Michael Franzese: Ex-mobster heads for court date

Self-proclaimed reformed mobster Michael Franzese, 58, posted bond and is out of jail after allegations of passing bad checks landed him behind bars, according to Williamson County Circuit Criminal Court. Read Full Story

Nikolay Marinov :Lawyer Advises Wanted Bulgarian Crime Boss to Surrender

Lyudmil Rangelov, lawyer of alleged crime boss Nikolay Marinov who is wanted over the murder of journalist Bobi Tsankov, has called on his client to turn himself in to the police.
The police have been after Marinov, aka the Little Marguin, as his brother Krasimir Marinov is already arrested and charged with ordering the murder of Bobi Tsankov.
Speaking on Nova TV Thursday, Rangelov said he did not think his client was hiding from the police. Yet, the lawyer stated he had not seen his client since a court hearing in December.
He made it clear he was going to advise Nikolay Marinov to surrender because he had no reason to be worried as he had nothing to do with the latest gangland murder in Sofia.

Gotti IV Mistrial the Top Mob Story of 2009

With spectacular Mafia assassinations pretty much a thing of the past – it’s been 24 years since John Gotti & Company whacked Big Paul Castellano in front of Sparks Steak House – the biggest mob stories of recent years were usually blockbuster indictments or convictions.

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Calabrian mafia mobster linked to hit

Vincent Paul Latorre (on the right

A MURDER suspect who revelled in his reputation as a feared Calabrian mafia mobster has been convicted of blackmailing and standing over fellow Italians.

Prominent Victorian fruiterer Vincent Paul Latorre's violent reign of terror included running a profitable extortion ring for years. He is due to be sentenced. read Full Story

Mafia boss appears in court amid tight security

Palermo, 11 Dec. (AKI) - The Sicilian mafia's alleged second-in-command, Giovanni Nicchi, appeared in court in Palermo for the first time on Friday since his highly publicised arrest last week. Nicchi appeared at an appeals court where hearings are taking place in two trials in which he was sentenced in absentia to a total 18 years in jail for extortion and mafia links read Full Story

Chicago outfit Rudy Fratto Jr

Rudy Fratto Jr. Courtesy the Chicago Sun Times.

December 2, 2009 (CHICAGO) BY: Chuck Goudie and Barb Markoff (WLS) — An admitted tax cheat and reputed boss of the Outfit’s feared Elmwood Park crew won’t have quite as much time as he thought to pack for his upcoming stay in the Crossbar Hotel.
The attorney for Rudolph C. “Rudy” Fratto of Darien had filed a motion to put off his Fratto’s sentencing until February read full story

Drug smuggler arrested with kilo of cocaine in stomach

Customs officials at a Moscow airport have arrested a Columbian man accused of smuggling a record amount of cocaine inside his stomach.The man was reportedly transporting over a kilo of cocaine to Hong Kong via Russia’s Sheremetievo-2 airport. The Columbian approached a customs officer and told him he was not feeling well and asked for medical help read with video

Italian news agency says Naples killer has been identified

(CNN) -- Police have identified the man whose shooting of another man outside a store in Naples, Italy, was captured by a surveillance camera, the Italian news agency ANSA reported Saturday.
The announcement came two days after police released the video of the brazen daylight shooting in hopes it would lead someone to come forward. Police did not release the man's name.
The video, shot May 11, shows a man wearing jeans, a dark jersey and a baseball cap, walking into the store and looking around, turning and walking back out.
Passersby appear unfazed. One woman tries to lift up the victim's head in an apparent attempt to see if she knew him; a man steps over the body.
Police said they had been without any clues before the release of the video. A source who was not identified publicly said the killer was a man in his 30s from Naples' northern Sanita district who had recently left the city.
A third man seen in the video was thought to have been an accomplice, but he told Il Mattino newspaper that he had nothing to do with the killing.
"I am the man of the film, but I have never been a lookout, and now I am afraid," the 39-year-old man said. "I was taking a breath of air, waiting for my daughter to go shopping."
The man said he had been living "in terror" since acquaintances called him from Germany to tell him they had seen him on the video.
Police said they knew of no motive for the killing, which took place in the poor neighborhood of Rione Sanita, where Camorra, the name for organized crime in Naples, is strong.
The victim was a bank robber, the spokesman said.
A police spokesman said Camorra has been blamed for about 60 killings this year in Naples and its surrounding

John “Junior” Gotti's Mob trial

Talk about a get-out-of-jail-free card.
A defense witness for John “Junior” Gotti testified yesterday that an FBI agent offered to help spring him from the slammer in exchange for evidence against the mob scion.
Joseph O’Kane said Special Agent Ted Otto appeared unexpectedly last year at the Canaan federal pen in Waymart, Pa., where O’Kane is serving life plus 15 years for racketeering charges including murder.
O’Kane, 42, said the fed told him: “I understand you’re doing a life sentence and we want to give you a number,” meaning a reduced-sentence offer.
The admitted killer and drug dealer said, “I’d probably be home with my wife and family right now” if he’d coughed up information on the Gambino boss.
But O’Kane insisted he didn’t have any dirt, and never learned the details of Otto’s offer because “I told him to go ‘eff’ himself

Jeffrey Castardi,Guilty plea in Gin Rummy club illegal gambling case

Jeffrey Castardi

A man who ran a high-stakes poker business in Denver catering to Denver media figures and sports personalities and allegedly had ties to the New York mob, has pleaded guilty to violating Colorado's Organized Crime Control Act, Colorado Attorney General John Suthers announced today.

The man, Jeffrey Castardi, 48, who ran the Gin Rummy Club, 2380 South Broadway, faces up to 24 years in prison when sentenced on Dec. 14 in Jefferson County district court

According to an indictment returned by the state grand jury, Castardi was the ringleader of an organization that involved gambling, bookmaking and loan sharking - all of which Castardi learned during his youth and early adult years when he lived in the New York City area

Investigators said that Castardi told people who engaged in Castardi's high stakes poker and sports-betting or bookmaking activities that the Gin Rummy Club was a Mafia or mob-affiliated establishment.

Castardi's use of this tactic was designed to strengthen the intimidating influence of Gin Rummy Club and also to further the success of the club's illicit business methods, according to investigators.

Among the people who frequented the club were former Broncos fullback Reggie Rivers; former Broncos running back Rod Bernstine; Francois Safieddine, president of the Monarck nightclub in Denver; and John Sacha, a pain medicine doctor who teaches poker strategy on a "Dr. Poker" instructional video.
In announcing Castardi's guilty plea, Suthers said that Castardi's operation allegedly collected significant amounts of money between May 2003 and late 2008 through a "complex, persistent and intimidating system of individual debt collectors, front businesses and various bank accounts."

Castardi and his associates were suspected of violating numerous laws including running an illegal professional gambling and bookmaking business, loan-sharking, money laundering, tax evasion, theft and unlawful debt collection.

A key to the enterprise, said the grand jury, was a system established at the Gin Rummy Club where poker players and those betting on sports played on credit.
The system was referred to as playing on the "book."

The existence of the book often led players to accrue significant financial debt to the Gin Rummy Club and Castardi. Some players and others then felt it was necessary to take out "street loans" that were usually orchestrated and financed by Castardi.
Ralph Gagliardi , an agent with the Colorado Bureau of Investigation, said the club would take in as much as $750,000 in a single year.

In 1988, Castardi was arrested on Long Island for promoting gambling. Also involved in the gambling operation was Richard Giordonello, a member of Gambino captain Nicholas "Little Nicky" Corozzo's crew