Killers shoot and drive over Irish gangster in lunchtime hit

 

One of Ireland's most-notorious gangsters was shot dead yesterday after abandoning his overseas bolthole for the birth of his baby son. Michael "Mica" Kelly (30), who knew there was a contract on his head, had been moving between Spain and the Netherlands. But during the summer he returned home for the child's birth -- and to meet his criminal associates. However, he was gunned down yesterday shortly after visiting his son and the baby's mother. Kelly was shot several times as he left an apartment block at Marrsfield Avenue, Clongriffin, on the northside of Dublin, around 1pm. Two gunmen struck as he walked towards a friend, who had been waiting for him in a parked car. The assassins, who pulled up alongside their victim in a silver Saab, fired at least three shots from the car. Then as Kelly slumped to the ground, the killers -- armed with a handgun and a rifle -- jumped out of the vehicle and pumped several more rounds into the gangster as he lay dying. The Saab was then driven over his bullet-ridden body. An eye witness told how she ran out on to her balcony after hearing shots, and saw the car driving over the victim's body. "I rang the garda immediately," she said. "I was in my apartment and I heard three really loud shots and a split-second later three more. I looked out and there was a body on the floor. The car ran over him." Kelly's friend sped from the scene and the killers made their getaway in the Saab, possibly along the N32, into Clonshaugh. A similar car was found abandoned there shortly afterwards. The car was not burnt out and gardai were hoping that forensic tests would confirm that it was the getaway vehicle and provide them with some clues to the identity of the killers. Following a warning from gardai about a possible contract on his head, Kelly -- a father of three, of Swans Nest Road, Kilbarrack -- spent a lot of his time on mainland Europe where he forged links with global drug traffickers. He was regarded as a "facilitator" for local drug gangs and was said to have been responsible for a series of large shipments of contraband into the country, which were allegedly controlled by Christy Kinahan and other suppliers. Kelly was also a prime suspect for organising a number of murders, including the killings of David Lindsay and Alan Napper, both from Baldoyle, Co Dublin. Lindsay had been involved heavily in drug trafficking since the 1990s and Kelly had been part of his gang. But rows over drug debts led to in-fighting, resulting in several gang members being shot dead. According to garda intelligence, Lindsay hired a hitman -- alleged to have been convicted killer Eric Wilson -- to kill Kelly over a ?1m debt. Lindsay and Napper were last seen alive in July 2008 in Clane, Co Kildare, where they had borrowed a car to travel to Northern Ireland. But they walked into a double-cross, organised by Kelly, and were murdered in a house in Rathfriland, Co Down. Their bodies have never been found. Kelly was regularly put under surveillance by the Garda National Drugs Unit and the Organised Crime Unit. Last December, the Criminal Assets Bureau was given an order by the High Court to sell Kelly's house at Boyne View, in Navan, Co Meath, and two cars -- a Volkswagen Golf and a BMW 320. The case was not contested by Kelly who had at least 15 criminal convictions, including a suspended three-year sentence for the possession of ecstasy tablets in 1998

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Dale paid me to kill Hodson: Williams

 

Disgraced police officer Paul Dale paid underworld killer Carl Williams $150,000 to organise the murder of a man who was to testify against him, a court has heard. The trial into Williams' murder heard Dale also allegedly offered to kill Williams' gangland rival Jason Moran for $400,000 and regularly accepted cash in return for information on police operations. Despite admitting he had no argument with Dale's alleged victim, Terrence Hodson, Williams told police he organised an old mate to do the job. Advertisement: Story continues below "The Hodson job meant nothing to me personally, so I thought I'd ask if (name suppressed) was available," Williams told police. "It just really didn't matter to me whether it got done or not." The allegation is contained in a written statement Williams gave police two months before he was killed in Barwon Prison last year by the accused, Matthew Johnson. The statement was read to the Victorian Supreme Court on Wednesday and suppressed until Thursday. Dale and another former drug squad detective were facing court with Hodson over a bungled burglary. Hodson was killed before he was due to give evidence against the pair and Dale was not convicted. Evidence emerging from the murder trial of Matthew Charles Johnson, who is accused of killing Williams in Barwon Prison in April last year, has revealed the relationship between Dale, who was charged over the Hodson murder, Williams and other criminals. The evidence is contained in three statements Williams made to police as part of his deal to give evidence in the murder investigation into Dale and the hitman who killed Hodson and his wife Christine. It also reveals Ms Hodson was not part of the contract allegedly struck between Dale, Williams and the hitman. Williams said he asked the hitman "what about the sheila?" when he learned of Christine Hodson's death, only to be told he need not worry. Having organised the hit on Hodson, Williams said he arranged with Dale to have the $150,000 dropped into a wheelie bin at his mother's Essendon home. The court heard Dale told Williams he could give him information on police operations and other matters in return for money and the pair met regularly over the next couple of years. "On most occasions when I met with Dale I gave him an envelope with money in it," Williams said in a statement. Most of the payments were between $2000 and $5000, although Williams said he twice handed over $10,000. In one of his statements, Williams told police Dale had offered to kill gangland rival Jason Moran. "Dale said he could kill Jason for $400,000," he said. "I told them they were dreaming." Williams was convicted of Moran's murder, along with those of his father Lewis Moran and drug dealers Michael Marshall and Mark Mallia. Williams made the first of his three statements to police in connection with Dale and the Hodson murders in April 2007, when he was about to be sentenced for the three murders. In his initial statement he said Dale had told him he wanted Hodson killed and Williams offered help if it was needed. Williams said the negotiation went no further and that he didn't know who had killed the Hodsons. Almost three years later, while he was in jail, he made two further, and more frank, statements. "I didn't want to tell everything," he told police. "My attitude has changed." Dale questioned Williams' credibility and motivation for making his statements. "I'd like to ask people to probably look at the details of the person making the allegations firstly and then secondly look at the motivation behind what he's done," he told the Ten Network on Thursday. "Mind you, the things he said were said years later, after he's had plenty of time to think about ways of bettering his position. But look that's all going to be tested down the track." The murder case against Dale and the hitman fell apart when Williams was killed. Dale is now operating a service station in Wangaratta. Johnson's trial before Justice Lex Lasry is continuing.

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Vicente Zambada's lawyers claim he and other cartel leaders were granted immunity by U.S. agents

Vicente Zambada's lawyers claim he and other cartel leaders were granted immunity by U.S. agents — and carte blanche to smuggle cocaine over the border — in exchange for intelligence about rival cartels engaged in bloody turf wars in Mexico.

Controversial defence: Vicente Zambada's claim could throw new light on how U.S. authorities deal with Mexican drug cartels

Experts scoff at the claim, which U.S. prosecutors are expected to answer in a filing Friday in federal court.

But records filed in support of his proposed defence have offered a peek at the sordid world of Mexico's largest drug syndicate, the Sinaloa cartel, which is run by his father, Ismael Zambada, and Mexico's most wanted man, Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman.

It's a world of brutality, greed and snitching, and federal agents would love to have the younger Zambada pass along more intelligence, especially if it could help bring down his family's operation or lead to the capture of Guzman, a billionaire who escaped from a Mexican prison in a laundry truck in 2001.

Main man: Vicente's father Ismael Zambada, godfather of the Sinaloa cartel, pictured at a party in 1993

'It comes down to whether he would be willing to give up his dad or Guzman,' said David Shirk, who heads the Trans-Border Institute at the University of San Diego.

'Would he be willing to give up his own dad? It seems unlikely.'

Zambada, 35, has rarely been seen since his 2009 arrest in Mexico City, after which Mexican authorities paraded him before TV cameras in a stylish black blazer and dark blue jeans.

His suave image was a sharp contrast to a photo of him with moustache and cowboy hat released by the U.S. Treasury Department in 2007.

He may have upgraded his look after he assumed control over cartel logistics in 2008 and, federal officials say, received authority to order assassinations. 

Mexico's most wanted man: Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman, who escaped from prison in a laundry truck

He was arrested and extradited to Chicago a year later to face trafficking conspiracy charges punishable by up to life in prison.

The Sinaloa cartel is one of Mexico's most powerful.

Named after the Pacific coast state of the same name, it controls trafficking on the border with California and is battling rival cartels in an effort to expand east along the 2,000-mile-long U.S.-Mexico border.

Accustomed to luxury in Mexico, Zambada has been held in a 10ft by 6ft cell in Chicago, is often served meals that have gone cold and hasn't been outside in 18 months, his attorneys say.

U.S. District Court Judge Ruben Castillo told the government on Thursday to file a response to those complaints.

'It comes down to whether he would be willing to give up his own dad. It seems unlikely'

Armed marshals led the shackled Zambada into Thursday's hearing.

He appeared at ease, even smiling and winking at a woman sitting on a spectators' bench.

Castillo will decide later whether Zambada's provocative immunity claim has any credibility, but many experts said they were skeptical.

'Personally, I think it is a bunch of malarkey,' said Scott Stewart, who analyzes Mexico's cartels for the Texas-based Stratfor global intelligence company.

'I mean, what the defence is saying is that a huge amount of cocaine was allowed to pass into the United States unimpeded.

'Why would you even have sought his extradition if there was this potential backlash?"

U.S. prosecutors briefly discounted Zambada's claim in one filing, but more details are expected in Friday's documents.

A spokesman for U.S. Atty. Patrick Fitzgerald would not comment on the allegation.

Neither would a Washington spokesman for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency, whose agents Zambada claims to have dealt with in Mexico.

However, clandestine intelligence deals are not uncommon, and conspiracy theories abound in Mexico about the government going easy on one cartel to keep the others under control.

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Feds charge Colombian drug lord called ‘Loco Barrera’ and two partners

 

One of Colombia’s most-wanted drug traffickers with alleged ties to a narco-terrorist organization has been charged in Miami along with two other “high-level” partners, U.S. authorities said Monday. Daniel Barrera-Barrera, indicted in Miami on cocaine-smuggling conspiracy charges, operates mainly in the eastern part of Colombia between Bogota and the Venezuelan border. There, he maintains a partnership with the U.S.-designated terrorist group known as the FARC, composed of leftist guerrillas who allegedly play a major part in Colombia’s drug trade. The Colombian government has offered a $2.7 million reward for information leading to the capture of the defendant, aka “Loco Barrera,” who remains at large. In March, the Treasury Department designated Barrera-Barrera, 42, as a “specially designated narcotics trafficker,” because of his significant role in the international drug trade. In Miami, Barrera-Barrerra was charged with two brothers, Javier Fernandez-Barrero, 43, and Orlando Fernandez-Barrero, 45, who are known as “Los Gorditos.” They are in custody awaiting extradition to Miami. FBI Special Agent in Charge John Gillies said their “criminal enterprise is responsible for distributing tons of cocaine into the U.S and other countries.” Over the past year, U.S. and Colombian governments have opened up a new front in the war on drugs, zeroing in on emerging groups such as Barrera-Barrera’s that have competed to replace the once-powerful drug cartels in Medellín, Cali and the North Valley of Colombia, which authorities say have been largely dismantled. A new team of prosecutors has joined the FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration and Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, in an alliance with Colombian investigators, to go after so-called bandas criminales, or criminal groups. So far, the U.S. has indicted more than 150 defendants in Miami as a result of that initiative, U.S. Attorney Wifredo Ferrer said. Earlier this month, Ferrer, his office’s chief of narcotics, George Karavetsos, and DEA Special Agent in Charge Mark Trouville flew to Colombia for an unprecedented meeting with that country’s president and attorney general to announce U.S. indictments filed against more than 50 leaders and associates of the bandas criminales.

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Assault weapon used in Palmetto nightclub shooting

 

Investigators are scouring arrest reports and other records regarding victims in a shooting spree this past weekend at a Palmetto nightclub to determine any possible suspects and motives in the unsolved case. Facts AK-47 BASICS Palmetto police say an AK-47 assault rifle was used in the mass shooting that killed two and injured 22 others at a nightclub early Saturday. Here is a primer on the weapon and why it is so infamous: • When fully automatic, it can fire 600 rounds per minute. Semi-automatic models can fire 45 to 60 rounds per minute. • Accuracy is low, but firepower is strong; bullets tend to flip in flight, increasing damage to human tissue and organs. • Possession is legal in Florida and in many states, though state laws can vary widely. • The name AK-47 is from a combination of the name of designer Mikhail Kalashnikov, a Soviet tank crew member. It went into production in 1947. • It is among the earliest designs of assault rifles, and one of the most widely used in the world. • More AK-type rifles have been produced than any other assault rifle. SOURCES: answers.com, thefirearmsforum.com, webanswers.com “We're looking through everything we have,” Manatee County Sheriff's Office spokesman Dave Bristow said this morning. “Palmetto Police are looking back at everything they have.” Witnesses believe gunmen may have targeted Trayon Goff, 25, who was outside Club Elite, 704 10th St. W., when the shooting began at about 12:30 a.m. Saturday. Two were killed and 22 injured in the shooting. Investigators are unsure whether Goff's criminal past factors into the case. The felony cases filed against Trayon Goff occurred in 2005 and 2006. Undercover sheriff's detectives claimed that Goff repeatedly sold them rock cocaine outside the R&R Market at 7205 Bayshore Road in Rubonia. The transactions were reportedly recorded on video. One detective reported that Goff sold him cocaine there on Sept. 6, 2005, and again on Sept. 13, 2005. For his conviction on those two counts, Goff served two months in the county jail. Goff was later identified as participating in a previous rock cocaine transaction at the store on Aug. 25, 2005. In that case, he served 60 days in the county jail. He was accused of selling rock cocaine to a different undercover detective outside the same store on May 23, 2006. In that case, he was sentenced to a year in the county jail. No further felony arrests for Goff have been recorded in Manatee County since, though there is an ongoing domestic relations case in which the records are confidential and a recent case of driving with a suspended license in which Goff was fined.

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Christy Kinahan offered €60,000 to have him whacked

 

GANGLAND hardman Martin Foley has taken to his bike in a bid to dodge another assassination attempt. ''The Viper' is paranoid about car bombs and hitmen outside his Dublin home after 'Dapper Don' Christy Kinahan offered €60,000 to have him whacked. Each morning Foley, who has survived four murder bids already, checks for hidden devices under his car and is now cycling instead of driving himself. And the Viper is not the only gangland tough guy under siege this weekend. Violent mob boss 'Fat' Freddie Thompson is holed up at his mother's house after it was firebombed by rivals who want him dead. Thompson has even gone to the gardai looking for protection as the feud threatens to explode. Viper's Vicious Cycle MARTIN 'The Viper' Foley has been warned that his life is in serious danger after 'The Dapper Don' Christy Kinahan put a €60,000 bounty on his head.

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more people were killed in Chicago gang-related violence than U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan

 

In 2009, more people were killed in Chicago gang-related violence than U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. This statistic could be applied to other big cities, for it's as big an epidemic as anything else in America. Powerful and heart-wrenching, "The Interrupters" captures how neighborhoods have turned into war zones and spotlights an organized effort to stop the killings. It just might be the most important film released this year. Revered documentarian Steve James ("Hoop Dreams") spent a year on the mean streets of his hometown. He and his courageous crew had remarkable access to gang turfs and put themselves in harm's way on more than one occasion. They followed three members of CeaseFire, activists committed to changing the vicious circle of violence leading to retribution leading to more violence. These ex-cons were once gang members, and spent time in prison for their actions. Today, they are "the interrupters," monitoring gang activity, mediating conflicts, and trying to anticipate violent acts before they happen. They're trusted and negotiate with rival factors to prevent more deaths. Ameena Matthews, whose father was a major gang leader, is a compelling dynamo. She knows how to talk to kids, who crave someone to listen to them. She's candid about her early days of drugs, parties, and crime. The others -- Tio Hardiman, Cobe Williams, and Eddie Bocanegra -- have been down those same paths, and eventually turned their lives around. They want to prevent urban youths winding up six feet under, and their attempts to make a difference are stirring. The riveting images and poignant words of this documentary will sear into your brain -- the innocent victims, the mourning families, the tough-talking gangbangers. Gary Slutkin, a University of Chicago professor, founded CeaseFire in 1995. He relates that crime is an epidemic that should be treated like tuberculosis. This film was screened at the Sundance Film Festival at a nearly 3-hour length, but James has edited it down to about 2 hours for wider release. Based on a 2008 New York Times Magazine article by Alex Kotlowitz, who serves as the film's producer, the effect is undeniable. James, a graduate of Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, dares to tell what's really going on, and in the process, leaves us with hope. For these persuasive messengers of change can be effective, and that's a start.

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Police fear turf wars as motorcycle gangs expand operations

 

Motorcycle gangs, who are considered by Finnish police to constitute organised crime groups, have significantly expanded their operations in the past decade.       The gangs have spread so extensively throughout Finland that police fear that violent conflict might break out among them.       Motorcycle gangs have set up clubhouses especially in the Helsinki region and in the south of Finland, but activities have branched out to other parts of the country as well.       “Organised crime groups use the same methods as players in normal business. If there is a market somewhere, a section is set up there to secure their operations”, says Jussi Oksanen of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI).       Police say that the three most infamous organisations, the Hell’s Angels, the Bandidos, and Cannonball have more than 40 subsections around Finland.       Police calculate that there are a total of 80 organised crime groups in Finland, including the subsections.       However, most of the groups using different names are not motorcycle gangs. There are nearly 1,200 members in the various groups. The newest, called the United Brotherhood, was formed out of three others, and has more than 50 members.       In recent years the gangs have avoided clashes, lest their main criminal activities suffer. Most recently Finland experienced a bloody gang war in the 1990s.       “There have been various clashes suggesting a resurgence of tension. In Germany and Denmark, the Hell’s Angels and the Bandidos have been on war footing. These are international criminal organisations, so the trend in other countries is reflected here as well.”       Leaders of the Finnish section of the Hell’s Angels are currently under suspicion in an extensive drug smuggling and dealing case.       This does not come as a surprise to Jussi Oksanen, who says that police have been collecting surveillance material on the organisation’s activities for a long time.       “The Helsinki drug police, along with the West Uusimaa Police can now demonstrate that the members themselves are involved in criminal activities”, Oksanen says.       According to Oksanen, actual members of the motorcycle gangs have previously been careful not to get their hands dirty.       “They have let the others do the jobs where there is a risk of getting caught.”       Police say that surveillance activities have revealed that the Hell’s Angels have used smaller gangs as partners. Traditionally the gang has been very careful of its image, and has avoided committing crimes that could bring bad publicity.       Police say that the Hell’s Angels differ from the Bandidos, and the purely Finnish Cannonball in that it has not set up many new subsections, nor has it taken actual supporter gangs into its organisations.       For instance, Bandidos has several subsections on various levels, which are seen as stepping stones by members who want to advance within the organisation.       The Hell’s Angels have had about a third of the number of members as the Bandidos, which has undergone considerable expansion recently.       “However, now for the first time a new group, the 1% Bad Machine 81 Finland has entered the Hell’s Angels’ official organisation. Why the group made the move right now remains unclear”, Oksanen says.       He notes that one possibility is that the Hell’s Angels are flexing their muscles for possible clashes to come.

 

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Hell’s Angels leaders suspected in massive drug case

 

The drugs squad of the Helsinki Police and the West Uusimaa Police have uncovered an exceptionally large drug smuggling and growing operation, in which the main suspects are members of the Hell’s Angels motorcycle club.       Police managed to confiscate several kilos of amphetamine and cocaine as well as a number of unlicensed weapons and about EUR 200,000 in cash. Police also found the biggest cannabis growing operation ever discovered in Finland.       Detective inspector Jari Pynnönen describes the case as one of the biggest in Finnish history. What makes it exceptional is that the police were able to trace the drug trafficking organisation to the very highest levels.       “Six members of the Hell’s Angels organisation have been detained or arrested during the investigation. Included are people from the top leadership of the organisation all the way to the presidential level”, Pynnönen says.       A total of 10 people have been held in connection with the case. The investigation began already in the late summer of 2009.       Pynnönen says that the smuggling, transport, and growing of illegal drugs has continued for years. Millions of euros are believed to have been involved in the business. The street value of the drugs that were confiscated was estimated at EUR 800,000.       The drugs have been smuggled from Central Europe in hiding places built in various vehicles. Smuggling has been done largely by couriers hired abroad, who have not had significant criminal records, or any direct connection with the Hell’s Angels.       The drugs were brought to Helsinki, from where they were distributed throughout the greater Helsinki region, and possibly to other parts of Southern Finland. Pynnönen says that helping in the distribution have been a supporter club with close ties to the Hell’s Angels, as well as so-called “hangaround members”.       Pyynönen sees the bust as a major blow to the illegal drug business in Finland for a while, but he also expects the gap to be filled up as new players enter the field.       “In this respect it is important that plenty of cash and many illegal weapons were confiscated. This always slows the reorganisation of the activities.”

 

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GANGWAR in central Dublin exploded into violence as two separate gang feuds ignited

 

streets of north inner city Dublin are among the most heavily policed areas of the country because of the bitter feud that has claimed five lives. But the gang war -- sparked when paedophile gangster Christy Griffin was charged with raping his girlfriend's daughter -- is not the only feud which has blighted the area. Another north inner city war has been raging since 2006, resulting in two murders. Like the Christy Griffin feud, the separate Summerhill feud is deeply entrenched, motivated by astonishing levels of hatred and revenge. The last murder linked to either feud was in June, when Michael Taylor (53) was shot six times in the head and chest with a handgun as he stood outside a caravan in a park in scenic Donabate, north Co Dublin. Taylor was not known to gardai for involvement in organised crime but was involved in feud-related incidents over five years. The first murder linked to the Summerhill feud happened in 2007, but full details of it can't be disclosed here for legal reasons. Taylor was closely associated with a man who was questioned about that murder on the northside. The feud began when two criminals in their 20s from the north inner city were involved in a bitter row over a woman in late 2006. Family members on both sides then got involved. Cars and motorbikes belonging to one side were damaged in a vandalism incident which directly led to an associate of Michael Taylor being stabbed three times while he walked in the north inner city with a small child. He received only minor injuries -- but less than a week later the suspected knifeman was shot dead in revenge. A month later a hand grenade was thrown at the home of a family associated with Michael Taylor in Summerhill. Miraculously, none of the 10 occupants was injured in the attack, which came a night after the two rival groups clashed in the Mater Hospital as one family visited a relative. In that incident, a woman was stabbed in the hand while a man suffered head wounds. Abused In another, one of the main protagonists was found with a knuckle-duster in his back pocket after being searched by gardai. He claimed he had the weapon for his own protection. Then, in December 2007, a female associate of the first murder victim was caught with a loaded pistol as she drove through the north inner city. The woman, in her 30s, was given a three-year suspended sentence after Dublin Circuit Criminal Court heard she got the gun after her associate was shot dead and there were serious threats against her life. There can be no doubt about the vicious nature of the 'Summerhill feud'. But it is the gang war that started after mob boss Christy Griffin was arrested and charged with raping a young girl that has made most of the headlines. Griffin was convicted and sentenced to life in prison in April 2007. At that stage, once-loyal comrades had turned on each other. Two tense trials followed during which gardai were forced to set up an armed checkpoint outside the victim's family home. This brave woman, who gave crucial evidence, had been regularly sexually abused by Griffin from the age of eight to 16. While this reign of sexual terror was going on, Griffin became one of Ireland's most prolific armed robbers, a senior member of a gang of over 30 men and women who made a fortune robbing from cargo containers in Dublin's docklands and from drug dealing. Everything changed when Griffin (42) was charged with the sex offences in 2004. In a further blow for the gangster, his brother 'Collie' was shot dead in a botched post office robbery in Lusk, Co Dublin. When the jury failed to reach a verdict at his first trial at the Central Criminal Court, in May 2006, there were violent scenes outside the Four Courts when associates of Griffin clashed with family friends of the rape victim in front of frightened onlookers. Throughout that summer, tensions mounted in the north city, and it wouldn't be long before the dispute erupted into all-out war. Gerard 'Batt' Byrne (26), a key ally of the rape victim's family, became the first fatality when he was gunned down in Dublin's IFSC on December 13, 2006. A fortnight later, small-time crook Stephen Ledden (28) was coldly executed in a revenge attack as he slept on a couch. By this time, Griffin had moved from his north inner city base to Swords, where he survived separate grenade and gun attacks. These were followed by revenge attacks on the rival faction. Handing him a life sentence,for his litany of crimes, Judge Paul Carney, who was placed under armed garda protection for the trial, delivered a scathing judgment, describing Griffin's previous record as "horrendous". But the life sentence did not end the feuding. With both sides having links to other crime gangs across the country, including all of Dublin's crime syndicates and Limerick's deadly McCarthy/Dundon crew, the factions had the firepower and muscle to continue the violence. Paranoid The Griffin-backed mobsters were determined to avenge the death of Stephen Ledden, killed in a case of mistaken identity. They got their chance in July 2010, when Ledden's killer, Stephen 'Madser' Byrne (32) was gunned down in broad daylight at the junction of Sheriff Street and St Laurence's Place East. Byrne, from Mariner's Port, Sheriff Street, knew his life was in grave danger after he'd shot Ledden dead, instead of targeting another man. After his murder, Madser's dad Noel explained the paranoid life his son had been leading. "He couldn't go outside the door. Anytime he wanted to go out he asked me to go with him. He phoned me on the night be died and I said no. I said I wasn't able to go out because I was not well and that we would go out some other night. So he went out on his own and this is what happened. He was a prisoner in his own home," he recalled. "I knew he was going to get one man, or one man was going to get him. I knew it was going to happen. The police had told him there was a contract on his head and he knew who was going to do it." By the time of his murder, 'Madser' had built up 30 criminal convictions, including a 12-year sentence for a string of armed robberies. Byrne was one of three first cousins murdered in the bloody feud. 'Batt' Byrne was shot dead in 2006 and Aiden Byrne (32) was shot dead in February 2010. Separately, Madser's brother, David (26), died in July 2009, after being hit over the head with a sock filled with batteries in Mountjoy prison. His body was then desecrated by criminals who broke into an inner city funeral home and wrote 'Rats' across his forehead. The murder of Stephen 'Madser' Byrne was the last killing linked to the Christy Griffin feud. Sources believe that a reason for this is massive garda raids in November 2010 that targeted members of the faction opposed to the rapist Griffin's mob. Only a month before the raids, Gary O'Reilly (34), a nephew of Griffin, was lucky to escape with his life when he was shot in the arm and leg in an attack at his home in Swords.Within an hour of the O'Reilly attack, a man from the opposing faction was given a severe hiding by a gang of men in the north inner city after dropping his children at school. Weeks later, in an unprecedented show of force, on the morning of November 8 last, over 300 gardai met at Garda Headquarters, Phoenix Park and in Wexford and Cork stations from 4am before raiding over 30 locations in a co-ordinated pre-dawn operation. They searched 33 addresses in Dublin, Cavan, Wexford, Cork and Kildare. Some 13 people, including all of the key targets, were arrested -- nine of them in Dublin, and two in both Cork and Wexford. Detectives seized a small quantity of cocaine and confiscated mobile phones, computers and bulletproof vests. Records linked to property investments were also taken from the offices of solicitors and accountants by members of the Criminal Assets Bureau. The last major shooting incident linked to the feud happened on January 25 when shots were fired at the home of slain hitman Stephen 'Madser' Byrne. The garda response to this incident was prompt and less than 24 hours later. "Gardai have well and truly got to the grips with the situation," said a source.

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alleged member of the Notorious outlaw motorcycle gang is due in court tomorrow on charges related to firearms

 

alleged member of the Notorious outlaw motorcycle gang is due in court tomorrow on charges related to firearms found at a Castle Hill storage unit earlier this year. Gangs Squad detectives who arrested and charged the 24-year-old man allege he is a high-ranking member of the organised criminal group. He is facing several firearm and possession charges as well as drug charges. The charges relate to a search warrant conducted by police at a storage facility in Castle Hill on March 28. Police allegedly found three firearms, loaded magazines, two silencers and a quantity of ammunition. He is due before Penrith Local Court tomorrow. Strike Force Ventilate comprises detectives from the State Crime Command’s Gangs Squad and was established to investigate a number of alleged violent incidents involving Comanchero Outlaw Motorcycle Gang and Notorious organised criminal group members and associates.

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Bikie arrested on firearms charge

Crime Gangs Task Force members yesterday afternoon arrested a 30-year-old member of the South Australian Chapter of the Finks Motorcycle Gang at his home address at Paralowie.

Police say it is alleged that Crime Gangs Task Force members conducted a search of the man's home where they located a .357 revolver buried in his rear yard.

'During the search police also located a quantity of .357 ammunition buried in another location within the rear yard,' police said.

'The man was charged with firearms offences including possession of a prescribed firearm and possession of insecure ammunition.

'He was bailed to appear in the Elizabeth Magistrates Court on 12 October 2011.

'A 27-year-old woman of the same address was also reported for firearms offences including possession of a prescribed firearm and possession of insecure ammunition and will appear in the Elizabeth Magistrates Court at a later date.'

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Seventh man charged over alleged attempted extortion - SCC Gangs Squad

 

Gangs Squad detectives have charged a seventh man following investigations into an alleged attempted extortion. About 10am today (Thursday 8 September, 2011), a 37-year-old man was arrested by police. Police allege he is an associate of the Hells Angels Outlaw Motorcycle Gang. He was subsequently charged with demand money with menaces and participating in a criminal group. He was granted conditional bail to appear at Burwood Local Court on 28 September. The charges relate to an alleged attempted extortion on 8 July, 2011. Strike Force Embark was established to investigate the circumstances surrounding the alleged theft of vehicles from the Burwood car yard just before 3pm on Thursday 7 July 2011, as well as an attempted extortion on 8 July and an attempted extortion on Monday 11 July.

 

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£40m cocaine smuggling gang convicted

 

drugs gang responsible for smuggling cocaine with a street value of up to £40m into the UK has been convicted at the High Court in Glasgow. They were involved in importing the drugs from Spain between 2007 and 2009. The ringleaders were Keith Blenkinsop, of Annan, and Lindsay Harkins from Helensburgh. Three men who acted as mules - Andrew Burns, of Helensburgh; Robert Dalrymple, of Gretna; and James Elvin, from Clydebank - were also convicted. The cocaine was concealed inside suitcases and holdalls flown by couriers into Prestwick, Glasgow and Newcastle airports. The court heard how the drugs were concealed beneath a false bottom sewn into suitcases The court heard how the operation came to an end when one of the gang's couriers, David Harbinson, 41, of Annan, was caught with some counterfeit £20 notes and blurted out details of the drugs scheme to police. A teller at a Marks and Spencer bureau de change in Carlisle noticed the currency among a bundle of sterling he wanted to convert to euros. Mr Harbinson subsequently gave evidence against his former associates and has now been placed on a witness protection programme. He told advocate depute Iain McSporran, prosecuting, that the gang had a direct connection to Colombian drug barons. He said Blenkinsop and Harkins were the brains behind the operation while the other accused were couriers paid to take euros to Spain and bring back drugs. In fact, the gang exchanged so much sterling into euros that Blenkinsop's local post office won an award for the amount of euros it sold. The jury was told they sourced their cocaine from Colombians based in Barcelona and transferred it to Harkins' house in the Spanish city. Harkins, a former upholsterer, would then put the drugs inside a suitcase and sew in a false bottom. The cocaine brought in by the gang was mostly destined for the Glasgow area, although some of it was also sold in Dumfries. Refuted claims Mr Harbinson also gave the court a detailed breakdown of how he was approached to become a courier and the payments made to transport the drugs. All of the accused claimed that he was a liar and a self-confessed cocaine addict and said that nobody would have used him as a drugs courier. After a five-week trial Blenkinsop, 43, of Winterhope Road, Annan; Harkins, 44, of West Princes Street, Helensburgh; Burns, 56, of Old Luss Road, Helensburgh; Dalrymple, 43, of Loanwath Road, Gretna; and Elvin, 35, of Garscadden View, Clydebank, were all convicted of being concerned in the supply of cocaine in Scotland, England and Spain. Blenkinsop was also convicted of being involved in the supply of cannabis and amphetamines while Harkins was found guilty of supplying amphetamines. Dalrymple and Elvin were only convicted of being involved in the drugs operation as couriers in 2009.

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Mexico Arrests US Man Suspected of Smuggling Grenades to Drug Gang

 

Mexico's attorney general says police have arrested a U.S. man for allegedly smuggling grenade parts to a powerful and dangerous drug gang. Authorities identify the suspect as Jean Baptiste Kingery. Police arrested him last week. Kingery is suspected of smuggling grenade parts across the U.S.-Mexican border to the Sinaloa drug gang. He allegedly bought the weapons over the internet and in stores. Mexican drug gangs frequently use hand grenades in their battle with police and soldiers, who are struggling to destroy the drug trade. Turf wars between drug gangs and their fights with police have made northern Mexico an extremely dangerous place to live or visit.

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Gardai search for links in Traveller murders

 

Gardai are trying to establish if there is a link between the murder of a man at a halting site in Dublin at the weekend and the shooting of another Traveller in the area last July. Detectives are trying to find a motive for the killing of Tom McDonagh (49), who was shot repeatedly at his home at St Margaret's site in Ballymun on the northside of the city. They suspect that a Finglas-based gang is responsible for the murder. Last night, officers were examining possible links between the incident on Saturday night and an ambush at the River Road in Finglas on July 15 last year when Anthony "Mole" McDonagh narrowly escaped death after he stopped his white Ford van at what he thought were county council roadworks. He was hit in the chest, stomach and side but survived the attack. The latest victim was alone when two men burst into his home and fired a barrage of shots from an automatic pistol. Mr McDonagh was dead on admission to hospital. Gardai are now following a number of lines of inquiry as they examine CCTV footage and trawl through statements from other residents of the halting site. The dead man was not a big criminal player. However, detectives are trying to establish whether his death was a result of his links to a group involved in feuding 

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Russian Crime Gang Leader Gets Life In Jail

 

A court in Moscow has sentenced the leader of a notorious Russian organized crime gang to life in prison for involvement in at least 20 killings. The Moscow City Court judge said Tuesday that Sergei Butorin posed a grave danger to society and should be incarcerated for the rest of his life. ITAR-Tass news agency quoted the judge as ruling Butorin had been behind 20 murders and nine attempted killings. Butorin headed the Orekhovskaya gang, an organized criminal group that reached the height of its powers in Moscow in the 1990s. He was arrested by Spanish authorities in 2001 on charges of trading in illegal weapons and extradited to Russia last year. Russian criminal groups flourished in the chaotic years that followed the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991.

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Gang violence A rivalry between two gangs — Fresh Off the Boat (FOB) and the FOB Killers (FK)

 

Two suspected gang members went on trial Tuesday accused of shooting three people to death, including an innocent bystander, on New Year's Day in 2009. Three masked gunmen entered the Bolsa Vietnamese Restaurant in a southeast Calgary strip mall and opened fire, killing Sanjeev Mann, 22, described by police as a known gang member, and Aaron Bendle, 21, who also had gang ties. The third victim, construction worker Keni Su'a, 43, was eating in the restaurant and tried to escape, but was gunned down in the parking lot. Nathan Zuccherato, 24, Michael Roberto, 27, and Real Honorio, 27, are each charged with three counts of first-degree murder. Honorio's trial did not begin on Tuesday because his lawyer was unavailable. A publication ban was put in effect for the pre-trial arguments, which are expected to last two weeks. Gang violence A rivalry between two gangs — Fresh Off the Boat (FOB) and the FOB Killers (FK) — is believed to be connected to more than 20 homicides in Calgary dating back to 2002. In the days following the 2009 murders, police vowed to step up their work against gangs in Calgary. Officials have since credited that renewed focus with reducing the murder rate by almost 50 per cent the following year. The trial in Court of Queen’s Bench is scheduled to last for more than a month.

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The Westies and psychopathic criminal PJ Judge, the neighbouring suburbs of Finglas/ Blanchardstown and Ballymun have had to deal with more than their fair share of gangland violence

 Eamon Dunne was murdered in a northside pub in April of 2010, the fear was that his cold-blooded execution would create a deadly power vacuum, one which would lead to bloody gang warfare on the streets.

After all, The Don's gang were responsible for 15 murders since he took over the Finglas gang that had been led by crimelord Martin 'Marlo' Hyland .

Marlo himself was murdered in December 2006.

Ever since the days of The Westies and psychopathic criminal PJ Judge, the neighbouring suburbs of Finglas/ Blanchardstown and Ballymun have had to deal with more than their fair share of gangland violence.

But the reign of terror imposed by crazed Eamon Dunne was unprecedented in the capital's gang scene.

Softly spoken and relatively well educated, Dunne was a massive hit with the ladies and sources say that his almost crazed sex drive was driven by the use of Viagra.

Until the gun murder of Traveller Tom McDonagh in Ballymun last weekend, the area had seen a dramatic decline in gang related violence since Dunne's murder.

It is understood that McDonagh was murdered over a drugs debt to Finglas gang.

"The lull in murders and complete drop in shooting incidents in the past 16 months has to be linked to the fact that Eamon Dunne is no longer with us," explained a senior source.

The situation had been so bad previously that a small area in Finglas west was dubbed the 'murder mile' or 'murder triangle' after up to 20 people were murdered in the space of a decade.

Most of these killings are unsolved gangland shootings in a small area which encompasses Cappagh Cross, Ratoath Road and Cardiffsbridge.

With the murders of Eamon Dunne and other gang bosses who came before him, the situation has eased in Finglas, Blanchardstown and Ballymun over the past year.

But the sprawling estates of north Dublin are still home to some of the most dangerous gangs in the country.

The Don's gang are still active and dealing in millions of euro worth of drugs.

But gardai have had some major successes against them.

Many of the core members of Dunne's crew cannot be named here because they are before the courts on charges including armed robbery, murder and dug dealing.

One of The Don's former associates who we can name is feared hardman Brian O'Reilly -- a Ballymun native who now lives in Co Meath.

"O'Reilly is a big tough man but he is very paranoid. He deeply dislikes the media and the gardai who he accuses of colluding against him.

"He is a man of few words but when he talks everyone listens. He has great respect," a source explained.

O'Reilly, who remains a major target for specialised garda units, was lucky to escape with his life when targeted by a gunman in a pub in Bettystown, Co Meath.

He was shot in the chin and back as he drank in his local pub in August, 2010.

But he survived the murder bid organised by the Real IRA.

A month later O'Reilly's close pal Eamon Kelly (62) cheated death when the Real IRA tried to murder him at his home in Killester.

A source said of Kelly: "On the outside, he seems like the quintessential retired Dubliner -- he enjoys his pints and going to the bookies but in reality he is a criminal campaigner with links to most of the crime gangs in the State."

This year has seen the strength of the gang who murdered Dunne grow considerably and sources say that they operate drugs rackets in the Finglas/Cabra area.

Dunne's murder in the Fassaugh House pub was "sanctioned" by some of his own gang members and the gang's drug supplier, international crimelord Christy Kinahan.

The Herald has previously revealed that the chief suspect for the murder is a young man in his early 20s from the Cabra area who was very close to slain crime boss Hyland.

A former detective described Marlo's way of doing business as "unprecedented".

"He formed alliances with everyone he could -- he knew that murder was bad for business so he tried to keep away from it.

 

fearsome

"But in the last few months of his life the paranoia got to him. He couldn't eat or sleep properly -- he knew his days were numbered."

The young thug is considered "the leader" of a dangerous crew of young criminals from the Finglas, Cabra and north inner city areas who have built up a fearsome reputation for gangland violence since they were aged in their mid teens.

Gardai have placed the dangerous gangster "on top of the list" for pumping eight bullets into 'The Don' -- one of the most notorious criminals in the history of Irish gangs.

He was also involved in the murder of innocent Latvian woman Baiba Saulite in November 2006.

While these young thugs increase their powerbase, the area's veteran criminals continue to operate.

Some of these older criminals had strong links to Paul 'Farmer' Martin -- the Finglas crimelord who was murdered in August 2008.

Others are connected to a 44-year-old local man -- who was a childhood friend of Marlo Hyland.

As Marlo rose to become one of Ireland's biggest drug dealers, this man was constantly at his side.

The 44-year-old -- who now lives in the Finglas area -- was arrested in April by the Garda National Drugs Unit.

Undercover detectives seized more than €400,000 worth of cannabis resin.

Before the massive drugs seizure, detectives watched the gang transfer 70 kilos of the drug near the border before making arrests. However, the Finglas resident was later released without charge.

The Real IRA also have an active presence in this area.

In late March, mobsters from the Continuity IRA claimed responsibility for shooting three men in broad daylight in Corduff Park, Blanchardstown.

The victims were targeted because the dissidents claimed they were guilty of anti-social behaviour.

David Morgan (20) and cousins Gary (25) and Christopher Gleeson (26) all survived the shooting.

The duplicity of the CIRA is breathtaking.

Led by the former head of the Real IRA in Dublin -- now on remand in prison on other charges -- the Continuity mob were responsible for a pipe bomb attack in May at the home of an innocent family in Whitestown.

Also this year, armed gardai swooped on three Blanchardstown men who formerly had links with the infamous Westies gang, whose leaders Shane Coates and Stephen Sugg were murdered in Spain in 2004.

The gangsters were believed to be on their way to carry out a Tiger kidnapping when arrested by armed detectives.

Sources said that the three men had all been key members of the infamous Westies organisation which caused so much trouble a decade ago.

It was also this summer that the Herald profiled a gang from this area who were involved in a new criminal craze called 'fishing'.

A gang of thugs from Finglas and Blanchardstown used fishing rods and magnets to steal more than 100 high powered cars.

Gardai branded the new criminal craze 'fishing' because it involves the gang attaching a magnet to the end of a fishing rod or long wooden pole, pushing it through letterboxes and using it to remove car keys left behind locked doors.

The gang have been selling the high-quality cars for just €1,200 to UK criminals.

The gang has close links to Finglas criminal David Fahy (29) from Cappagh Avenue who was recently released from jail after serving two years for possession of a sawn-off shotgun and cocaine.

However, sources say that Fahy -- who has 152 previous convictions -- is not involved in the scam himself.

The mob also has links to a Traveller gang who operate in the Dunsink area of Finglas.

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UVF supergrass trial

 

Fourteen alleged members of the UVF, including one of its former leaders Mark Haddock, are due to appear at Belfast Crown Court on Tuesday for the start of the first so-called "supergrass" trial to be held in Northern Ireland for 26 years. The charges include the murder of leading UDA member Tommy English during a loyalist feud. Critics say the process being used is unsafe and unjust, while the police and prosecutors insist it is legally sound. Our Home Affairs Correspondent Vincent Kearney looks at the background to the case. The police bristle at the very mention of the word "supergrass" because of its association with a series of high profile trials in the 1980s. Hundreds of republicans and loyalists were convicted on the word of informers and suspects who agreed to give evidence against them in return for reduced sentences and new identities and lives outside Northern Ireland. There were claims that many also received financial rewards. The deals were arranged at a political level, approved by the Secretary of State, and the details were secret. No-one, not the defence teams, the relatives of victims, nor the accused, knew anything, and in many cases there were question marks over whether convicted informers actually served any time in prison at all. Credibility The trials were the largest in British criminal history. In one in 1983, 22 IRA members were given jail terms totalling more than 4,000 years. But 18 of them had their convictions quashed three years later, and the vast majority of the others convicted in a series of similar trials were also released on appeal. The system collapsed in 1985 because of concerns about the credibility of the evidence provided by the so-called supergrasses, with members of the judiciary complaining that they were being used as political tools to implement government security policy. The police and prosecutors say the trial starting today is based on an entirely different legal foundation. The investigation has centred around the activities of the UVF in the Mount Vernon estate in north Belfast New legislation introduced in 2005, the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act, enables an accused to enter into a written agreement indicating that they will help the prosecution by giving evidence against other criminals. Where this happens, the court may take this into account when passing sentence. The journey that led to the trial beginning today began with an investigation by the former Police Ombudsman Nuala O'Loan into the activities of the UVF in Mount Vernon in north Belfast. In January 2007, she published the results of Operation Ballast. 'Impunity' It was a highly critical report which said members of RUC Special Branch had allowed UVF informers to act with impunity, and that the gang may have been involved in up to 15 murders. Mark Haddock wasn't named in the report, but was referred to as Informant 1. Alarmed by the findings, the then Chief Constable, Sir Hugh Orde, asked the Historical Enquiries Team (HET) to take over Operation Ballast. Then, in 2008, two brothers, Robert and David Stewart walked into Antrim police station, admitting that they were members of the UVF, and their role in more than 70 offences. They offered to give evidence against a number of alleged former comrades under the teams of the 2005 legislation. The HET then spent more than a year debriefing them, and arresting suspects as they went along. But, despite being given additional funding, the investigation became too big for the team to handle. In December 2009, the case was given over to the PSNI. The investigation is now led by Crime Operations Department headed by Assistant Chief Constable Drew Harris, and is now called Operation Stafford. As a result, just over four and a half years after Nuala O'Loan published her report, Mark Haddock and 13 others will appear in court on Tuesday. They will appear before a judge sitting without a jury because of fears of intimidation. Haddock and eight others are charged with the murder of Tommy English and a range of other offences. The remaining five face a range of charges, possession of firearms, kidnap and assault. The latest investigation into the Mount Vernon UVF began following a report by the former Police Ombudsman, Nuala O'Loan Sealed containers The two chief prosecution witnesses, the Stewart brothers, have been held in isolation at Maghaberry prison, protected by a team of highly trained guards. Their food is brought into the prison in sealed containers to ensure they are not poisoned. They have admitted a total of 74 offences, but were sentenced to just three years each because the judge took into account their offer to testify. Their sentence was determined in open court, not secretly by the Secretary of State. The 2005 legislation contains penalties. If it emerges that the assisting offender is guilty of serious crimes they may not have admitted to, they are in breach of the agreement. If this is discovered after the trial, they can be re-arrested and charged with the additional offences. If they tell the truth but re-offend at a later stage, they can be re-arrested and charged. Supporters say this system is much more open and transparent than the discredited system used in the 1980s. Those on trial, and their families and supporters, insist that only the name has changed.

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former MP Margaret Moran, who is to face 21 charges in relation to claims she made for parliamentary expenses.

File photo of former MP Margaret Moran, who is to face 21 charges in relation to claims she made for parliamentary expenses. Photograph: Michael Stephens/PA

The former Labour MP who claimed for dry rot treatment on a home more than 100 miles from her constituency will be charged with fiddling her expenses by more than £60,000, prosecutors said today.

Margaret Moran, one of the last politicians investigated over the scandal, will appear before magistrates facing 21 charges relating to her parliamentary claims.

Moran, former MP for Luton South, will appear before City of Westminster magistrates' court on 19 September, the Crown Prosecution Service said.

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police have released images of 28 suspects they want to question about serious street disorder that “wreaked havoc” across Northern Ireland

The police have released images of 28 suspects they want to question about serious street disorder that “wreaked havoc” across Northern Ireland.

Detectives from a specialist public order inquiry team are hoping the public will help them identify the men in these images as part of their investigations into rioting in east Belfast and Ballyclare during June and July.

Three people were shot during three nights of sustained sectarian violence at an interface on the Lower Newtownards Road in Belfast in June.

In Ballyclare six officers sustained whiplash when a hijacked bus rammed a police vehicle during riots that erupted after Union and paramilitary flags were removed from lampposts in July.

Assistant Chief Constable Alistair Finlay said the response from the public appeals to date had been “positive”.

A second tranche of photographs will be released on Thursday showing suspects police want to speak to in connection with rioting in north and west Belfast during July.

Last month all of Northern Ireland’s main news organisations wrote to the PSNI Chief Constable to protest at having to hand over riot footage of trouble in east Belfast.

The letter highlighted to Matt Baggott the “genuine fear that terrorists and rioters will target the media whom they perceive to be evidence gatherers for the State” if the PSNI continues to demand the disclosure of material gathered for news purposes.

The PSNI has declined to comment on the source of these latest images.

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Teenager remanded over Malaysian student riot mugging

 

17-year-old has appeared in court charged with breaking the jaw of a Malaysian student and robbing him of his bicycle during the London riots. The teenager appeared at Thames Magistrates Court accused of causing grievous bodily harm of Ashraf Rossli in Barking, east London on 8 August. He was also accused of robbing the 20-year-old of a white bicycle. No plea was entered for the charges but Hannah Stephenson, defending, said he denied all the alleged offences. The teenager was also charged with violent disorder at a Tesco store in Barking and theft from the store on the same day. The 17-year-old appeared alongside his 15-year-old brother at a hearing. The brothers denied charges of violent disorder in Ilford and theft from a jewellers shop in Ilford, east London, on 8 August. The older brother was remanded in custody, with the younger brother given conditional bail. The conditions include observing a curfew with a tag. The brothers are due to reappear at Thames Magistrates Court on 12 September. They cannot be named for legal reasons.

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Gangs Squad investigates shootings

 

Gang-squad detectives are investigating the drive-by shooting of a family home in Blacktown four weeks ago. Investigators refused to comment on the case but have said all lines of inquiry are open. That includes whether the drive-by shooting was related to other shootings at homes linked to gang-members around western Sydney in the past few weeks. Police believe the shooting at Indigo Way at Blacktown on the night of August 9 was a case of mistaken identity. The Department of Housing property was formerly occupied by a family linked to the gang Notorious but had a family of six Afghan refugees living in it at the time of the shooting. No one was harmed despite three bullets penetrating the interior walls of house.

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Teenager who lured girls into house to be gang-raped by Asian gang is jailed for seven years

 

teenage girl who lured two young white girls on a night out to be raped by three Asian men was jailed for seven years yesterday. Stephanie Knight, then 17, told the 16-year-olds they were going for an 'exciting night' clubbing but instead plied them with vodka and drugs before forcing them to have sex with 'her boys'. The girls had been taken in a large 4x4 vehicle to a derelict house where they were subjected to a sickening sex attack by the three men, one of whom was on licence after being let out early from an eight-year prison sentence for robbery. Yesterday as the three attackers, Amjad Hussain, 34, Shahid Hussain, 37, and Tanveer Butt, 39, were jailed indefinitely at Preston Crown Court and ordered to serve at least seven-and-a-half years, a judge also sentenced Knight to seven years in a young offenders institute, saying she played a vital role. Judge Beverley Lunt said the teenager, who had been in care most of her life, had distorted views on morality and knew exactly what she was doing when she led them into the trap. She told Knight: 'You knew what has likely to happen when instructed by Amjad Hussain. 'You lured these two 16-year-girls from the safety of their homes and lured them into the clutches. 'You lied to them you said you were going on an exciting night out when there was no such intention.' She added: 'It is clear you have had a difficult life so there is no doubt you have distorted views on morality and appropriate behaviour. 'There is no question that you were badly used by these men. 'But this means that you knew what they were like and what their interests were yet your lured the girls into their clutches. 'But for you neither girl would have been exposed to the danger of that night and subjected to humiliating rapes. 'You played a vital part in this conspiracy and knew what you were doing.' Yesterday Knight, now 19, fought back tears as she stood in the dock alongside brothers Amjad and Shahid Hussain, and their cousin, father-of-four Butt. Addressing all four defendants Judge Lunt continued: 'It is a total lack of humanity shown by any of you as this girl was repeatedly raped which disturbing and horrifying in this case.' The case is the latest featuring Asian sex attackers preying on vulnerable young girls which has prompted former Home Secretary Jack Straw to warn that some Pakistani men in Britain see white teenagers as 'easy meat' for sexual abuse. Knight met the three attackers after one pulled up in the street beside her six months earlier in his car and asked for her number.

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Fugitive brothers collared in B.C.

 

It didn’t end as dramatically as Bonnie and Clyde, but alleged bank robbing brothers and their lovers, who are also sisters, were brought down by the law this weekend. Albertans Ian Michael Butz, 28, and Jason Avery Butz, 26, were being hunted in the Creston B.C. area, about 500 km southwest of Calgary, since Friday, wanted in connection to a pair of armed robberies at gas stations in the Peace River area, around 780 km north of Calgary. A shotgun and camouflage clothing were used in the robberies — in the small northern Alberta villages of Nampa and Donnelly, Aug. 31 — and an ATV was used as the getaway vehicle. Cops believe the Butz brothers’ girlfriends, 26- and 22-year-old sisters from Lethbridge, were involved in the robberies. The women were picked up at the Porthills/Rykert border crossing between B.C. and Idaho Friday evening around 8 p.m., riding the ATV., leading the RCMP in nearby Creston to believe their still fugitive boyfriends were in the area and might try to cross next. Active searching by cops and Canada Border Services Agency turned up nothing, until an off-duty Canadian Broder Services Agency officer happened across the brothers wandering on foot around 9 a.m. Sunday. “He spots them walking along Hwy. 21 at Erickson Rd., essentially in Creston. They’re still dressed in the camouflage,” said Cpl. Dan Moskaluk of the B.C. RCMP. “Both were arrested without incident, (but) we did not recover the firearm.” The Butz Brothers are charged with two counts of armed robbery each, and while investigation into the women’s involvement continues, Moskaluk said charges will be sought against them as well. He noted Creston is only 20 km from the same Canada-U.S. border crossing their girlfriends tried to get through. “We’re all relieved that they’re off the streets,” said Moskaluk, noting a high likelihood they would have offended again, given the nature of the accusations against them. The border service officers participating in this search are proud of the role they played, said CBSA spokeswoman Faith St. John. “Intercepting criminals is one of the ways that they support CBSA’s national security mandate,” she said. Moskaluk figures these fugitives’ time on the lam would have ended in Creston regardless of cops’ good fortune Sunday. “It’s a fairly small community, (and) their ears will certainly perk up when they hear there are people at large and armed,” said Moskaluk.

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Weapon found in gang member's cell,Riani, is a member of Chicago-based street gang Gangster Disciples, according to the sheriff's office.

James Riani wasn't just blamed for punching another inmate last week.

The detective who investigates crimes in the jail issued an arrest affidavit Tuesday stating Riani was caught with a 3-inch piece of metal in his cell.

Hernando County Sheriff's Detective Anthony Scarpati said the metal object – which had a string tied to the end of it and was hidden inside an air-condition exhaust vent – could have been used as an escape tool.

Either that or he could have used it as a weapon, Scarpati wrote.

The latest arrest comes days after he was charged with battery of a fellow inmate. Riani was accused of taking off his shirt, barging into another man's cell and accusing him of stealing from him.

He followed that by punching the man twice in the face, which caused the victim to lose consciousness, deputies said.

Assistant State Attorney Jason Smith, who is prosecuting Riani, said he considers him a dangerous criminal.

"Based on his history, I think that's reasonable to assume," Smith said.

Riani, a known gang member who goes by the nickname Wicked, was arrested in September 2010 on a litany of felony charges.

Deputies said Riani, 31, was seen riding a stolen motorcycle near his house the night he was arrested.

He tried to elude deputies, but fell off the bike, according to the sheriff's office.

After he was captured during a foot pursuit, he pulled out a 9mm handgun from his waistband, but it fell to the ground, deputies said.

He was searched and a loaded 9mm magazine was found tucked under his waistband, according to arrest records.

Deputies said they searched his backpack and found more weapons – including a loaded .40-caliber handgun and a 12-gauge shotgun with a filed-off serial number.

Aside from his weapons and drug counts, Riani also was charged with possession of a concealed handcuff key.

His trial is scheduled for Aug. 8, but most of his original charges have been dropped.

Smith said the U.S. District Attorney's Office might be pursuing the drug trafficking and weapons case against Riani.

However, Smith is still prosecuting the defendant for three felony charges related to his September 2010 arrest. Those charges are possession of a handcuff key, grand theft and habitual driving with a suspended or revoked license.

 

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Aryan Brotherhood of Texas leader who wanted the man "in intensive care or dead by midnight

Fraught with a wild temper unleashed by a wicked methamphetamine addiction, April Flanagan was sent to prison just months ago for conspiring to help blow the heads off a disgraced Aryan gang member and his girlfriend in East Texas.
The order came from an Aryan Brotherhood of Texas leader who wanted the man "in intensive care or dead by midnight."
Across the state in Lubbock, Chasity Clark is accused of helping her husband, a general in an arm of the same gang, run an organized criminal enterprise and ditching gang computer files before police could confiscate them.
But neither can compare to Tanya Smith, whose Bonnie-and-Clyde-like run with her man began in Houston and ended with two police detectives killed, the boyfriend shot dead, and Smith serving life in prison.
Prosecutors contend the three women are part of the little-known world of "featherwoods," a nickname often worn with audacious pride as they live and die in the trenches of "white-boy gangs."
The Aryan Brotherhood of Texas and the Aryan Circle were born in Texas prisons a generation ago to defend white inmates. They have since expanded to include a variety of criminal enterprises with influence in Houston, as well as across the state.
And the collective stories of the women said to be featherwoods, according to court records, offer yet another gritty tapestry of lawlessness, bad deeds and dead ends.
"They have grown up in the lifestyle," said Brandon Bess, a Texas Department of Public Safety agent specializing in gangs. "I would say they were destined for it."
Their crimes and times get little publicity, although court cases reveal they stand alongside their men through murders, robberies and drug trafficking — or even when they are passed around like property among gang members, beaten, abused and sometimes killed.
One such gruesome demise came to Tonia Porras when she was 29. Her head was wrapped in duct tape and her body methodically stabbed 26 times, tortured to death by an ex-boyfriend just out of the Harris County Jail.
Lured police to deaths
Few featherwoods have shown such a flair for flagrant criminal conduct as Smith, 27, now in prison for life.
Smith, who lived in La Porte, was inked with rage, from the large red swastika in the center of her back to the black one atop her left foot. She is serving two life sentences for the murders of two Bastrop, La., police officers killed at a motel in 2007 after a run from the law.
Smith lured them into Room 111, where her armed Aryan Circle boyfriend, Dennis Clem, was hiding in the bathroom. The renegade couple had already driven at least 800 miles on a zigzag journey from Houston, where Clem used a semi-automatic rifle to kill two black teens, one 15 and the other 19, during a confrontation.
Among the supplies in the gray Chrysler sedan they used to flee Houston was a sawed-off shotgun and other guns, wrapped in a red blanket and stashed on the rear floorboard. A police radio scanner helped them evade authorities near San Antonio, when they bolted back east toward Louisiana.
"It was real Bonnie-and-Clyde stuff," recalled Geary Aycock, a Louisiana prosecutor. "They hit the ground running and did not mind doing whatever they had to do to protect each other."
The pair met in the Rio Grande Valley, where Smith grew up, and were busted together in 2005 trying to sneak through a Border Patrol highway checkpoint with a gun and marijuana hidden on a commercial bus. After brief prison stints, they were together again, breaking the law, on the run.
Video from the motel's surveillance camera captured images of the detectives driving up to the couple's room across the street from the police department. The police were not even looking for Clem and Smith, but rather an unrelated burglary suspect.
Smith let them in. Seconds later, they came running out; Clem gunned them down on the sidewalk before either could draw a gun.
Dressed in white and wearing sunglasses, Smith slipped away.
She was arrested two days later, hiding in a Houston mobile home park considered a haven for Aryan gangsters.
Shirtless and with a pistol in each hand, Clem charged outside and was cut down by police gunfire.
"Many people talk of going out in a blaze of glory, but not many truly do it," said a woman who is a part of an Aryan gang and asked that her name not be printed. "I just wish we had him with us and all those lives hadn't been lost."
Paths of desperation
Smith declined a request for an interview, relaying a message through a friend that she did not want to relive dark chapters in her life and is pursuing a theology degree.
Like many men associated with the gangs, the women's lives often follow predictable paths of desperation.
They weave and punch their way through broken homes, drug addiction, low-wage jobs and bouts with the law that see them - as well as those around them - in and out of incarceration.
"As far as the women are concerned … you wonder what is in it for them," said John Bales, the top federal prosecutor for the Eastern District of Texas, where a dozen Aryan Brotherhood of Texas members and featherwoods have recently been convicted of federal crimes.
"They are fascinated by the culture, usually have drug issues themselves, and there is a strange hold over the women that the guys have," Bales continued. "There is usually no good end to it."
As for April Flanagan, 31, who supplied the shotgun used in the planned double homicide, she is adamant that she does not share racist views and insisted that she got involved with Aryan Brotherhood members only to buy drugs.
She grew up with curfews and rules, said her mother, who noted that Flanagan was a phlebotomist and tried to take care of elderly relatives, as well as continue with school, when she began using methamphetamine.
"At that point in her life, she was so deep in the drug world that she was lost," said her mother, Dana Griggs.
She said her daughter pleaded guilty rather than stand trial and face a lengthier prison sentence.
Flanagan wore an orange jail jumpsuit and shackles during a Beaumont hearing in which she was sentenced to 15 years in prison; a half-dozen family members looked on while sitting side by side.
"She was basically backed into a corner, not given a chance to make facts known … ," said Griggs, who also denied Flanagan is a racist.
Dangerous ideology
Dena Marks, associate director for the Anti-Defamation League's southwest region, which includes Houston, said it is not just the gangs' crimes that are dangerous, but their ideology.
"It is important for people to understand that some of these acts are motivated by white supremacy," Marks said, noting that the ADL monitors both the Aryan Brotherhood of Texas and the Aryan Circle.
In another recent instance of women involved in Aryan Brotherhood brutality, Rachel Tutt in May was sentenced to 10 years in prison for her part in the 2009 kidnapping and beating of a Lufkin woman.
The victim's gang member boyfriend, Stephen "Cave Man" Wallace, thought she was trying to dump him.
Tutt, who was having an affair with Wallace, drove the car while he beat the kidnapped woman. They drove to a cemetery, where the beating continued.
She lived to testify; her attackers went to prison.
Tonia Porras, born in the Texas coastal town of Port Arthur, nearly escaped the featherwood life in 2005. Instead, the past caught her in a grisly way.
She had broken up with her Aryan Brotherhood boyfriend, Corey Schuff.
Fueled by jealousy and perhaps a rumor that Porras was talking to police, Schuff and another gang member attacked her.
Schuff stabbed her repeatedly, leaving wounds a medical examiner said were consistent with torturing someone to make them talk.
Porras' petite body was found lying beside the stuffed animals belonging to her child, who was not home, Jefferson County prosecutor Ramon Rodriguez Jr. said.
"If there were merciful forces at work, bludgeoning to the head knocked her out," he said. "Otherwise she suffered … what could be described as torture wounds."
During Schuff's trial, a dispatcher testified that Porras had made a panicked call asking for increased sheriff's patrols near her home after her ex-boyfriend was released from jail.
"She told me she definitely believed he was going to kill her," the dispatcher testified. "I believe he promised her he would do it."

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Mexican cartels are very, very powerful, and in a place like Miami that is heavily Hispanic, they've been able to blend right in.

Peacocks lounging in mango trees and coconut groves swaying with the ocean winds are part of the landscape in South Florida -- one of the world's favorite tourist destinations.
When the sun sets, the party scenes come alive at nightclubs and beaches where all kinds of drugs flow like the sea waves that ebb in and out of the coastline.
It seems that the golden days of Florida's cocaine trade hardly ended when law enforcement rounded up the state's legendary kingpins of the late 1970s and early 1980s.
One of the events from then that's etched in Miami's memory was the 1979 shooting spree reminiscent of Mexico's drug violence today.
Two men jumped out of an armored truck at the Dadeland Mall and shot two men inside a liquor store. Police identified the victims as a drug dealer from Colombia and his bodyguard.
"I was there when the mall shooting occurred," said George McNenny, a former U.S. Customs Service agent who retired in El Paso. "It was during the 'cocaine cowboy' days."
McNenny, a native of Havana, Cuba, also served in the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives as a special agent with assignments in various cities that included Miami.
Miami's "cocaine cowboys" era was marked by legends like Carlos Lehder and Max Mermelstein, both major drug barons, and Griselda Blanco, a Colombian woman whose Miami organization was suspected in at least 200 homicides. Drug violence was so rampant that Miami by then had the highest homicide rate in the United States.
Sandy Gonzalez, a former DEA official in El Paso and a native of Cuba, also served in the Miami area.
"After the 'cocaine cowboys,' the Colombians were the big guys, the cocaine source and suppliers, who dominated the drug trade in Florida," Gonzalez said. "The Cuban gangs were the distributors. After that, the focus changed to the Mexican cartels.
DEA busy
"The DEA's biggest division at the time was based in Miami, and we had a lot of agents working in Florida."
McNenny said "the Mexican cartels are very, very powerful, and in a place like Miami that is heavily Hispanic, they've been able to blend right in."
About a million Latinos of Cuban descent live in Miami. Other Latinos come from Puerto Rican, South American, Central American or Mexican backgrounds.
Gonzalez and other anti-drug investigators worked hard to disrupt the cocaine trafficking routes between Colombia, the Caribbean islands and Florida. He was part of "Operation BAT" that broke up the pipeline that the cocaine dealers had established through the Bahamas.
Fernando Vasquez, a retired Cuban businessman in Miami, said not much has changed since he arrived in Florida about 30 years ago.
Easy to get drugs
"It's very easy for people to get drugs in the Miami area," Vasquez said. "My work focused mainly on the tourist industry, and it was hard not to notice the drug scene. I remember the big deal they made when the police arrested the so-called 'cocaine cowboys,' but nothing's really changed."
Drug investigators said Mexican drug cartels, particularly the Sinaloa cartel run by Joaquin "Chapo" Guzman, have filled the void left by the earlier cocaine kings and queens.
Guzman's cartel is the same one that's waging a bloody battle at the border for control of the Juárez-El Paso smuggling corridor.
Florida has two designated High-Intensity Drug-Trafficking Areas (HIDTA's) that keep track of drug-trafficking in the north and south parts of the state.
"Colombian and Mexican (drug trafficking organizations) supply most of the available illicit drugs in the South Florida HIDTA region to African American, Caucasian, Cuban, Dominican, Haitian, Hispanic, Jamaican and Puerto Rican distributors, and to street gang members," according to the HIDTA's 2010 Market Analysis.
"Midlevel and retail-level drug distribution typically occurs at open-air drug markets, in clubs, apartment buildings, motels, and vehicles, (and) on beaches and at prearranged meeting sites such as parking lots," the report also said.
In other words, drugs are everywhere.
Sinaloa cartel
The Sinaloa cartel appears to have increasingly strong ties to Florida. Four years ago, a Gulfstream II jet crashed in Mexico's state of Yucatan stuffed with several tons of cocaine.
The cocaine and plane, which had first flown out of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., picked up drugs in Colombia and crashed in Mexico, belonged to Guzman. Guzman had bought 50 similar planes, Mexican authorities said.
Once the drugs arrive in South Florida, an estimated 370 street gangs work to distribute and sell them throughout the region, federal officials said.
Vasquez said, "The airport is one of the busiest in the world. An airplane departs or arrives at the Miami International Airport every 52 seconds."
That kind of air traffic is too tempting for drug dealers to resist. Last year, the DEA arrested 27 people at the Miami International Airport on suspicion of drug-trafficking.
The Miami Police Department tries to keep on top of drug law violators with a drug surveillance unit that supports the DEA and FBI, which have broader jurisdiction to handle international investigations. Miami Police Officer Jeffrey Giordano reported that one of the unit's recent cases netted six arrests in the 3000 block of Northwest 11th Place, along with the seizure of an AK-47 and ammunition.
"The charges ranged from possession of marijuana to possession of a firearm and ammunition by a convicted felon," Giordano said.
The levels of drug violence in Miami are not what they were in the 1980s, and they are far from the astounding numbers reported in Juárez, but the weapons and methods are the same.
Police said the latest trend they are battling in the Miami area is the proliferation of a clandestine pain-pill industry. Some of these drugs are made in labs in other U.S. states and brought into Florida to be dispensed by some of the pain-management clinics that popped up in recent years.
Lots of money
"There's a lot of money in Miami," said McNenny, who will appear in a History Channel special on the drug trade later this year. "And this also means there's going to be money-laundering."
This is evident from the new high-rises in beach communities where popular singer Gloria Estefan and her composer-husband Emilio Estefan have opened a couple of hotels and restaurants.
Marc Anthony and Jennifer Lopez, who recently split up, bought a $9 million penthouse in one of the new high-rises in a neighborhood filled with an endless list of other rich and famous people.
Another group emerging from South Florida's drug trade are Venezuelans. Authorities have traced some of the state's drug-trafficking to Venezuela sources.
Many affluent Venezuelan business owners moved to Doral, a young incorporated city in the Miami area, after disagreeing with the policies of controversial Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez. They have set up their stores and services in Doral. And some are suspected of running money-laundering ventures.

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