it began hauling dope again.

 

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U.S. warns on travel to five more Mexican states

U.S. State Department on Friday broadened its travel warning on Mexico to include parts of five additional states, including a highway where suspected drug gangs shot two U.S. customs officials in February.

The warning advises U.S. government personnel and American citizens to defer nonessential travel in certain parts of Jalisco, Nayarit, San Luis Potosi, Sonora and Zacatecas.

It outright bans U.S. employees from traveling to Colotlan and Yahualica, two cities in the central-west state of Jalisco near the Zacatecas border due to increasing drug gang violence.

"Concerns include roadblocks placed by individuals posing as police or military personnel and recent gun battles between rival transnational criminal organizations involving automatic weapons," the State Department warning said.

The restrictions were added to a previous warning against travel throughout the states of Tamaulipas and Michoacan and to parts of the states of Chihuahua, Coahuila, Durango and Sinaloa.

Gunmen shot dead an unarmed U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent and wounded another on February 15 on a highway in San Luis Potosi in a daylight attack that outraged U.S. officials and put a strain on join U.S.-Mexican efforts to battle drug cartels.

The State Department advised against travel on that road, Highway 57D, a major north south route toward Monterrey, Mexico's commercial capital.

The latest warning also provides more specific information on travel in northern Mexico where drug gang wars have been most violent, naming cities and towns that require particular caution. For example, it says U.S. government officials are required to travel only in armored vehicles and in daylight hours in Sinaloa parts of the city of Nogales.

The warning can be seen at: here

More than 36,000 people have been killed in drug-related violence in Mexico since President Felipe Calderon launched a military-led crackdown on drug gangs in 2006. Mexico last month revealed that it is allowing unmanned U.S. drone aircraft into its airspace to hunt for drug traffickers.

 

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'R.I.P. Daddy': Man sentenced in Seattle killing

A purported gang member who killed a 24-year-old Seattle man was sentenced Friday to 15 years in prison.

Pleading guilty to second-degree murder in March, Jymaika S. Hutson, admitted to killing Tyree Lee on April 28, 2007.

Lee, regarded by law enforcement as a member of a Central District street gang, was shot to death outside a friend's home. Hutson, 32, had been a member of a rival gang, though he has since insisted that he abandoned the gang after a shotgun blast left his face severely scarred.

As his brother’s son looked on in a T-shirt reading “R.I.P. Daddy,” Tyrone Lee Jr. told King County Superior Court Judge Steven Gonzalez that Hutson’s actions four years ago left his family shattered.

Tyrone Lee noted that the young men were raised in the same community and had known each other for years. His brother left behind a family and a fiancée.

“They lost someone, something that they can never get back,” he said Friday.

Given the opportunity to speak, Hutson declined to address the judge or attempt to explain his actions the day Tyree Lee was killed.

On April 28, 2007, officers were called to the 2600 block of East Alder Street following a report of shots.

Police arrived to find Lee had been shot multiple times in the back, torso and legs. He died later that evening at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle.

Witnesses to the shooting told police a white Chevrolet SUV had pulled up as Lee was walking to a friend's home. Hutson got out of the vehicle, drew a pistol and fired at least eight shots at Lee.

One witness told police he heard what would be some of Lee's last words.

"Hey man, I don't have a beef with you," Lee told Hutson before he was gunned down, according to the witness.

Police were able to trace the car to Gilbert Kinney, Hutson's co-defendant.

Hutson pleaded guilty on the eve of trial as prosecutors were prepared to offer the testimony of Kinney to implicate him in the shooting. Kinney, who drove Hutson to and from the shooting scene and provided the murder weapon, pleaded guilty to a reduced charge and was sentenced to home detention.

Speaking with investigators, Kinney said he followed Lee's car at Hutson's request. He said he had no idea Hutson planned to kill Lee, and admitted that Hutson used his pistol in the shooting.

Hutson -- said by law enforcement to be member of Deuce 8, a Central District street gang -- had been seen arguing with Lee at Barnett Park shortly before the shooting.

Police initially interviewed Hutson five days after the shooting. He denied any involvement in Lee's death; nearly three years passed before prosecutors were able to bring charges against him.

In the prosecution's view, the killing was revenge for an earlier attack Hutson blamed on Lee. Hutson was shot in the face with a shotgun by parties as yet unidentified.

Prosecutors were prepared to contend that a rivalry between Hutson's gang and Lee's Low Profiles – a breakaway set of Deuce 8 – played a part in the shooting, a contention disputed by Hutson's attorney.

“At the time of the shooting, Mr. Hutson was working very hard to extricate himself from ongoing violence that was part of his younger life,” defense attorney James Womack said in court documents. “This change took place shortly after he was shot in the face by a shotgun in February 2006. He had to make a choice.”

The rivalry between the Central District gangs began shortly before the slaying of another Seattle man, Deuce 8 leader Terrell Milam.

Milam was widely believed to have injured then-Seahawks defensive back Ken Hamlin in a bar brawl in October 2005. He was shot to death not long afterward by Omar A. Norman, a Low Profile gang member currently serving a 52-year prison term for Milam's murder.

That killing was followed by years of gang shootings and slayings, including the drive-by shooting that saw Hutson shot in the face.

Writing the court, Senior Deputy Prosecutor John B. Castleton noted that Hutson was responding both to his own shooting and Milam's when he killed Lee.

"The defendant admitted to shooting Lee as retaliation for Milam's death," Castleton told the court. "This type of 'payback' is simply part of the gang culture and was just one more incident in the ongoing LP/Deuce 8 feud."

Hutson was sentenced by King County Superior Court Judge Steven Gonzalez

 

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Californian funeral parlour has become popular with gangs because cemetery shootouts in the 1980s made members reluctant to gather for funerals

Californian funeral parlour has decided to move with the times with drive-through viewing of an open casket.

The owner of Robert L. Adams Mortuary, Peggy Scott Adams, said it meant well-known locals could be viewed en masse; older mourners wouldn't have to leave their cars; and those afraid of funeral parlours wouldn't need to go inside.

The covered and paved 3.6m-wide drive-through has a bulletproof glass display window, which is visible from the street.

"It's a unique feature that sets us aside from other funeral parlours," Ms Scott Adams said.

"You can come by after work, you don't need to deal with parking, you can sign the book outside and the family knows that you paid your respects."

The cost of funerals at the mortuary start from $1295.

The venue had become popular with gangs because cemetery shootouts in the 1980s made members reluctant to gather for funerals, Mrs Adams said.

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Two British tourists have been shot dead in Florida in what is thought to have been a street robbery that went wrong.

James Cooper, 25, and James Kouzaris, 24, had been holidaying with family and friends in the Gulf coast town of Sarasota.The two men were found riddled with bullets 50 feet apart in a residential area off the tourist trail after police were called to the scene.Officers found the first body surrounded by up to 20 shell casings before discovering the second victim nearby in the early hours of Saturday morning. Local residents had reported what they thought was 'machine gun fire'.
 A 16-year-old boy has been arrested and charged with two counts of murder.
James Cooper - who had posted pictures of himself on Facebook from exotic locations around the world - was shot dead three days after his 25th birthday.
 He had previously visited Ecuador, Taiwan, Argentina, Vietnam and Laos.
Mr Cooper and Mr Kouzaris, who are believed to have met at Sheffield University, had been due to spend three weeks in Sarasota.
 They had been staying on the upmarket island city of Longboat Key, about 12 miles from the less affluent area where they were killed.
 Friends and family paid tribute to Mr Kouzaris, known as 'Jam', on his Facebook profile page.
 Posts commented on his positivity and one friend said Mr Kouzaris 'lived every day to the fullest'.
 Lynn Hucker wrote: 'To a beautiful cousin who I will never forget. Always happy and full of life. You will be so sadly missed James.'

Another post from a friend called Ben Stacey read: 'RIP Jam, absolute legend. It was an honour mate, I was so looking forward to seeing you again in Miami. The month travelling with you was some of the best times I've had and was so thankful I met you. Rated you very highly XO'.
Mr Kouzaris, from Northampton, was a guest of the Cooper family, from Warwick who were on holiday in the area, police said.
Police in Sarasota said neither of the men were in possession of drugs, but would not say whether they had cash or weapons.The area is a hotspot for gangs.

A police spokesman said: 'This is an area where not many tourists venture. We are still trying to ascertain why they were there.'

'Both victims were white,' said Sarasota Police Captain Paul Sutton.

A spokesman for the British consulate in Miami said: 'British consular officials can confirm that two British nationals were killed in Sarasota, Florida, on April 16. Next of kin have been notified.

'Officials from the consulate in Orlando are providing assistance. The two male victims were on holiday in Florida with other family and friends.'

Shootings of British tourists are rare in the U.S. but in November 2009 Thomas Reeve was gunned down while drinking with friends in a Texas bar.

The 28-year-old father of one was in Amarillo, Texas, when the bar he was drinking in was held up by an armed robber.

He was visiting the city during a road trip across the U.S. and had called in at the Spotted Pony Lounge in Amarillo because he liked the 1970s hit 'Is This the Way to Amarillo'.

Mr Reeve, of Maidenhead, Berkshire, was hit in the torso after the robber Ray Carlos Cisneros fired wildly into the bar.

Earlier in the year Craig Elford, 39 and Kenneth Watkinson, 48, were killed in a hit-and-run accident as they walked back to their hotel in Fort Lauderdale.

The businessmen, who were in the city recruiting for a health firm, were struck by a high-powered Porsche sports car and died instantly.

Ryan LeVin, 35, the son of a millionaire, is awaiting trial on vehicular manslaughter charges.

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MS-13 Gang leader pleads to racketeering in D.C. area

Gang leader pleads to racketeering in D.C. area - Washington Times: "leader of a violent street gang tied to the attempted murder of two rival gang members and to the extortion of pimps trafficking prostitutes from Maryland into Virginia pleaded guilty Thursday to federal racketeering charges, according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

ICE Special Agent in Charge John P. Torres, who heads the agency’s Homeland Security Investigations Division in Washington, D.C., said Jose Anibal Vigil, 21, of Falls Church, Va., pleaded guilty to charges involving being a member of Gangsters Locos Salvatrucha (GLS), an offshoot of Mara Salvatrucha, or MS-13, a racketeering enterprise.

He faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison at sentencing on May 6.

“MS-13 and the violent tactics they use to instill fear throughout our communities will not be tolerated,” Mr. Torres said. “As evidenced in today’s plea, MS-13 operates as a criminal enterprise using brutal acts to include attempted murder as a means to spread their control in our neighborhoods.”"

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Tyson Kane Roulette, who is a member of the Indian Posse, pleaded guilty to manslaughter

Winnipeg man gets life after 2007 killing - thestar.com: "street gang member in Winnipeg has been sentenced to life in prison after an order to shoot rival gangsters ended in the death of an innocent man.

Tyson Kane Roulette, who is a member of the Indian Posse, pleaded guilty to manslaughter in the killing of Anthony Woodhouse and will not be eligible for parole for 10 years.

Woodhouse — a 30-year-old man with no ties to gangs — was gunned down on the front porch of a home in September 2007.

Court heard Roulette told a co-accused to go after rival gang members who were reportedly at the residence."

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Doctors Path Flames, a faction of the “Bloods” gang, allegedly distributed $20,000 worth of cocaine in the area each week and printed thousands of $20 counterfeit bills

"gang-related cocaine dealing, cash counterfeiting and weapons trafficking ring that operated mostly in the Riverhead area has been busted, its 23 alleged members rounded up and arrested, Suffolk County District Attorney Thomas Spota said Thursday.

The operation, connected with members of the Doctors Path Flames, a faction of the “Bloods” gang, allegedly distributed $20,000 worth of cocaine in the area each week and printed thousands of $20 counterfeit bills, which were sold for 10 cents on the dollar.

Search warrants were executed at 10 locations late last month where members of the East End Drug Task Force recovered half a kilo of coke, $2,000 in counterfeit bills, three illegal handguns ­— one of which was used in two shootings in Riverhead — and gear that suggested members were planning to impersonate police officers, Mr. Spota said.

“This shows you right here in Riverhead…we have bad, bad people,” he said."

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Reputed gang members scooped up in raids - Chicago Breaking News

Reputed gang members scooped up in raids - Chicago Breaking News: "reputed gang member once charged with killing an off-duty Chicago police officer was slapped with federal charges today as part of a two-year investigation into a West Side drug operation.

Chicago police and FBI agents fanned out across city neighborhoods this morning, scooping up some 100 members of the violent Traveling Vice Lords street gang.

The drug scheme allegedly was run all night and day near Kedzie Avenue and Ohio Street in North Lawndale, netting $3,000 to $6,000 a day in crack and heroin sales. 'Significant' amounts of crack and heroin were seized, officials said."

DISCLAIMER:Text may be subject to copyright.This blog does not claim copyright to any such text. Copyright remains with the original copyright holder.

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Lone ranger battles Mexico drug gangs: News24: World: News

Lone ranger battles Mexico drug gangs: News24: World: News: "In the bloodstained chaos of Mexico's drug war raging on the doorstep of the United States, Erika Gandara, 28, is standing tall - and alone.

As her town's only police officer 'I am the law', she says.

Gandara's town of Guadalupe, population 9 000, is near Ciudad Juarez, Ground Zero in Mexico's endless bloodletting between rival drug cartels battling for control of distribution routes to the lucrative US markets. Juarez sits across the border from the US city of El Paso, Texas.

And the toll the sustained violence has taken even on little Guadalupe is big: all of her fellow police officers have either fled or been killed."

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Service to honour Canadian killed in Mexico blast - CTV News

Service to honour Canadian killed in Mexico blast - CTV News: "The family of a B.C. man killed in a explosion that rocked a Mexican resort last week is thanking those who've helped them through the tragedy.
Malcolm Johnson's family says they've been 'devastated' ever since the Nanaimo man died in a gas blast at the Grand Riviera Princess Resort in Playa Del Carmen November 14.
Thirty-three-old Johnson was married in Mexico just days before the explosion and died on his one-year-old daughter's birthday.
Johnson's brother-in-law Layne Pynten says the family wants to thank everyone who has reached out to them since the explosion shattered their world.
Pynten says the family also extends their condolences to others who lost loved ones in the blast. Four other Canadians and two Mexicans were also killed.
A public celebration of Johnson's life will be held in Nanaimo on Monday following a private funeral.
'Malcolm truly was a loving husband, a doting father, wonderful brother-in-law, great friend,' said Pynten. 'He was just a fantastic person.'
Pynten said the support Johnson's wife Heather and daughter Audrey have received has been unbelievable.
'It's just unwavering support, this whole community has been behind Heather and Audrey. It's unreal,' said Pynten."

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Police Mystified By Ronni Chasen's Gangland Style Murder | Celebrity Dirty Laundry

Police Mystified By Ronni Chasen's Gangland Style Murder | Celebrity Dirty Laundry: "In an gangland style apparent assassination Publicist Ronni Chasen was gunned down in a fusillade of bullets as she drove away from the premiere of ‘Burlesque.’ Driving her Mercedes her car was hit by a several shots which killed her instantly. Police have no clue as to who did this or why? Gunned down in her car on Sunset Boulevard? A Publicist? There is more to this story – obviously and we will get to the bottom of it ASAP!"

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CTV Ottawa- Man arrested after gun found in Elmvale Acres home - CTV News

CTV Ottawa- Man arrested after gun found in Elmvale Acres home - CTV News: "man was arrested after police found a gun in an Elmvale Acres area residence.
Officers from the Guns and Gangs Unit executed a search warrant at the home Saturday morning.
The search resulted in the seizure of a handgun and ammunition.
Devin Mayers, 29, was charged with several firearm offences and will appear in court at a later date."

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Zetas, originally established as an enforcement wing of the narco-trafficking Gulf Cartel, but now a paramilitary militia in its own right

"Although they wore ski masks, everyone knew who they were with their machineguns and uniforms," said Gabriela. This brazen display of strength was carried out by the Zetas, originally established as an enforcement wing of the narco-trafficking Gulf Cartel, but now a paramilitary militia in its own right, highly trained in combat and probably the most powerful drug-trafficking organisation in the world.

The cartel was founded in the 1970s but emerged in its modern form in the mid-1980s, led by Juan García Abrego (now in a Colorado jail) and thereafter Osiel Cárdenas Guillén, who founded the Zetas and who is now awaiting trial in Houston, Texas. The Zetas are now led by Heriberto Lazcano – "El Lazco" or "Z3" – wanted in both Mexico and the US. It is Lazcano and the Zetas who control the cartel's drug operations and exercise the savagery with which its power is enforced and its terrain expanded. Estimated by US intelligence to number about 4,000, its soldiers were recruited from the Mexican army's special forces units, some reportedly trained in the US, though this has never been proved. What has been proved time and time again is their deadly cogency. The cartel is the only one against which the Mexican president, Felipe Calderón, has thrown his army's full might. So far, thanks to the Zetas, the cartel is winning.

After two years of Calderón's military offensive against the cartels, and 20 years since their "federation" fell apart and they began fighting one another, no one can predict an outcome, but one partial result is clear: the cartel and the Zetas have held their terrain and are broadening it, despite the high-profile arrests of key members of the group such as Jaime González Durán, alias "El Hummer". A spokesman for Calderón, Alejandra de Soto, told the Observer that "the army is proud of what it has achieved in Tamaulipas" – where the Zetas are based – "there is relative peace in the area. It has been brought under control".

The crucial point about the "relative peace" in areas held by the Zetas is that it is a peace whereby the cartel controls every facet of life, is uncontested by its rivals and presides over an omnipresent reign of terror.

It is also punctuated by firefights and the brutal murders of police commanders who do not co-operate. Last week more than 20 men were arrested for the murder of the police commander of García, near Monterrey. A retired army general, Juan Arturo Esparza, was ambushed with a fusillade of fire and killed, said a message cited in the Houston Chronicle, for "disappointing the letter Z". Most of those arrested were police officers. Meanwhile, hundreds of officers dutifully turned out last week for the funeral of the state police commander in Veracruz, Casto Acevedo, reportedly killed by the Zetas for refusing to co-operate with them. His torso and mutilated limbs were stacked on a mattress and his severed head left nearby.

Zeta territory is markedly different from the notoriously violent Ciudad Juárez, where the cartel pyramids have collapsed and criminal anarchy prevails. There, newspapers can report the nightly atrocities. In Zeta country, killing is less common and daily life appears normal – but it is governed by fear.

Moreover, the Zetas are expanding. Determined to control a corridor of their own through Central America to the cocaine production fields of Colombia, Peru and Venezuela, the Zetas have fought for and won control of most of the Gulf coast – as shown by recent massacres in Veracruz and Cancún, where they murdered an army general – and are fighting an all-out guerrilla war against the Sinaloa Cartel's cocaine farms in Guatemala. They are contesting a rival cartel, La Familia of Michoacán, for lucrative markets of Mexico City's endless suburbs. In a reported alliance with a cartel called the Beltrán-Leyva brothers, they are fighting for smuggling routes into Arizona.

Crucially, the Zetas hold their terrain absolutely and its location in north-eastern Mexico affords access to Houston, which the FBI, briefing the Observer last week, called "the hub city" for alliances with local gangs – the old "Texas Syndicate" and loose-knit "Tango Blast".

Of all Mexico's cartels, the Zetas are the most internationally connected, allied to their counterparts in the Italian syndicates, the 'Ndrangheta of Calabria, with ambitions in the European and African markets.

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Mexican police were protecting the Zetas.

"La Barbie" a leader of the rival Sinaloa cartel, took out a full page advert in a Mexico City daily newspaper, to allege that Mexican police were protecting the Zetas.

For their part, the Zetas have long complained that the Sinaloa cartel enjoys police protection.

Despite debacles surrounding the Zetas and increasing violence, Deare - who physically resembles the tough but fair minded under-secretary of defence played by Harrison Ford in the fictional drug war thriller Patriot Games - thinks Mexico needs more, not less, US involvement.

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Zetas' alleged current leaders, Heriberto Lazcano, known as Z-3 and Miguel Trevino, or Z-40, were first recruited by Osiel Cardenas

group has mounted the severed heads of its victims on pikes in urban areas, posted torture and execution videos on the internet, forced poor migrants into prostitution and massacred college students during house parties.

"Other cartels have accused them of not following the 'gentlemen's code' of drug trafficking and causing undue violence," Bricker told Al Jazeera.

"At one time, it was considered bad form to kill pregnant women, but not any more." For safety concerns, Bricker didn’t want to say where she lives in Mexico.

Deare estimates "probably more than 500" GAFE personnel received special forces training. He is unsure exactly how long the programme lasted. The Zetas came to the attention of Mexico’s Attorney General’s office in 1999.

After US training, GAFE operatives defected from the Mexican military to become hired guns, providing security to the Gulf cartel, a well established trafficking organisation, according to Laura Carlsen, director of the Americas program of the International Relations Center.

"They split from the Gulf cartel and formed as a cartel in their own right," Carlsen, based in Mexico City, told Al Jazeera.

The Zetas' alleged current leaders, Heriberto Lazcano, known as Z-3 and Miguel Trevino, or Z-40, were first recruited by Osiel Cardenas, the now-jailed leader of the Gulf cartel. The name "Zetas" originates from the radio code "Z" used by top military commanders in Mexico.

But unlike Zorro, the Mexican outlaw hero who also used the "Z" alias, Los Zetas steal from everyone, not just the rich. And they certainly don’t give much back to the poor, except the corpses of their relatives. "They are just known for being a different kind of human being," says Bricker.

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Founders of the Zetas drug gang learned special forces techniques at Ft. Bragg before waging a campaign of carnage.

Despite the deployment of 50,000 troops, Mexico seems to be losing the 'war on drugs' [AFP]

(U.S. BORDER WITH MEXICO) - It was a brutal massacre even by the gruesome standards of Mexico’s drug war: 72 migrant workers gunned down by the "Zetas" - arguably the country's most violent cartel - and left rotting in a pile outside a ranch in Tamaulipas state near the US border in late August.

The Zetas have a fearsome reputation, but the real surprise comes not in their ruthless use of violence, but in the origins of where they learned the tricks of their bloody trade.

Some of the cartel's initial members were elite Mexican troops, trained in the early 1990s by America’s 7th Special Forces Group or "snake eaters" at Ft. Bragg, North Carolina, a former US special operations commander has told Al Jazeera.

“They were given map reading courses, communications, standard special forces training, light to heavy weapons, machine guns and automatic weapons,” says Craig Deare, the former special forces commander who is now a professor at the US National Defence University.

"I had some visibility on what was happening, because this [issue] was related to things I was doing in the Pentagon in the 1990s," Deare, who also served as country director in the office of the US Secretary of Defence, says.

The Mexican personnel who received US training and later formed the Zetas came from the Airmobile Special Forces Group (GAFE), which is considered an elite division of the Mexican military.

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killing of a cruiser near a popular beach in St. Thomas earlier this year has sparked some big changes in the area

The killing of a cruiser near a popular beach in St. Thomas earlier this year has sparked some big changes in the area, according to a report today in the Virgin Islands Daily News.

The news outlet says Coki Point Beach has undergone a massive cleanup over the past three months that has made it safer for locals and tourists alike.

Carnival passenger Lizmarie Perez Chapparro died in July after being caught in the middle of a shootout between warring gangs near the beach. The Associated Press reported at the time the girl was struck by a bullet as she rode with her family on a "safari bus" that ferries tourists across the island.

The girl and her family had arrived in St. Thomas earlier in the day aboard the 2,758-passenger Carnival Victory.

St. Thomas in recent years has been the scene of a growing "plague of violence," as one prominent official has called it, but Chapparro's killing marked the first time the violence has spilled over into the the territory's all-important tourism sector, and it brought swift calls from politicians and tourism leaders for a crackdown on crime.

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14 members associated with two gangs arrested since April during this crackdown. The gangs are the 13 Avenue Hot Boyz and the 12 Court Cowboys

dozen known gang members are off the streets along with 31 illegal weapons after Miami police went on the offensive in Operation Hammerhead. At a news conference Wednesday morning, Miami Police Chief Miguel Exposito announced the results of Operation Hammerhead, a several month operation designed to reduce crime in the city's Liberty Square Project.

In all, Chief Exposito said police got 31 guns off the street and made 14 arrests of gang members responsible for violent crimes.

The big priority was getting the illegal weapons off the street.

"This is the type of weapon we've taken off the street," said Chief Exposito as he held up an assault rifle. "This particular rifle was stolen in North Carolina."

The weapons, displayed on a two tables for reporters, could have taken many lives, according to the chief. They were confiscated from 14 members associated with two gangs arrested since April during this crackdown. The gangs are the 13 Avenue Hot Boyz and the 12 Court Cowboys.

"The result of Operation Hammerhead is proof of the Miami Police department's commitment to address violent crime even before it occurs," said Chief Exposito. "I am so proud of the work that the officers in the Miami Police Department have done."

Those arrested face a series of charges including possessing illegal weapons. Police say one young person was notorious. 18-year-old Timothy Smith, a 13 Avenue Hot Boyz leader, is alleged to have sold 17 guns to undercover officers.

"These officers are committed and determined to rid the city of gang activity. Liberty Square is a neighborhood just like any other neighborhood where good people deserve the right to live in peace and tranquility," said Exposito.

Operation Hammerhead focused on arms dealings and violent crimes in the Liberty Square Project that has been plagued by shootings including one that prompted community outrage in August when a 22-month old girl was shot in the foot by a stray bullet.

"I have no words to describe this. All I can say is these officers did a phenomenal job," said Exposito.

Four of the fourteen people arrested are juveniles. The chief said many are recruited by gang members at a very early age, which makes many Liberty Square residents applaud this crackdown.

"There's too much violence here. There are too many killings. Something needed to be done to stop this," said resident Mike Pratt.

Marvin Pratt agrees but said Operation Hammerhead is only part of the solution.

"This crackdown needs to continue. It can't just stop. And all this needs to go further. We need programs for the young kids. They don't have enough to do. Some of this violence has become ingrained in them. We need to work with these young kids," said Marvin Pratt.

"This needs to be part of a continuous operation," Pratt told CBS4's Peter D'Oench. "This can't just last a few months. This is great that these guns were taken away, but in the long run, we need to reach these kids when they are young. Find stuff to occupy them. Right now they have no jobs. They are desperate. They have nothing to. They have no type of training. They stay at home and raise themselves."

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Notorious Jamaican gang leader under arrest, reports say - Americas - MiamiHerald.com

Notorious Jamaican gang leader under arrest, reports say - Americas - MiamiHerald.com: "Christopher ``Dudus'' Coke, the Jamaican drug don at the center of a prolonged and lethal manhunt, is under arrest, the Jamaican newspaper The Gleaner reported late Tuesday.
The government's attempts to arrest and extradite Coke to the United States on drugs and weapons charges in May led to a violent clash in West Kingston that resulted in the deaths of at least 73 civilians and gang members and three security officers.
Despite a bounty and the nationwide search for the gang leader, who has strong ties to the ruling Jamaican Labour Party, he had managed to elude capture.
The Gleaner said that the Rev. Al Miller, who previously managed to negotiate the surrender of Coke's sister and brother, helped bring him into custody."

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Anthony D. Singh ties to the Rollin’ 60 Crips street gang

Anthony D. Singh, 21, fired a bullet through a man’s right shoe after a confrontation in a downtown parking lot that police said stemmed from a dangerous culture of retaliation and intimidation common in gang life.
A jury convicted Singh of several felonies after a trial in December that included unusual testimony about Singh’s ties to the Rollin’ 60 Crips street gang.
Gang affiliations generally are considered inadmissible in trials, but prosecutors argued that Singh’s membership in the violent gang provided motive for the seemingly random shooting, which occurred near a downtown night club in July 2008.
“He has chosen this way of life, and it finally caught up with him,” said Superior Court Judge Kathleen O’Connor on Wednesday.Singh’s father, Elvis Anthony Singh, urged O’Connor to show his son leniency in a letter mailed from a federal prison, where he’s been since 2002. He was sentenced to 10 years after federal drug agents busted a crack cocaine ring the quadriplegic was operating out of his Spokane home with his caregiver.“We missed those important teenage years,” Elvis Singh’s letter reads. “I regret that I was not there to be a positive influence on him.”O’Connor approved an exceptionally high sentence for Singh, ordering him to serve sentences for second-degree assault, drive-by shooting and unlawful possession of a firearm before serving sentences for witness tampering and conspiracy to commit assault, instead of serving the sentences at the same time.Singh’s court-appointed lawyer, Thomas Cooney, has said he’ll appeal the verdict, partly based on a Spokane police detective’s admission to jurors that Singh had previous convictions.Jurors were ordered to disregard Detective Michael Roberge’s statement, but Cooney said that made little difference.Singh, Cooney argued in court documents, “was convicted on his propensity to commit crime and for being a bad person who is a gang member, rather than on admissible character evidence.”Singh denies firing the bullet that hit Alex Tauala in his right shoe in a parking lot near Sprague Avenue and Stevens Street on July 26, 2008. Tauala didn’t identify Singh as the gunman during trial.
But police witnesses and Deputy Prosecutor Larry Haskell argued Singh shot at Tauala after Tauala confronted Singh and his brother, 25-year-old Jamal R. Singh, by saying “anyone else got any problems?”The brothers, prosecutors said, were driven to retaliate because of their ties to a gang where “respect is the center of the universe,” according to court documents.
Jamal Singh pleaded guilty to riot in August 2008 and was given a year probation and credit for 24 days served in jail.But police argued Anthony Singh was the shooter, and his extensive criminal history contributed to his lengthy prison sentence.That prison sentence was exactly what Singh’s imprisoned father hoped his son, a father of two, could avoid.“As he is now able to see, the greatest price for his mistakes will be paid by his children,” the letter says.

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Stephen ‘Aki’ Akinyemi, 44,‘King of the Hill’ found shot dead

‘King of the Hill’ found shot dead in the Cheshire mansion of a controversial businessman Arran Coghlan.Stephen ‘Aki’ Akinyemi, 44, was said to be a prominent member of the notorious Cheetham Hill gang, which is believed to be behind major crime and the supply of drugs in Manchester.He was known for enjoying champagne and cruising Manchester’s clubland in his silver Porsche, with the private registration AKI.He had a string of previous convictions and most recently had been jailed for 13 months in 2006 for violent disorder.At the time of his death, he was on bail for allegedly attacking someone with a baseball bat outside the Lounge 31 nightclub in the city centre in November.He was found with serious stab injuries at Mr Coghlan’s Alderley Edge home on Tuesday afternoon. He was wearing a stab vest.But a post-mortem examination revealed he had died of a gunshot wound, not knife injuries.Mr Coghlan was also discovered with stab injuries at the scene and he was taken to hospital under police guard. He was later discharged although he remains in police custody after being arrested on suspicion of murder.Last night a tribute page to Mr Akinyemi on social networking website Facebook, titled ‘RIP AKI’, had more than 600 members.
Mr Coghlan was cleared in 1996 of murdering Stockport ‘Mr Big’ Chris Little, who was shot dead at the wheel of his Mercedes.In 2003, Mr Coghlan stood trial for the murder of drug dealer David Barnshaw, who was kidnapped and forced to drink petrol before being burned alive in the back of a car in Stockport in 2001.But the case collapsed when it was revealed police had failed to pass on important information about another possible suspect.

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Julian Jose Garza, 28 reportedly a member of Caldwell’s East Side Locos gang

Julian Jose Garza, 28, of Notus was sentenced to 70 months in federal prison by U.S. District Judge Edward J. Lodge, the United States Attorney’s Office announced Wednesday.Garza pleaded guilty to the charge in September, admitting that he had a 9 mm semi-automatic handgun during a confrontation with two men in Caldwell on May 14, 2008. Because Garza had been previously convicted of firing a gun into an occupied dwelling, he was prohibited from possessing firearms under federal law.Garza is reportedly a member of Caldwell’s East Side Locos gang and was prosecuted by the special assistant U.S. attorney hired by the Treasure Valley Partnership and Idaho State Police to address gang crimes. His sentencing on Tuesday concluded a string of successful prosecutions of Garza’s family and girlfriend, the U.S. Attorney’s Office reports.His father, Gabriel Garza, pleaded guilty to unlawful possession of a firearm and was sentenced to 12 months of prison last March. His mother, Maria Garza, . was convicted as an accessory to a felony in April, charged with assisting Gabriel, in possession with intent to distribute marijuana. And his brother, Alex Garza, was sentenced to five years in state prison last month for aiding and abetting witness intimidation in Canyon County District Court on January 7, 2010.

Julian Garza’s girlfriend, Chelsea Robbins-Gonzalez was convicted of perjury and sentenced in June to two years of probation for lying to the federal grand jury about Julian’s possession of a firearm.

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Tacoma Hilltop Crips gang

gang sweep by local and federal agents in Tacoma.
Twenty-nine men, suspected members of the Tacoma Hilltop Crips gang, have been arrested in a series of raid since Tuesday morning.
One of the men arrested, Manuel Jose Hernandez, pleaded guilty to the Toews murder in 2000. Hernandez was 12 at the time. He was sentenced to state custody until he turned 21 in October of 2008.
Since then, prosecutors say, Hernandez has been an active gang member. He was arraigned Wednesday on charges including: conspiracy, robbery, auto theft and trafficking stolen property.
Cornell hopes Hernandez gets a longer sentence this time, but she said it won't do any good for her or Hernandez.
"I don't have any great hopes that prison's going to improve somebody's outlook on life," said Cornell.
Thirty-two men have been charged in connection with the investigation.
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Sweep against the Hilltop Crips

Sweep against the Hilltop Crips included serving a series of early-morning search warrants Tuesday. Officers arrested 11 suspected gang members without incident and confiscated guns, drugs and stolen property.
Investigators were still searching for five others. The remaining 16 were already in the Pierce County Jail on other criminal charges or serving time in state prison.
Prosecutors have filed 51 felony counts in the case. Charges include attempted murder, first-degree robbery and drive-by shooting. The 32 suspected gang members, ages 17 to 38, face various counts, but all are charged with one count of criminal conspiracy, according to court documents.
Among those charged are two third-strike candidates and Manuel Jose Hernandez, one of eight youths convicted of fatally beating Erik Toews, 30, as he walked down the street in 2000.
“We’ve got a big chunk of the group, and we’re not stopping,” said Steven Dean, assistant special agent in charge of the FBI’s Seattle office. “We are looking at this group of gang members directly correlating to an increase in violent crime in the area.”
Filing conspiracy charges is a new approach in tackling gang violence, which has plagued the city since the late 1980s and left many dead and or wounded in drive-by shootings.
County prosecutor Mark Lindquist said this case marks the first time in Washington that the conspiracy statute is being used to prosecute gang violence. It’s being modeled after successful gang prosecution elsewhere in the country.
The charge usually is used in drug and identify theft cases. It’s being used against the gang members because prosecutors allege they joined the gang for the sole purpose of committing crimes – including robberies, drug dealing, shootings and car thefts.
In general, prosecutors say, a conspiracy occurs when two or more people get together and agree to commit a crime, and then at least one of them takes a substantial step toward carrying out the crime.
The others “can be legally accountable for the one person’s follow-through,” Pierce County deputy prosecutor Greg Greer said.
Those arrested Tuesday and previously booked into jail will be arraigned on the conspiracy and other charges today. Those in prison will return to Pierce County to face the conspiracy charges.
INCREASED VIOLENCE
Investigators say that the Hilltop Crips have increasingly flexed their muscle throughout the city during the last 18 months, targeting people who showed outward signs of wealth – including gold jewelry and fancy wheel rims on their cars – and working together to threaten or harm the victims to get what they wanted.
“They were active on a daily basis,” Tacoma police homicide detective John Ringer said. “Nothing slowed them down.”
Investigators contacted the Pierce County Prosecutor’s Office. Prosecutors researched different state statutes and found that the conspiracy charge worked with the facts and cases Tacoma police detectives presented, Greer said.
“The law is appropriate for the facts that we have in this case,” he said. “We want to be a little more proactive in addressing the gang problem.”
Most members of this targeted group have previously been convicted of felonies.
Hernandez was 12 in 2000 when he and seven other youths attacked and killed Toews on North Fourth Street.
Hernandez, the second-youngest person charged, was convicted as a juvenile of first-degree murder and three robberies in the days before the Toews beating. He was sentenced to juvenile detention until his 21st birthday.
Now 22, Hernandez was charged in connection with the gang conspiracy case and was among those arrested Tuesday.
FORMED IN LATE 1980S
About 15 teenagers formed the Hilltop Crips in the late 1980s after gangsters from Los Angeles moved into Tacoma and started selling crack cocaine. The gang was the first local black street gang, claiming South 23rd Street as its turf and recruiting other local teens to join their ranks.
Membership swelled to nearly 300 in the mid-1990s. Some of the original gang members were convicted of killing rival gangsters, while others were killed in gang-motivated violence. Some of the surviving original gang members remain in prison.
“Over the course of the past 20 years, the HTCs have been a powerful criminal force on the streets of Tacoma,” Ringer wrote in a search warrant affidavit as part of the recent crackdown. “They have been the strongest black street gang in the area and have dominated the local cocaine sales.”
Throughout the years, local and federal task forces have targeted the city’s gangs, which now total nearly 50. They’ve charged members with federal drug and gun charges and with shootings, homicides and an array of other crimes.
Among the crimes allegedly committed by the Hilltop Crips recently were burglaries at two secure facilities, including a Lakewood police parking lot where a member’s impounded car was rifled through for evidence.
NEW OUTBREAK OF CRIME
In mid-2008, Tacoma police and members of the South Sound Gang Task Force began to notice a new wave of crimes involving the Hilltop Crips, Ringer said.
Police reports detailed incidents in which victims were targeted for their financial assets, especially gold necklaces. Gang members stalked and jumped their victims around popular Hilltop Crips hangouts, police said.
Among the spots were a South Tacoma gas station, a South Tacoma convenience store, a South End restaurant and nightclubs that featured hip-hop music, police said.
Victims had necklaces ripped off in the clubs, faced armed robbers or were beaten on the sidewalk while others stole their car keys and wallets, court documents state.
The documents detail three incidents in which victims were critically injured. All survived, but one was paralyzed and another suffered permanent injury.
The gang task force focused on gang members who were still committing crimes. Many of the crimes had not been investigated, or charges had not been filed.
“These guys were off the hook,” Ringer said.
During the investigation, homicides involving Hilltop Crips were investigated separately, Ringer said. Other gang members were arrested in other cases.
In addition to interviewed witnesses and victims, investigators used informants, watched surveillance video of attacks and set up a surveillance camera in a Hilltop alley that was a favorite gathering spot.
They also sent shell casings and guns to the Washington State Patrol crime lab for analysis.
The lab matched casings from shootings in December 2008 at Oakland Playfield and in February 2009 at South 56th and Tyler streets to one Jan. 26 at a nightclub in Bellevue. A matching shell casing had been discovered in the car of one of the accused gang members.
Of the 28 shell casings collected after a shootout Dec. 2, 2008, outside a South End restaurant, one was matched with a casing taken from another member’s car during a search warrant.
“We were able to establish the conspiracy,” Ringer said. “When they join the group, they join the conspiracy.”

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Valentino Sanchez, 33,allegedly high ranking member of the Latin King street gang

Valentino Sanchez, 33, whose last known address was 8105 White Ave. in west suburban Lyons, was placed into custody at 12:15 p.m. by Chicago Police in a secure area in a lower level terminal area at O’Hare, according to police.
Sanchez, an allegedly high ranking member of the Latin King street gang who also goes by the streets names of “Shorty” and “Devious” was found in Guadalajara, Mexico by an FBI gang task force and was transported by DEA and FBI officials to Chicago, police said.
A Feb. 2, 2009 U.S. Department of Justice and FBI release offered a $10,000 reward for the arrest of Sanchez, who has been the subject of nationwide manhunt since July 2005 when he was charged in a criminal complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Chicago with violation of drug laws.
The release said Sanchez is allegedly a high ranking member of the Latin Kings and he is accused of overseeing the distribution of wholesale quantities of cocaine in the city and suburbs.
Sanchez remains in Chicago police custody early Wednesday but is scheduled to be turned over to federal authorities who will likely hold him in the Metropolitan Correctional Center pending an appearance in Federal Court, according to police.

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They didn’t get the moniker ‘Body Snatchers’ for no reason

Dominique Finley, 34, was the highest-ranking member among the defendants with the lofty title “5-Star Universal Elite.” Eric Ollison, 26, who goes by the nickname “Murder,” was his second-in-command, officials say.

“They didn’t get the moniker ‘Body Snatchers’ for no reason,” said Chicago Police Deputy Chief Nick Roti of the Organized Crime Section, adding that the faction is suspected of dozens of killings over the years.The charges unveiled Wednesday don’t accuse any of the defendants of murder, but said they were involved in a vast drug business.Since September, though, Ollison has been locked up after he was caught on the West Side with a loaded gun in a car, police said. He pleaded guilty to being a habitual offender and was sentenced to six years in prison, court records show.
According to FBI affidavits, the Body Snatchers were peddling large quantities of cocaine north of the Eisenhower Expy., south of North Avenue, west of Laramie and east of Austin. Two informants were paid a total of $20,000 to help investigators, the FBI said. Electronic surveillance also was used.
Most of the defendants lived in Chicago, but Finley has a Bellwood address and Andre Beard, 29, lives in Glendale Heights. Betts had lived in St. Charles.
“A lot of these guys, when they get higher up, move out to the suburbs and come to the city to work,” Roti said.Ironically, “they feel a little safer there,” he said.

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Suspected of being members or associates of the Four Corner Hustlers street gang

Suspected of being members or associates of the Four Corner Hustlers street gang. The men were arrested as part of Operation Snatched, a coordinated effort by federal, state and local law enforcement agencies to target street gangs running drug distribution networks in the Chicago area, Grant said.The men were charged with attempted possession or possession with intent to distribute crack cocaine, the FBI said. The charges are felonies and carry a minimum sentence of 10 years in prison if convicted, according to the FBI.Investigators electronically intercepted telephone conversations, used surveillance techniques and conducted undercover missions to investigate the network whose turf went from the Eisenhower Expressway to North Avenue, between Laramie Avenue and Austin Boulevard, officials said.The Chicago residents who were charged were Milton Bills, 32, of the 5800 block of West Ohio Street; Clarence Johnson, 45, of the 700 block of East 50th Street; Terrance C. Jones, 32, of the 1400 block of South Christiana Avenue; Damon Westbrook, 32, of the 100 block of East 49th Street; Frederick Taylor, 23, of the 1200 block of North Mason Avenue; and Eric Ollison, 26, whose address was not available but who is in state prison on an unrelated conviction.Also charged were Andre T. Beard, 29, of Glendale Heights, and Dominique Finley, 34, of Bellwood.The men appeared Wednesday before U.S. Magistrate Judge Jeffrey Cole in Chicago and were ordered held without bail in the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Chicago, according to the FBI.

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John Paul 'JP' Joyce, a vicious criminal and member of a heroin distribution gang, had been kidnapped in Coolock on Thursday, January 7, murdered

first gangland slaying of the year had originated in their district. John Paul 'JP' Joyce, a vicious criminal and member of a heroin distribution gang, had been kidnapped in Coolock on Thursday, January 7, murdered and his body dumped near the airport where it was found two days later.

Joyce, aged 30, was involved in a feud with a gang which has been establishing complete control over the drugs trade in an area stretching from the north inner city to north county Dublin and westwards to Ballymun, Finglas and Blanchardstown. It was responsible for murdering Joyce's brother, Thomas, in June last year and John Paul had vowed revenge. John Paul himself had already survived at least two attempts on his life.

The two murdered Joyce brothers, members of a settled Traveller family from Grove Lane, were notorious in north Dublin. John Paul was imprisoned for a terrible assault on an innocent man at a public house in Rush, Co Dublin on St Patrick's Day, 2006. The man's son had accidentally spilled a drink on someone in Joyce's company. He and another man dragged the man from the pub, beat him to the ground, jumped on him and slammed a door repeatedly on the man's head, causing severe injury. Joyce had only been released from prison last November.

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three people yelling "T Block" and "BTG," cliques in the Crips gang. Someone in Maynard's group mentioned the Tre-Tre gang.

Ryan Daniel Jones-Adams, 16, was charged with first-degree murder and first-degree murder committed in association with a gang.He is accused of fatally shooting Marvin Ray Maynard III, who was found Jan. 17 in the street on the 2600 block of James Avenue N. Maynard had his hands in the air when he was shot, according to the criminal complaint.A family member who declined to be named said Maynard was not a gang member and referred questions to his mother, who could not be immediately reached Monday.Police are not looking for anyone else in the case, said Sgt. Jesse Garcia, a spokesman.Garcia and the complaint gave this account:A witness who had been with Maynard and another male told police that they had been confronted by three people yelling "T Block" and "BTG," cliques in the Crips gang. Someone in Maynard's group mentioned the Tre-Tre gang.One male in the Crips group took off a skull cap and yelled a threat, the complaint said. The witness saw that the male, who ran past him, had a gun and that he fired twice at Maynard. The shooter and another male ran east between houses.A police dog tracking them went to a porch on the other side of the block, where police found a black hat with a loaded 9-mm handgun in it. On the gun were two latent fingerprints, one of which was identified as the right thumb of Jones-Adams, the complaint said.Police also found surveillance video of Jones-Adams and three others at a gas station six blocks from the shooting and taken about 90 minutes beforehand, the complaint said. Jones-Adams was wearing the same clothes in the video as the shooter was said to be wearing, Garcia said.

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arrested Dandre Davaune Parker, 20, on charges of possession, manufacture and delivery of heroin

Medford Area Drug and Gang Enforcement Team officers arrested Dandre Davaune Parker, 20, on charges of possession, manufacture and delivery of heroin, possession of ecstasy, and manufacture of heroin and delivery of ecstasy within 1,000 feet of a school. He was lodged in the Jackson County Jail, where he remained Thursday evening on $100,000 bail.

Acting on a tip that members of the Crips street gang were dealing drugs near Jackson Elementary School, Medford police arrested a man on numerous drug charges Thursday morning.The arrest comes on the heelsof an unrelated investigation that led to three arrests and theseizure of an estimated $40,000worth of heroin and methamphetamine, team supervisor Medfordpolice Lt. Tim Doney said."We suspect Parker is associated with a Crips gang out of Stockton (Calif.)," Doney said.Investigators searched Parker's apartment in the 800 block of Summit Avenue at about 7:30 a.m. Thursday, armed with a warrant based on allegations of gang and drug activity, Doney said. They found about half an ounce of heroin, 28 ecstasy pills and seized $3,000 in cash.
Police initially detained three men and a woman, who were in an apartment across from the school and the Jackson community pool. Only Parker was arrested and lodged in jail.California street gangs have made their way into Medford over the years, Doney said."We have had dealings with the Crips and Bloods before, but they are not prevalent in this area," Doney said. "But when you find out about them, you certainly want to act on that information."

The Crips gang is one of the largest and most violent street gangs in the United States, with an estimated 30,000 members in more than 200 cities. It was founded in the early 1970s in Southern California and is well known for committing violent crimes, drug dealing and for its bloody battles with a rival gang, the Bloods.

Medford police arrested Parker's younger brother, Dante Deon Parker, on Monday after he reportedly robbed a man of his wallet in the Minute Market parking lot on Crater Lake Avenue. The younger Parker was lodged in jail on a theft charge and has since been released and cited to appear in Jackson County Circuit Court.The arrest of Dandre Parker was the second incident involving heroin in two days. On Wednesday, drug and gang investigators searched an apartment in the 3100 block of Juniper Ridge Drive in northeast Medford at about 5:45 p.m., Doney said.
They found about three-quarters of a pound of heroin and an ounce of meth. Investigators estimated the street value of the seized drugs at about $40,000. They also seized $10,000 in cash.Four men at the apartment were detained and three of them were arrested.Ricardo Alonzo-Martinez, 24, and Armando Javier Avila, 30, who both live at the apartment, each were arrested on charges of possession, manufacture, delivery of heroin and meth. Both were lodged at the Jackson County Jail without bail on those charges and immigration holds.Mario Castellanos-Arango, 24, of the 3600 block of Antelope Road, White City, was charged with possession of meth. He also is held in jail without bail because of an immigration hold.

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Crips street gang shots were fired in a fight between a group of black and Hispanic males.

Officers did find three shots were fired in front of 1161 Mazatlan Cir., but were unable to locate a victim.Just after 11 p.m., officers were called to St. Francis Medical Center to investigate a shooting victim. A 20-year-old victim admitted being involved in the earlier disturbance and having an affiliation with the Crip street gang.The victim's injuries are not life threatening.

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Bulldogs are described by authorities as the nation's largest independent street gang.

Bulldogs are described by authorities as the nation's largest independent street gang. Police estimate there are about 12,000 members in this city of 500,000.
For most of their 20-year existence, the Bulldogs escaped serious law enforcement scrutiny, even as they taunted cops with barks and howls. Police looked upon them mainly as wayward youth. But the gang that grew out of fights at San Quentin prison over respect eventually showed itself to be a deadly criminal enterprise. The 2006 shooting of a cop became a tipping point.
Now police are trying to bulldoze the Bulldogs, before the next generation takes over.The Fresno police are engaged in year four of tactical warfare against the gang, sweeping through neighborhoods and making more than 12,000 arrests, including many juveniles, and even going after petty offenses such as loitering by seeking injunctions.It's called "Operation Bulldog."
In other cities, such police pressure might have killed the beast. But with the loosely organized Bulldogs, many are independent operators who will turn on one another over territory.
"When you have structure," Fresno Police Chief Jerry Dyer says, "you can cut the head off the snake and it dies. You can't do that with the Bulldogs."
Although gang activity declined across America between 2001 and 2006, gang membership in Fresno County grew by 33 percent, studies show.
"We found that 10 percent of the people in our city were committing 50 percent of the crime," Dyer said. "If you're talking about robbery, that increases to 80 percent."
In July 2006, a motorcycle officer was critically wounded during a traffic stop by a gun-toting Bulldog, Joaquin Maltos Figueroa, 25, who was shot to death days later by police.
In Maltos Figueroa's car, officers found a magazine of bullets and a scanner tuned to police frequencies. They realized gang members were more sophisticated than they previously had believed.
That same summer, 16-year-old Courtney Rice, a prostitute whom gang members feared was snitching, was raped, tortured and murdered by seven Bulldogs and associates.
In November 2006, Chief Dyer went on TV announcing a 10-person "Operation Bulldog" tactical unit to make gang members' lives miserable. This January, he added 100 more officers to focus on intelligence gathering on the 10 percent who are most active and promised to seek longer, federal sentences when possible.
"We know the war on gangs can never be won," the chief said, "but we also know it can be lost."
Today, easily half of those incarcerated in the county jail on any given day are Bulldogs.
"The chief's directive is to arrest as many Bulldogs as we can," said Sgt. Alex Robles. "He doesn't want us to let up the pressure."
Four days a week for 10-hour shifts, Robles and his team swarm Bulldog territory, the scruffy neighborhoods on the city's east side. Armed with lists of names supplied by parole agents, they make unannounced visits.
Parolees have no right to privacy, and the officers take advantage, searching homes for drugs and alcohol — even inspecting cell phones for gang photos or insignias.
If life is made unpleasant, police figure they will either leave gang life or move away.
"I don't know if we'll ever get rid of them" says Robles. "I know the goal is to get rid of them."
In the first three years of Operation Bulldog records show that violent crime has decreased in Fresno by 14.3 percent, ahead of the 9 percent state average, and police attribute the statistic to pressure on gangs. Rape is down 43.5 percent, and there were 26.3 percent fewer vehicles stolen.
After recording 314 shootings in 2006; in 2008 there were 226 and 231 in 2009.
"Still, it is too many, but it's a far cry from 314," Dyer says. "At least we don't have them standing on the corners barking anymore. Our goal is to take away their neighborhoods."
The figures do not capture the uptick in shootings since July 2009, when the History Channel's Gangland series featured the Bulldogs and egos swelled, prompting a summer police sweep that netted 200 arrests and dozens of confiscated weapons.
On one sweep officers arrested Naomi Copple, 27, on parole from Chowchilla State Prison for Women, because her parole agent said she tested dirty for drugs. As they searched her house, she sat on the curb, hands cuffed behind her back. With a shaved head, she could not hide the two dog paw tattoos over her right eyebrow, or the 5150 — police code for crazy person — inked on the back of her neck.
About the tats on her forehead: "It's just some stupid s--- I did a long time ago. I was a kid."
Police see it differently. "It's like a billboard on their face saying 'Hey, stop me,'" Robles said.
On Thanksgiving Eve, a year-long police investigation netted Christopher Chavez, 26, the suspect in the 1999 murder of a transvestite, his two brothers and a 16-year-old. Awaiting trial, Chavez is accused of being the shot-caller of a small Bulldog "cell." He wore a bulletproof vest and carried automatic weapons, police said.
At the arrest scene, police reported finding 50 marijuana plants in a toddler's bedroom.
"You always feel bad for the kids," said Detective Tony Gates. "We always say they have no chance."
Investigators eavesdropping on conversations learned that Chavez, who joined the Bulldogs as a young teen, sold methamphetamine to his own mother, a street dealer, and used juveniles to move drugs and guns. The electronic surveillance reaffirmed the importance of tattoos.
"One of the juveniles had a gang tattoo on his body, and it subjected him to being involved in more crime," said Gates. "Chris Chavez told him, 'You have to back that up.' As investigators, we knew it, but it was surprising to hear it."
Children in Bulldog neighborhoods live amid prostitutes and parolees, surrounded by crime and violence, unemployment and poverty. The gang offers security, a sense of identity and, for many, a livelihood. In the worst Bulldog neighborhoods, drug dealers wear the nicest clothes and drive the newest cars.
"The middle class and upper class think about and do things to plan for the future," says C. Ronald Huff, a University of California-Irvine criminologist who studies gangs. "People who don't have those things are more fatalistic because they don't believe they have a future. Parents don't imagine anything will be different for their children."
The police gang unit has confiscated photographs of infants posed in Fresno State Bulldog onesies, cuddling semiautomatic handguns instead of bottles.
A survey of Fresno County school officials in 2007 found gang affiliations begin as early as kindergarten. And a school survey this fall showed the Bulldog gang with a steady source of new recruits: Fresno County 8th graders were almost twice as likely to join gangs if their fathers were involved.
"We're seeing third generation Bulldogs now, and it's not stopping," said Robles. "It's sad that these parents don't want something better for their children."
Whether Enrique Gonzalez is the kind of parent Robles describes will be decided in court; a hearing is set for Feb. 11. The Fresno County district attorney has charged Gonzalez and his friend, Travis Gorman, with mayhem — plus gang enhancements — for tattooing Gonzalez' 7-year-old son's hip with a dog's paw. If convicted, they could serve two decades or more behind bars.
Police say the boy was an unwilling participant, held down and marked against his will. Gonzalez' estranged wife discovered the tattoo and took her son to police.
Defense attorney Douglas Foster said the tattooing was only a case of poor judgment, not a crime. He denied it was forced, saying the boy made that claim only because he was intimidated by police and upset by his angry mother.
According to the lawyer, friends who were there said the child begged for a tattoo. They quoted him as saying, "Daddy, I want to be like you."

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Six Florencia 13 gang members life in prison sentence

six Florencia 13 gang members life in prison sentence appears to bring to a close a prolonged and terrifying spate of violence in the Florence-Firestone district allegedly brought on by orders from a prison gang member in solitary confinement 700 miles away.Beginning in 2004, the unincorporated Los Angeles County area north of Watts was the site of one of the region's worst gang sieges since the early 1990s, evolving into what some residents felt was a race war.The violence left dozens of people dead, including many with no gang affiliation, and required enormous county resources to combat."Things have gotten a lot better," said Chris Le Grande, pastor of Great Hope Missionary Baptist Church on Compton Avenue in Florence-Firestone.
U.S. District Judge David Carter sentenced Florencia member Francisco Flores, 24, to life in prison on Wednesday, saying that he "preyed on victims because they were black and for no other reason," according to a U.S. attorney's office news release.
Earlier this year, Carter had handed out life sentences to Florencia members Jesse Vasquez, 36; Alberto Hernandez, 28; Gilberto Oliva, 41; Manuel Hernandez, 27; and Noe Gonzalez, 28. Arturo Cruz, 34, was sentenced to 60 years in prison. Jose Gonzalez, 36, received a 20-year sentence. Two more gang members are scheduled to be sentenced later this month. An 11th defendant, Alejandro Rincon, will be retried in April.
Their trial, which took place in federal court in Santa Ana in 2008, grew from an indictment of 104 Florencia gang members on charges that included racketeering, conspiracy to sell drugs and murder.Of those indicted, 94 have pleaded guilty or have been convicted. Four more await trial; two have died and four are fugitives.The case showed the remarkable power the Mexican Mafia prison gang holds over Southern California Latino street gangs. Prosecutors alleged that Mexican Mafia member Arturo "Tablas" Castellanos essentially created a crime wave in the Florence-Firestone district.Castellanos was not indicted because he is already serving a life prison term in a maximum security cell in Pelican Bay State Prison. He hasn't been on the streets since 1979.Yet he wrote letters, introduced as evidence at the trial, that presumed to control a street gang, most of whose members had never seen him.Castellanos ordered gang members to stop rampant infighting; to tax drug dealers in their neighborhoods, as well as prostitutes, fruit vendors and vendors of phony ID cards in nearby Huntington Park; and to funnel the proceeds to him and other mafia members. He also ordered the gang to attack the local Crips gang, whose members are black."The Mexican Mafia has a powerful grasp on these [Latino] gangs," said Peter Hernandez, the assistant U.S. attorney who prosecuted the case.
"The prison system is a segregated place. Those rules and letters from Castellanos attempted to adhere those prison rules to the street," he said.
As Castellanos' letters appeared on the street in the fall and winter of 2004, Florencia 13 erupted in a spate of violence against African Americans.
"They just went out and started shooting" at black people, Hernandez said.
East Coast Crips responded with shootings of their own, often targeting Latinos who were not gang members.Few actual gang members died. Instead, residents said, they lived amid a race war.

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four accused - Nicola Ciconte, 54, of Rowville, Michael Calleja, 51, of Kew, Vincenzo Medici, 45, of Mildura, and Carmelo Loprete, 41, of Adelaide

four accused - Nicola Ciconte, 54, of Rowville, Michael Calleja, 51, of Kew, Vincenzo Medici, 45, of Mildura, and Carmelo Loprete, 41, of Adelaide - will be tried in absentia in the town of Vibo Valentia in Calabria after a failed attempt by the Italian government to extradite them from Australia.Anti-mafia prosecutor Salvatore Curcio has told The Age the prosecution will use testimony from a Mafia turncoat, whose name has been suppressed, to corroborate phone taps, photographic and video evidence allegedly linking the four to a multimillion-dollar drug smuggling network that stretched from Colombia through Spain and Italy to Australia.According to court documents, the turncoat has confirmed the alleged link between the Calabrian Mafia and what prosecutors have termed ''leading crime figures operating in Australia''.
He has told prosecutors the four Australians made several trips to Italy to arrange the shipment of large quantities of cocaine while members of the elite Carabinieri special operations group filmed their alleged meetings in Calabria.
''The essential nucleus of the investigation with which we are dealing can, without any doubt, be confirmed in the statements and accusations made by [unnamed turncoat]; through the taps of telephones and public places; in international documents; and as a result of searches and seizures carried out in identifying assets,'' prosecutors said in one document.Security is expected to be tight at the trial after a bomb attack outside a court building in nearby Reggio Calabria and the discovery of explosives during a visit by Italian President Giorgio Napolitano in January.
Court documents allege the four Australians conspired with the Calabrian Mafia in the ''transportation and importation'' of 500 kilograms of cocaine with an estimated street value of $35-$50 million from South America via Italy to Melbourne between 2002 and 2004.
The trial is the latest in a series of cases that arose from an investigation into a vast Mafia drug-smuggling network that sought to ship enormous quantities of cocaine inside slabs of marble, plastic tubes and canned tuna across four continents.
Italian court documents obtained by The Age allege that Nicola Ciconte played the lead role in negotiating with the Italians in setting up the operation.
Prosecutors are expected to present detailed transcripts of long-distance telephone conversations allegedly between Ciconte and Vincenzo Barbieri, a senior Mafia figure who was sentenced to 18 years in prison in 2005.The four Australians are charged with criminal association aimed at international cocaine trafficking and attempted importation of cocaine. If convicted, they would face lengthy prison terms if they set foot on Italian soil.Arrest warrants for them were issued by anti-Mafia prosecutors and Italian police in January 2004.While the Australians are not expected to appear at the trial, a court lawyer will be appointed to represent them.When approached by The Age, the Italian Ministry of Justice declined to comment on the status of the extradition request or whether it had ever been formally put to the Australian Attorney-General's department or the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions.

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