Assaulted and bashed by men who are believed to be members of the so-called Gang of 49.
Adelaide police say five men were involved in nine violent attacks over two hours late last night.
A 19-year-old woman who does not want to be identified says she was walking home with her mother after using an autoteller machine on Prospect Road when they were approached by two men demanding money.
The pair refused to hand over a handbag.
"They threw my mum to the ground and they were just hitting her in front of me and I couldn't stop them," the teenager said.
"They were just hitting her and hitting her and I didn't know what to do.
"They were dragging her along the ground and I tried to fight them off but I couldn't."
Police say five offenders assaulted a woman outside the Entertainment Centre at Hindmarsh.
The men also tried to steal a car from a woman at the corner of Sturt and Marion Roads.
Another target was a taxi driver at Noarlunga Hospital who was forced from his car and bashed.
His taxi was stolen but then returned.
Other assaults and robberies were at Christies Beach, Brighton, Somerton Park and Kurralta Park.
Police were also called to Croydon where a man was bashed and his car stolen. It was found hours later.
A Magna used by the offenders was found dumped at Wingfield.

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gang of young men from affluent Durban families trashed an upmarket pub, leaving two people seriously injured and causing damage estimated at thousands of rands.
The bloody brawl, captured by closed-circuit camera, lasted more than two hours at the Hillcrest franchise of the trendy Franki Bananaz pub in the early hours of Thursday.
The pub's management said police failed to respond to their calls despite the station being only about 200m away.
In CCTV footage, traumatised patrons watch from inside as the group of 10 to 12 men, mostly in their 20s and carrying baseball bats and golf clubs, throw chairs at the pub's windows.
A male patron, as well as one of the pub's managers, who have both asked not to be named for fear of reprisals, underwent surgery after sustaining cuts to their heads.
The cause of the attack is still a matter of conjecture.
While some Hillcrest locals reported that the fight may have been ignited by the turning away of an Indian man from the venue on New Year's Day, leading him to return with friends to avenge the rejection, others said it was in retaliation for bouncers roughing up the patrons.

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18-person crime ring that may be responsible for the theft of up to $100 million worth of medicine and health and beauty goods from convenience and grocery stores statewide, Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said Thursday.The investigation started with two shoplifters at a Publix supermarket on Shepherd Road in Lakeland on June 26, Judd said at a news conference in Lakeland on Thursday afternoon.Rita Maddox and Elisha Cordle of Dover stole nearly $4,500 worth of Oil of Olay products that day, placing them into special bags designed to conceal stolen goods, Judd said.To law enforcement, it seemed like a regular shoplifting incident and the two were charged with grand theft. But after speaking with confidential sources, Judd said, a sheriff’s detective uncovered something more: the single largest organized crime ring of its kind in Polk County Sheriff’s Office history.On Thursday, after executing five search warrants, 14 people were arrested and charged with racketeering and conspiracy to commit racketeering. Five of those people are already serving jail or prison time, Judd said. Four more people are still wanted on the same charges.Judd said many more may be involved.”I highly suspect that this is just a tentacle of a larger operation,” he said. “This is truly more of the beginning of the investigation than its end.”Maddox and Cordle were just two of at least 13 stealthy shoplifters who stole between $60 million and $100 million worth of over-the-counter medicines and beauty and health products from hundreds of convenience and grocery stores in at least 11 counties, Judd said.They reported to two middlemen and two ringleaders, who in turn sold the products out of two warehouses, three flea markets, including one in Auburndale, and two Web sites, including a long-standing eBay.com account.The crime ring has been operating for at least five years, Judd said.The investigation began after Maddox and Cordle, who have a child together, were arrested in June.It spanned seven months and included the sheriff’s offices of Polk and Hillsborough counties, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and Attorney General Bill McCollum’s office.The retail theft operation was well-concealed. The 13 known shoplifters are all related in some way to each other and most had prior arrests and convictions for shoplifting, Judd said.They used bags designed to conceal the stolen items to shoplift from the stores, which they revisited numerous times. On one day, Judd said, investigators watched thefts occur in eight different stores. On another occasion, three people shoplifted from a Publix store while a manager did inventory in the same aisle. They were good at what they did, Judd said.The four who led the ring do not have criminal records, he said.Ringleaders Steven and Kerry Coburn are married and own four homes throughout Seminole County, authorities say. They sold the stolen items on their Web site SaleAwaySavings.com, Judd said, and even offered free shipping to customers in the U.S.One item, a soap and cologne gift set for men, was recently being sold on the site for $48.95. A 110-pack of Nicorette orange-flavored gum was on clearance sale for $159.99.The goods were delivered to the Coburns in cardboard Chiquita and Dole banana boxes. Steven Coburn inspected each box to make sure the items were in top condition. Popular items included Gillette razors and razor blades, Oil of Olay moisturizers and other health-related products, from Tylenol and Excedrin to pregnancy tests and diabetic test strips.”He wanted to make sure they were brand names and not generic,” said sheriff’s Maj. Joe Halman.Coburn even required forms to be signed that stated none of the products were stolen, Judd said.Theresa and Ronald Parrish were the middlemen, police said. They dealt with the shoplifters and paid them as much as $3,000 in cash for each delivery. Theresa Parrish, an eBay member since March 2002, sold some of the items out of her eBay store, Lola’s Discount Health and Beauty, officers said.More than 10,000 positive feedback points were left for Parrish from happy eBay members who purchased items such as razor blades, moisturizer and even bras. Buyers left praise for the quality of the products and speed of delivery.Judd said that once they were arrested, the Parrishes quickly confessed.”This investigation is just beginning. We know there are others involved,” he said.It is not known exactly how much of a profit the operation generated. Although the shoplifters were arrested from time to time, their offenses were thought to be singular events. Until the law enforcement agencies developed the investigation, they did not realize how many people were involved, Judd said.

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In London alone 27 teenagers were stabbed to death last year. There have been at least four deaths this year already. Two weeks ago, in a London suburb, a schoolgirl was beaten, gang-raped and then had caustic soda poured over her to eliminate traces of her attackers’ DNA. She is in a burns unit and fighting for her life.
Three youths are awaiting sentencing for kicking to death a harmless disabled man in Sunderland. In Warrington a father of three was beaten to death for protesting at youths who were vandalising cars. A few miles away a woman of 60 had to be put on life support after a thug fractured her face for refusing him a cigarette. She will be permanently blind in one eye.

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Three young men were being treated at local hospitals after a Monday afternoon brawl fought with knives, according to San Jose police.
The injuries were not life-threatening, police said. And police said the fight occurred over an argument. It was possibly gang-related.
The fight began about 3:30 p.m at Winter Park Drive and Cunningham Avenue.
It left three juveniles injured, one seriously. The victims are 15, 16 and 17 years old. Police were looking for four suspects, but there was no descriptions available as of Friday evening.

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A confidential operation was conducted against the Ergenekon organization, which has been monitored for 2.5 months. Thirty-three people were taken into custody in an operation which hit 43 different locations. Those arrested for founding a terrorist organization include the Kuvayı Milliye Association chairman, Fikri Karadağ, and retired general Veli Küçük.
Charges brought against the deep-state linked Ergenekon organization by a Turkish court have shown that the gang was after a military takeover in Turkey while records of phone conversations of its members in the hands of German police show that they were also involved in the drug trade.
The Ergenekon organization -- 14 of whose members were arrested Saturday in one of the biggest operations ever against deep-state-linked groups in Turkey -- was working to create a chaotic atmosphere so that its counterparts in the military could overthrow the government, charges brought against the group by a law court in İstanbul has confirmed. All in all, 28 members of Ergenekon are currently under arrest. They were also involved in the drug trade, documents from the German police confirmed. Germany's Niedersachsen State's anti-drug department, Landeskrimi-nalamtes (LKA), which tapped the phones of some of the Ergenekon members as part of a narcotics investigation, proved that Ergenekon members were indeed in the drug business as well.

The court accuses the members of the Ergenekon gang, a xenophobic and ultranationalist organization suspected of a number of political murders including that of Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink, of committing bombings and attacks in the past two years, of inciting people to revolt, establishing a terrorist organization, of leading that terrorist organization and of membership in the terrorist organization.

Some of the gang members against whom charges have been brought are Veli Küçük, a retired general who is also the alleged founder of a clandestine and unofficial intelligence unit in the gendarmerie, the existence of which is denied by officials; controversial ultranationalist lawyer Kemal Kerinçsiz, who filed countless suits against Turkish writers and intellectuals who were at odds with Turkey’s official policies; Fikret Karadağ, a retired army colonel; and Sevgi Erenerol, the press spokesperson for a group called the Turkish Orthodox Patriarchate.

Documents seized during the investigation into the gang, whose members include former military officers, some of them high-ranking, revealed that they were planning to create complete chaos in the country to prepare fertile ground for a military coup d’état in 2009.

An inspection of Küçük’s personal organizer showed that Ergenekon had planned six steps to stage an eventual coup. Leaders of the Ergenekon gang had jointly decided to “OK” Dink’s murder in January of last year, the murders of three Christians in Malatya last April, an attack on the Council of State that left a senior judge dead and bombings at the secularist daily Cumhuriyet, claimed some Turkish newspapers on Monday.

Daily Sabah also alleged that the murder of academic Necip Hablemitoğlu was ordered by the German secret service. Hablemtioğlu’s research suggested that individuals opposing gold prospecting disguised their acts as environmentalism but were really serving the interests of powerful gold exporters in Europe. Several newspapers wrote that the group had links to German intelligence.

The gang’s plans to create chaos and confusion included giving rise to armed conflict between Kurdish and Turkish citizens.

Newspapers wrote on Monday that the first stage of the group’s plan was to establish civil society organizations such as the Association for the Union of Patriotic Forces (VKGB), the National Forces Association and the Bureau of the Protection of Rights, all ultranationalist organizations. The second stage was to find support in the military among younger officers and higher-ranking soldiers unhappy about the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party). The third stage involved a strange company known as the Special Bureau, an intelligence agency for the group set up by a former intelligence officer. The Special Bureau would protect the group’s plans from falling into the hands of the Nationalist Intelligence Organization (MİT) or a shady intelligence unit in the gendarmerie whose existence is officially denied. The fourth stage included adding into this scene bogus terrorist organizations that would foment conflict between the country’s Kurdish and Turkish populations. The unemployed, nationalist and uneducated Turkish youth, most of whom spend their time in the ultranationalist Idealist Clubs, would be used in various acts. The sixth stage includes recent political murders the group has been suspected of, including Dink’s, the killing of an Italian priest in 2006 and an armed raid on the Council of State -- as well as plans that have not yet been realized, including the assassination of Turkey’s Nobel Prize-winning author Orhan Pamuk.

Ergenekon involvement in drug trafficking

Meanwhile, the deep-state-linked Ergenekon organization has been actively involved in drug trafficking to finance its activities, documents from the German police confirmed.

Germany’s Niedersachsen State’s anti-drug department, the LKA, which tapped the phones of some of the Ergenekon members as part of a narcotics investigation, proved that Ergenekon members were indeed in the drug business as well. The records of a Nov. 20, 2003 phone conversation between retired Capt. Muzaffer Tekin, arrested in June of last year as the owner of the munitions depot found in anİstanbul shantytown that started the Ergenekon operation, and Yılmaz Tavukçuoğlu, an alleged drug trafficker, shows that Ergenekon used drug money to fund its activities. The two men in these conversations talk about the sale of a plot of land in Ümraniye. According to the LKA’s Willi Neumann, the co-owners of the land were Tekin and Ertuğrul Yılmaz, the former owner of Doğuş Factoring, who was murdered in eastern Germany two years ago. Neumann’s report asserts that this piece of land might have been used to launder money from drug trading with Tavukçuoğlu. According to a book by Doğan Karlıbel titled “Turkey Operations of German Secret Services,” the piece of land was sold for $2.5 million. The money was shared between Tekin, Tavukçuoğlu and Ayhan Parlak, who was arrested in the 2006 attack against the Council of State, the same book claims.
Latest in the investigation
Meanwhile, the public prosecutor in the case objected to the release of nine individuals taken into custody earlier on in the Ergenekon investigation but later freed by the court. Late in the evening on Monday, the prosecution appealed the release of lawyer Fuat Turgut, who is currently the legal counsel of a suspect in the Dink murder, daily Akşam columnist Güler Kömürcü, Asım Demir, Raif Görüm, Emir Caner Yiğit, Tanju Okan, Yaşar Aslanköylü, Anatoli Medjan and Atilla Aksu. Representatives of Kerinçsiz also appealed his arrest. The İstanbul 13th Higher Criminal Court will review the appeals from both sides.

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Abkeen Cochran, who was gunned down on a Hempstead street last Thursday, stands in stark contrast to the fact that the rate of violent crime in Nassau County is low and dropping. Any gun violence is too much. So it's welcome news that officials are targeting gun crimes, one category of offenses that ticked up last year. The goal is sustained crime reduction, which is the right target.
The plan, announced last week by Nassau District Attorney Kathleen Rice and county Police Commissioner Lawrence Mulvey, includes undercover gun investigations, tougher prosecutions aimed at rooting out gun traffickers, an anonymous "Gunstoppers" tip line and help for paroled gun offenders to find alternatives to a life of crime.
Nassau isn't awash in gun violence. But there were 67 shootings with injuries last year, up from 54 in 2006. The rise is troubling, coming, as it does, when major crimes, including murder, rape and robbery, are down 12.6 percent.
declines may be difficult to sustain in the face of rising gun violence. The establishment of a special enforcement unit focused on tracing illegal guns to their source and taking down traffickers should help. Firearms in Nassau invariably come from somewhere else, since no guns are manufactured on Long Island.
But tougher enforcement is the easy part. More important is enlisting the community in the effort. And more difficult is using the stick of parole and the carrots of job training, education and other social services to help gun offenders make lives within the law. That last is critical to sustaining any progress in curbing gun violence and crime. And reducing crime, rather than locking people up after the fact, is one way to make the quality of Long Island life even better.

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Jamaican national and gang member is back in his homeland
after being deported by U.S. Immigration and Customs
Enforcement officers.
USICE officers recently deported Raymond Jackson, a.k.a.
`Renard Harrison,` who is wanted by Jamaican authorities for
the murder of two police officers there.
Jackson had entered the United States on April 26, 2006 via
sea near Jupiter, Florida. He was ordered removed on May 4,
2006 and subsequently deported on May 22, 2006. Jackson then
illegally re-entered the United States but was later arrested
by the Lauderhill Police Department on Jan. 16, 2007 as a
suspect in a murder investigation. The charges were
subsequently dropped. But he was charged for re-entry after
deportation, on April 17, 2007, and sentenced to time served.
Jackson, who ICE officials say is a top lieutenant of the
Clansman gang, was recently deported again. He was transferred
into the custody of Jamaican authorities upon his arrival in
Jamaica.
`Criminals who think that they can use the United States as a
safe haven are sorely mistaken,` said Michael Rozos, ICE field
office director for detention and removal in Florida. `This
man will now have to account for his actions before the
Jamaican authorities.` -

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ICE takes custody of suspected Lynn gang members Some of the seven suspected MS-13 gang members arrested Saturday at the Strawberry Avenue Playground are currently in custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement for possible immigration violations, authorities said. At least two of the seven men arrested, Manuel Mendes, 23, of 58 Kirtland St., Lynn and Jose Recinos, 17, of 299 Lexington St. #2, East Boston are currently in ICE custody, according to court documents. A Lynn police spokesperson said others were likely detained by ICE but didn't have specific information about who else was being held. "Some of the individuals who were arrested had immigration issues," Lt. Dave Brown said.

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Execution-style murder of a man at a Gold Coast home today.
The child, aged about 2 1/2, was in the pool in the back yard of the house when the man was shot three times in the chest by another man who fled in a black BMW.
Police are now searching for the gunman, who is in his late 20s or early 30s.
Officers wearing bullet-proof vests rushed to the property in Cayuga Street, Nerang, after shots were heard.
It is understood they found a man at the house who had been shot three times in the chest.
Paramedics were unable to resuscitate him.
It is understood the victim and the gunman were known to police.
Police are searching for a man who was seen leaving the area in an older-style black BMW sedan. He is described as being in his early 30s, Caucasian, 178cm tall with shaved brown hair and a goatee.
Police believe that the man and victim may be known to each other, however investigations are continuing to establish their association.

A number of witnesses are assisting police and the scene is being examined.

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Mexican gangs in Los Angeles, like Florencia 13, are waging a bloody campaign to drive blacks from neighborhoods.Gangbanging is responsible for much of the carnage. Greater Los Angeles is now home to some 500 Mexican gangs—compared with some 200 black ones—and they’ve aggressively tried to push blacks out of mixed-race neighborhoods. More than just turf wars, the Latinos’ violence has included attacks against law-abiding African-Americans with no gang involvement; a horrifying example was the December 2006 murder of 14-year-old Cheryl Green by Mexican gang members in Harbor Gateway, a brutal crime designed to terrorize local blacks. Three years earlier, the same gang had killed a black man because he dared to patronize a local store that they considered “For Hispanics Only.” Meantime, federal authorities have indicted members of another Los Angeles–based Latino gang, Florencia 13, for random shootings of blacks in South L.A. The indictment chillingly accuses a gang leader of giving members instructions on how to find blacks to shoot


Though blacks have long worried that the country’s growing foreign-born population, especially its swelling rolls of illegal immigrants, harmed their economic prospects, they have also followed their political leadership in backing liberal immigration policies. Now, however, as new waves of immigration inundate historically African-American neighborhoods, black opinion is hardening against the influx. “We will not lay down and take this any longer,” says Anderson. If he’s right, it could upend the political calculus on immigration.
Black unease about immigration goes back a long way. In the 1870s, former slave Frederick Douglass warned that immigrants were displacing free blacks in the labor market. Twenty-five years later, Booker T. Washington exhorted America’s industrialists to “cast down your bucket” not among new immigrants but “among the eight million Negros . . . who have without strikes and labor wars tilled your fields, cleared your forests, builded your railroads and cities.” Blacks supported federal legislation in 1882 that restricted Chinese immigration to the United States. They favored the immigration reform acts of the 1920s, which limited European immigration, and also urged restrictions on Mexican workers: “If the million Mexicans who have entered the country have not displaced Negro workers, whom have they displaced?” asked black journalist George Schuyler in 1928.

Recent polling data reveal the shift. Though a 2006 Pew Center national survey showed some of the same ambivalence among blacks toward immigrants, it also found that in several urban areas where blacks and Latinos were living together, blacks were more likely to say that immigrants were taking jobs from Americans, and also more likely to favor cutting America’s current immigration levels.

What’s behind the anger, as the Pew data hint, is the rapid change that legal and illegal Hispanic immigration is bringing to longtime black locales. Places like South Los Angeles and Compton, California, have transformed, virtually overnight, into majority-Latino communities. Huge numbers of new immigrants have also surged beyond newcomer magnets California and New York to reach fast-growing southern states like North Carolina and Georgia, bringing change to communities where blacks had gained economic and political power after years of struggle against Jim Crow laws. Since 1990, North Carolina’s Hispanic population has exploded from 76,726 people to nearly 600,000, the majority of them ethnically Mexican. In Georgia, the Hispanic population grew nearly sevenfold, to almost 700,000, from 1990 to 2006.

This Latino “tsunami,” as Los Angeles–based Hispanic-American writer Nicolás Vaca calls it, has intensified the well-founded feeling among blacks that they’re losing economic ground to immigrants. True, early research, conducted in the wake of the big immigration reforms of the 1960s, suggested that the arrival of newcomers had little adverse impact on blacks—one study found that every 10 percent increase in immigration cut black wages by only 0.3 percent. But as the immigrant population has in some places grown six or seven times larger over the last four decades, the downward pull has become a vortex. A recent study by Harvard economist George Borjas and colleagues from the University of Chicago and the University of California estimates that immigration accounted for a 7.4 percentage-point decline in the employment rate of unskilled black males between 1980 and 2000. Even for black males with high school diplomas, immigration shrank employment by nearly 3 percentage points. While immigration hurts black and white low-wage workers, the authors note, the effect is three times as large on blacks because immigrants are more likely to compete directly with them for jobs.

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In a daring strike during the early Sunday morning hours, armed robbers raided the Boardwalk Casino in Port Elizabeth, South Africa. While the casino was passing through a relatively slow time of both the day and week, a large group of between ten to fourteen men carrying pistols and rifles entered through the casino's main entrance.
The Casino Gang then overpowered security guards on the premises and made their way to the cashier's cage, which they ransacked, stealing an undisclosed amount of cash.
The Boardwalk Robbery Plan was followed by casino employees during the episode. This meant remaining calm and cooperating with the gang so as to avoid harm to gamblers and staff, while an alarm that silently notified police and security forces was activated.
Police arrived as the armed gang were fleeing the casino. Gunshots were fired, although there are conflicting reports as to whether the shots were fired by police or robbers. No injuries were inflicted, and the thieves escaped in a waiting vehicle.
There has been a pattern of armed gangs attacking casinos in South Africa over the last few months, and the similarities are too strong to not believe the acts are being committed by the same organization. In August, six men armed with AK-47s robbed the Newcastle Casino in Johannesburg on a Sunday evening. In early October, the Carnival City Casino was taken down by fifteen armed men on Sunday just past midnight. In late October, an attempt to rob Montecasino, also in Johanesburg, by ten men was thwarted as five were captured and the rest escaped emptyhanded.
Although Mervyn Naidoo, general manager of the Boardwalk, asserted the amount of money stolen was "relatively small" and no players or employees were hurt, the ongoing cycle leaves one wondering if South Africa can maintain the safety of its casinos. For now, at least, perhaps Sunday is a good day to find other entertainment than casino action.

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Jamaica Police are reporting that a significant dent has been made in the number of drug mule gangs smuggling narcotics out of the country.
Statistics from the Narcotics Division show that the number of drug mules arrested last year fell by 19 per cent when compared with the figure for 2006.
"Throughout 2007 we arrested a total of 5,496 persons for drugs, a significant reduction from the 6,793 persons arrested in 2006," Acting Assistant Commissioner of Police, Carlton Wilson disclosed.
The Acting ACP, who heads the Narcotics Division, pointed out that of the persons arrested, 5,257 were Jamaicans, with 4,927 being males and 330 females. Foreign males and females accounted for 174 and 65 arrests, respectively. Britons accounted for 119, Americans 51 and Canadians 22.
According to Wilson, of the 6,793 drug mules arrested in 2006, 6,039 were Jamaican males and 403 were females. Foreign males accounted for 257 and females 94.
Meanwhile, he explained that 171 persons were arrested at the Norman Manley International Airport and 220 persons at the Donald Sangster International Airport in Montego Bay last year. Of those arrests, 121 persons were destined for the United Kingdom, 17 for Canada, 21 for the USA and 17 for Curacao.
"Drug users are all across the social spectrum of the country and they use all sorts of means to smuggle the drugs. These include body packing, swallowing, storing in commercial goods, appliances and wood carvings, and in one instance last year, jacuzzis," Wilson pointed out.
He further noted that the drug mules ranged between the very young and the very old people, who are trying to deceive through their age. "[You find] people who are in wheelchairs, people over 70 years old, people who are blind, you find them packed with drugs going out of the country from time to time," he said.

Wilson appealed to drug mules and other persons involved in the drug trade to desist. "It is very damaging to your body and you need to look around and see what it has done to your colleagues and other people. You can pay visits to the rehabilitation centres, speak to people who are actually involved to get the stories first hand," he said.

"It is totally destructive. If you want to continue a normal, good life, desist from doing drugs," he warned.

The Narcotics Division has a mandate to report on the eradication, interdiction and demand reduction of drugs throughout the country.

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"For too long the gangsters of the criminal underworld have been able to direct their evil enterprises and operate with apparent impunity, profiting on the backs of decent hard-working Scots and their families.
Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill is proposing new offences of directing or being involved in organised crime.
A consultation on the details of any new legislation is to seek the views of law enforcement organisations and other stakeholders involved in the fight against organised crime.
When introduced the legislation's main objective would be to make it easier to convict those organised criminals who direct criminal operations.
The proposals are expected to be endorsed today at the second meeting of the Serious Organised Crime Taskforce. The Scottish Government will then develop proposals to be introduced to the Parliament at the earliest opportunity.
Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill said:
"This Government has already made clear its determination to tackle serious organised crime in all its forms. That includes the criminal kingpins as well as their lieutenants and the foot soldiers who do their dirty work.
"Organised crime is a global issue and already Canada and Ireland are using the law to target the godfathers of serious organised crime. We want to learn from their experiences to help us tackle this menace to our society.
"These new offences will make it easier to convict the so called "untouchables". This Government wants to send a message to these gangsters in Scotland and further afield that there are no "untouchables" in our society.
"We will pursue these parasites with vigour and will be uncompromising in our pursuit of those who peddle drugs and indulge in other criminal activities. That is why we set up the Serious Organised Crime Taskforce which holds its second meeting today.
"We are working together with the police and other law enforcement agencies to put these criminal networks out of business."
The aim of the new offences would be to catch people either directing or being involved in organised crime and for the offence to be covered by the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002.
The Scottish Government will consider similar offences that are already in place in Canada and the Republic of Ireland when developing our proposals.
Canadian offence - For the purposes of the Canadian criminal code, a criminal organisation means a group, however organised that:
is composed of three or more persons in or outside Canada; and
has one of its main purposes or main activities the facilitation or commission of one or more serious offences that, if committed would likely result in the direct or indirect receipt of a material benefit, including a financial benefit, by the group or by any of the persons who constitute the group.
Irish offence - The Irish model is along similar lines and is contained in the Criminal Justice Act 2006. Organised crime is defined as an element of criminal activity that is carried out by criminal organisations which have as their main purpose the commission of one or more serious offences in order to obtain, directly or indirectly, a financial or other material benefit. The 2006 Act defines a 'criminal organisation' as a structured group composed of three or more persons acting in concert and one which is established over a period of time. A 'serious offence' means an offence for which a person may be punished by imprisonment for a term of four years or more.
Further work is required on the precise terms of the offence being proposed by the Justice Secretary and its penalties. For example, it could be framed as separate criminal offences or a statutory aggravation. It will be subject to a formal consultation process in the normal manner.
The Serious Organised Crime Taskforce was set up by the Cabinet Secretary for Justice and brings together key organisations involved in the fight against organised crime including the Crown Office, ACPOS, SCDEA, the Serious Organised Crime Agency, Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs and the Scottish Prison Service amongst others

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"Scissionisti" clan Rome flying squad, working alongside those of Naples, Caserta, Perugia and Macerata, with activities coordinated by the central anti-crime headquarters of state police and the central anti-drugs headquarters, is in the process of arresting a large number of members of a vast criminal organization, made up of Italian and Nigerian citizens involved in international drug trafficking. Two hundred and fifty state police are working in several Italia cities, backed by helicopters and dog units. The operation, name "Black Shoes", led by the Naples anti-mafia district headquarters, has reconstructed the route of drug trafficking from South America to Europe, with traffickers attentive to ever single detail of drug imports. Receivers for the drugs were organizations with links to the Camorra, who then distributed the "goods" across the Italian peninsula. From Suriname and Guyana cocaine and heroin were brought into Italy with Nigerian runners who hid the drugs in false soles of their shoes or swallowed capsules filled with it. The leaders of the organization whose purpose was that of international drug trafficking and which has been dismantled by the Rome flying squad acted in Campania. The 2-year operation, which was collaborated in by the police of the following countries, made it possible to identify the operative cells in Guyana, Suriname, Holland, Romania, India, Pakistan, Uganda, and Ivory Coast. The role played by women whose relatives are involved in the Camorra played an essential role, making it possible to maintain contact between the bosses in prison and their accomplices by way of "pizzini" (small slips of paper) hidden in the seam of clothing and coded with elementary codes to decipher. At the end of lengthy investigations, the Rome flying squad managed to identify the connections between Nigerian traffickers and those at the head of organized crime in the Campania region. Some members of the "Scissionisti" clan supplied themselves with the drugs to then distribute it over the Campania market. Among the crimes with which those arrested are being charged is that of mafia-related criminal association.

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British authorities have linked recent thefts of John Deere tractors in rural England to the criminal gang responsible for similar thefts across Europe over the past four years. The National Plant Equipment Register (TER) fears that this gang has set up a base in southwestern England and intends to target dealerships there. According to the TER, this gang changes the identities of the stolen tractors and then sells them as far afield as Australia.

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50 police commandos in Moscow captured Semyon Mogilevich, one of the world’s most feared mafia bosses accused of arms dealing, drug running, uranium trafficking and multiple murders. Authorities estimate his worth to be around $100 million. The FBI, Interpol and the UK police have sought Mogilevich for numerous international crimes including fraud, racketeering and money laundering. Monya Elson, a known associate of Mr Mogilevich, claimed in an interview given ten years ago that Mogilevich was “the most powerful mobster in the world”. During a 2005 speech in Hungary Robert Mueller, then FBI director said: “Right here in Budapest, Ukrainian-born Semion Mogilevich established the headquarters of his powerful organized crime enterprise.”

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"The organized Bulgarian bandit groups dealing with car thefts get involved more and more seriously into the coca traffic coming from South America. Just in Malaga, Marbella, Benalmadella and Toremolinos act 5-6 such bands formed by Bulgarians. They are very closely connected with the Columbian cartels and very active as well.", Alfledo Marihuan, a Director of "Criminal department" in Malaga says for "168 hours" weekly and adds: "Approximately 20 Bulgarians are arrested in Malaga after they had been captured with different quantity of coca starting from 1 and reaching 50 kilos. The arrested people are mules. We have almost no information about their bosses, but soon will bring them into the spot light."
According to Alfredo Marihuan, the Bulgarians in Latin America are in touch with the people responsible for the Distribution in Europe. Our countrymen constantly travel to Columbia and Venezuela. They negotiate the deals and organize the transport of the shipments to Spain and Europe. "This tendency was proven once again by the six Bulgarians we detained with 819 kilos of coca in February in Soto Grande and Barcelona.", Alfredo Marihuan says.
More than 1000 Bulgarian car thieves are listed into the card indexes of the Spanish police. They have been arrested and released in numerous police operations. This forces them to look for a new path where they are still not popular, hence not known for the police. They've already tried the robberies, blackmails, trafficking of cars, arms and hashish. The car thieves are doing everything within their power and use all their international contacts in order to gain a share from the coca business. In this field the earnings are bigger, but the risks lower having in mind that on the Spanish territory roam about all types of international mugs. During the negotiations between the Bulgarians and the Columbians for 819 kilos of white dust our countrymen do not even think that the special services are already follow their footprints. A mysterious killing refers the police toward the Bulgarian group.
On February 26, 2004 at Tampiko Str. in Madrid a man is speaking inside a phone cabin. Two men on motorcycles come close to him. They pull out submachine guns and open fire. The man dies covered with from 10 bullets. The two assassins run away. In the victim's passports there is a text:
Gusepe Loro from Venezuela
The passport turns out a forged one. The Spanish cops verify the picture of the victim with their albums. They ascertain that in 2001 the Bulgarian special police services had been forwarded the picture of the same person. The Bulgarian Ministry of Internal Affairs informs them that he is engaged with coca traffic of vast size. After he is killed the Spanish cops send an inquiry to Bulgaria and dactyl scoped marks from the victim's car. The expertise shows that the killed one is Dimo Neikov Jelev, born on 7 August, 1967 in Karapelit village, Dobrich region.
Jelev's adventures - the hidden skull-cap
Still in 1993-1994 Dimo Jelev gets into the field of vision of the Bulgarian special services. His start up in the cocaine business coincides with the genesis of the Bulgarian drug organization in Bulgaria. In the beginning of 90's Jelev is a lone wolf and he does not participate in grouping. He repeatedly closes the ways between Bulgaria and Turkey. From a huckster he evolves to a drug mule. He travels all over Europe. In Vienna he draws together with Kuzman Guslekov - a drug Traficant shoot dead in 1999 in Sofia because of 600 kilos Columbian coca that disappeared mysteriously. At this time Guslekov yet had been released from an Austrian prison when he had served a sentence, he had introduced in the cocaine business and lives like a citizen of the world. In 1995 Dimo Jelev is detained in Austria for heroin traffic. He receives an effective sentence. For several months period Jelev digs a tunnel and manages to escape from the prison. He hides in different European countries. He is caught in Switzerland. Then he is extradited to Austria where he serves his fulltime sentence. Dimo Jelev leaves the prison and goes to Spain with Kuzman. Guslekov gives shelter to him at his big house in Marbella - at this time the late drug dealer is in warm relations with high-standing persons from the cartels. Guslekov gets Jelev into the schemes. He starts to organize cruises with yachts between Spain, Columbia and Venezuela. He has at least 10-12 forged passports. The close friends around Kuzman and Dimo form an international group from Bulgarians, Spaniards, Italians, English men and Russians. The main investor of the group is Misha - a Jew from a Russian origin. He is indecently rich, an owner of a palace in Marbella and unique yacht, where he often welcomes Guslekov. During an ordinary row in the high seas
Misha is executed
but his yacht blew up. Mass arrests of members of the group in Marbella follow. Italians and Spaniards are detained for drug trafficking, their bank accounts and property are pit in an execution. Kuzman Guslekov gets away with it. Later he comes back to Bulgaria. In his Sofia circle are the late Poly Pantev, Bai Mile, Robert Stefanov, Serbian bandits close to the terrorist Sreten Yosich. In the end of 99's continually to Kuzman is also Konstantin Dishliev, shoot dead with 10 bullets on May 14 this year in front of an Indian restaurant "Tadj Mahal" in Sofia.
"At the end of 90's Kuzman gets Konstantin Dishliev into the schemes for money laundry of resources coming from Spain. He helps him to become a boss in the leasing business", a close friend to the late Guslekov says for 168 hours daily. "A man of confidence in the group was also Dishliev's brother-in-low Brendo, who also has strong positions among the Bulgarian car thieves and cocaine dealers in Spain." After Gislekov's murder the organization continues to exist.
In 2001 Dimo Jelev from Dobrich comes back to Bulgaria after almost 10 years spent abroad. He makes tours around the disco clubs in Varna and Sunny Beaches with his Porsche Kayen. He renames himself from Dimo Dimitrov to Dimcho Jelev. He actively travels between Spain, Venezuela and Columbia. Each time he spends there between 4 and 6 months. Bulgarian special services catch up Jelev in a hot connection with a group from Varna and Pleven, occupied with thefts of cars, a group leaded by Ivan Paunov-Govanito and Ivo Birovski - The Box.
"The organization has structures in Spain and in Bulgaria and is active in the car and hashish traffic. Since 2000 it enters also in the cocaine business. The trafficking of the elite drug becomes priority for the organization in the latest years.", a top official from the Internal Ministry says for 168 hours weekly.
Bulgarian special policemen inform their Spanish colleagues that Dimo Jelev is dealing with trafficking of coca in large quantity. His false identity secures him anonymity until the day of the shooting down.
The Spanish policemen discover a Columbian trace in the attempt, but can't prove it. The murder remains undiscovered. Shortly before the shooting of Dimcho Jelev the cops catch
2 tons of cocaine
in an uninhabitable accommodations in Madrid. The warehouse is next to Jelev's apartment. Another 150 kilos of cocaine are found by the cops in the neighboring accommodation. Witnesses claim they've seen him round about. Each time he had appeared in groups of two or three men. The dealer is punished, after somebody's refusal to pay for the detained shipments of coca, shows one of the leading versions for his killing.
Special policemen start to investigate Jolev's connections. After his killing his mobile phone had registered missed calls from Bulgaria. In Jelev's apartment a note book is found. All his accounts - debit and credit are strictly listed in it, by the victim himself. He mentions also specific names and figures. The police find as well his phone book. He had had a colorful contact list - Bulgarians, Spaniards, Columbians and Venezuelans. The net connected with the late Jelev starts to brighten up. His friends do not suspect they are already in the daylight.
One year later
Bulgarian-Spanish organization plans his serial hit with coca. "Such well equipped and structured Bulgarian organization in Spain we detain for the first time.", Eloy Alvares, Director of Drug traffic department in Judicial police in Madrid comments for 168 hours weekly. The project started with the investigation of the Bulgarian group in Barcelona. We discovered that some of their members had taken on houses and offices by the side of the port located between Malaga and Cadis. The rent contracts were signed on behalf of a company headquartered in Gibraltar. We used to watch the group. We understood they are ready to transfer with a yacht a huge quantity of cocaine from Columbia to the sea cost of Costa del Sol. The itinerary, chosen from the Bulgarian is unusual. The seacoast of Costa del Sol is used mainly for trafficking of hashish coming from Morocco through the strait of Gibraltar towards Spain. "Cocaine" yachts sail mainly from Venezuela to Martinique Island, but the fishing ships loaded with a larger quantity of drugs turn to Galicia."
"We've expected the cocaine to move from Malaga towards Barcelona and after towards another European country.", a participant in the police action comments. "All men on the yacht were from Varna. Several times the yacht had changed its name in the open sea.", the same source adds.
The cops loose the yacht's traces. It is discretely laid at Soto Grande, located at 70 kilometers from Marbella.

Bulgarian Investigative Journalism Center (BIJC) is an nongovernmental and uncommercial foundation, whose main goal is to organize and produce journalistic inquiries against the corruption and the organised crime. BIJC popularize the investigative journalism in Bulgaria and in the European Union.The foundation unites bulgarian journalists with experience in the area of the investigative journalism.

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Martin Foley remains in a critical condition in hospital today after he was shot repeatedly in an assassination attempt yesterday.
A garda at the scene of the shooting of Martin Foley, at Kimmage Road West, Dublin, yesterday.Foley (55) and also known as 'The Viper' is reported to have been hit by up to six bullets from the ten fired by the gunman who shot Foley as he was driving out of the Carlisle gym on Kimmage Rd Lower just after 3pm.
Foley has undergone surgery in St James' Hospital to remove at least one bullet and his condition is described as "critical".
It is understood he has been hit a number of times in the upper and lower body.
Gardai investigating the shooting have also recovered a white Ford van which they believe was used by the gunman. This vehicle is being examined by Garda technical experts.
It is understood that Foley had spotted the gunman as he approached and tried to escape in his car before crashing after a short distance. He then tried to continue his escape on foot.

It is the latest in a series of murder attempts on Foley who has survived at least four previous attempts on his life. No one was arrested following the shooting

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Martin Foley remains in a critical condition in hospital today after he was shot repeatedly in an assassination attempt yesterday.
A garda at the scene of the shooting of Martin Foley, at Kimmage Road West, Dublin, yesterday.Foley (55) and also known as 'The Viper' is reported to have been hit by up to six bullets from the ten fired by the gunman who shot Foley as he was driving out of the Carlisle gym on Kimmage Rd Lower just after 3pm.
Foley has undergone surgery in St James' Hospital to remove at least one bullet and his condition is described as "critical".
It is understood he has been hit a number of times in the upper and lower body.
Gardai investigating the shooting have also recovered a white Ford van which they believe was used by the gunman. This vehicle is being examined by Garda technical experts.
It is understood that Foley had spotted the gunman as he approached and tried to escape in his car before crashing after a short distance. He then tried to continue his escape on foot.

It is the latest in a series of murder attempts on Foley who has survived at least four previous attempts on his life. No one was arrested following the shooting

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