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175 Alleged Gulf Cartel Members and Associates Arrested in Massive International Law Enforcement Operation "Project Reckoning" Leads to the Seizure of $60 Million and More Than 40 Tons of Illegal Drugs From One of Mexico's Largest Drug Trafficking Cartels NEW YORK - Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey announced that 175 individuals were arrested on Sept. 16, 2008, on charges related to an international drug trafficking cartel in a coordinated enforcement action by hundreds of international, federal, state and local law enforcement officials throughout the United States and Italy. Including the operations announced today, a long-term investigation of one of Mexico's...

BIZ GIANTS PAY OR FACE RACE RALLIES Anheuser-Busch gave him six figures, Colgate-Palmolive shelled out $50,000 and Macy's and Pfizer have contributed thousands to the Rev. Al Sharpton's charity. Almost 50 companies - including PepsiCo, General Motors, Wal-Mart, FedEx, Continental Airlines, Johnson & Johnson and Chase - and some labor unions sponsored Sharpton's National Action Network annual conference in April. Terrified of negative publicity, fearful of a consumer boycott or eager to make nice with the civil-rights activist, CEOs write checks, critics say, to NAN and Sharpton - who brandishes the buying power of African-American consumers. In some cases, they...

"Finally, a member of Congress has announced a laudable plan to do something about the abusive behavior of demonstrators of the anti-war left. Rep. Todd Akin (R-Mo.), a member of the House Armed Services Committee, has introduced legislation to deal with what he has described as “a growing number of our fellow citizens [who] are abusing their right of free expression through vandalism and violent protest aimed at military recruiters and those who wish to serve.”" Finally someone talking serious about Code Pink's anarchical activities. There are a lot more examples of Code Pink's crimes then noted in the article....

The cooperation agreement reached between prosecutors and an employee of the call-girl ring known as Emperors Club VIP will come in handy should the Manhattan U.S. attorney, Michael Garcia, decide to charge Governor Spitzer with a crime. The woman, Temeka Rachelle Lewis, 32, who entered a guilty plea to money laundering and prostitution-related charges yesterday, would be a key witness against Mr. Spitzer if the former governor is charged in connection with patronizing an Emperors Club prostitute... Lewis, who booked clients for the call-girl service, had several phone conversations with Mr. Spitzer to hammer out the logistics of payment and...

LOS ANGELES - A Hollywood private investigator was convicted Thursday on charges that he schemed to dig up dirt for his well-heeled clients to use in lawsuits, divorces and contract disputes against the rich and famous. Anthony Pellicano, 64, was accused of wiretapping stars such as Sylvester Stallone, and running the names of others, such as Gary Shandling and Kevin Nealon, through law enforcement databases to help clients in legal and other disputes. Pellicano was convicted of racketeering and racketeering conspiracy counts. Verdicts on dozens of other counts were still being announced in court. The indictment charging Pellicano and his...

Plea Expected in Ring Tied to SpitzerBy WILLIAM K. RASHBAUM and IAN URBINA Published: May 13, 2008 The woman accused of being the primary booker for the prostitution ring patronized by Eliot Spitzer is expected to plead guilty this week to charges related to her role in the ring, people involved in the matter said Monday. The woman, Temeka Rachelle Lewis, 32, is expected to plead guilty in federal District Court in Manhattan to charges of money laundering conspiracy and conspiracy to commit interstate travel in aid of racketeering, one of the people said. She would be the first of...

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-shakeup20mar20,1,7868966.story

BUFFALO, N.Y. - A dozen leaders and members of a construction union were arrested Tuesday and charged with a decade of attacks against nonunion workers and their families, and prosecutors said some of the crimes were aided by the local's access to state motor vehicle records. The president of Operating Engineers Local 17, Mark Kirsch, was among those charged with extortion and racketeering after a five-year investigation. The union, headquartered in Buffalo, operates in six western New York counties. At job sites where non-Local 17 members were hired, union members caused more than $1 million in damage to more than...

A dispute over food industry influence has resulted in the resignation of the incoming president of the Obesity Society. Dr. David B. Allison, who was to take over the society, a national group of obesity doctors and researchers later this year, submitted his resignation from that position on Friday. Dr. Allison drew criticism from some members after he wrote an affidavit as a paid consultant on behalf of the restaurant industry, which is trying to block new rules in New York City that at the end of March will require fast-food and other restaurant chains to list the calories of...

Huckabee came in second to Mitt Romney in the first round of voting, finishing with 33% to Romney's 41%, the AP reported earlier. John McCain, finishing third with 15%, survived to the second round, while Ron Paul finished fourth, at 10%, and was eliminated. Amid rumors of a deal between backers of Huckabee and McCain, Huckabee secured 52% of the delegates in the second round, to Romney's 47%. McCain's goal in throwing support to Huckabee is designed to deprive Romney of a win early in the day.

Illegal Worker Hiring Sites Promote Racketeering by Bridget Geegan Blanton Mexico is notorious for corruption... ...and is nearly unresponsive to a persistent, staggering poverty suffered by millions of Mexicans. At the top of the Mexican power structure is an elitist, wealthy ruling class that vehemently resists even a modest level of taxation while supporting the status of Mexico as a nation dependent on American financial aid. Onerous taxation and big government is never a solution, but at the other extreme is the Mexican ruling class who has shunned any responsibility for the dire economic state of their country. In a...

Sheriff's Lt. Rosie Enriquez chats with day laborers at 47th Avenue and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. She believes a day labor center could help cut crime by getting job seekers off the streets. Florence Low / flow@sacbee.com Sacramento day laborers who gather in a parking lot at 47th Avenue and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard in hopes of getting work, cluster around a motorist who stops to hire someone Lt. Rosie Enriquez sat in a parking lot in her unmarked cruiser, looking out at a small sea of about 50 men waiting for the promise of work to...

53 minutes ago WASHINGTON - A woman accused of running a prostitution ring in the nation's capital is free to distribute thousands of pages of phone records after a federal judge lifted a restraining order on Thursday. U.S. District Court Judge Gladys Kessler's order granted the request of Deborah Jeane Palfrey, 51, of Vallejo, Calif., to quash restrictions by government prosecutors that prohibited her from giving away the list. "As a result, Jeane has determined to release those records under certain conditions to qualified individuals or organizations," wrote her attorney, Montgomery Blair Sibley, in an e-mail. Palfrey and her attorney...

A Los Angeles grocery chain entrepreneur was charged with running a lucrative criminal enterprise that orchestrated murders, bribed city officials, laundered money and aided drug traffickers, according to an indictment unsealed today. George Torres, 50, who owns the Numero Uno grocery stores scattered throughout low-income parts of Los Angeles, was arrested Tuesday ... on charges of racketeering, violence in aid of racketeering, tax evasion and fraud. ... If convicted, Torres could face more than 60 years in prison. More than $100 million of the defendants' assets are subject to seizure. Torres was the longtime business partner of Horacio Vignali, who...

"Two dozen people cheated casinos in several U.S. states and Canada out of at least $3.3 million over five years by using technology and bribes to rig card games, federal prosecutors alleged in unsealed indictments." (snip) "The three indictments unsealed name 24 defendants, including the son of Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels, in an alleged racketeering enterprise dating from March 2002. The so-called Tran Organization allegedly was based in California."

Critics of vulgar, violent, gangster-style rap music make a mistake when they write off rap stars as stupid, immoral and self-destructive. They may be immoral and self-destructive, but they're not stupid. As one of my readers observed in a thoughtful e-mail, they're making a rational economic choice. The reader wrote: "I had to stop and ask this question to myself: 'Would I call my mother a 'ho' or my sister a 'bitch' if I could make a couple of million dollars and get out of poverty and live a pretty good life?" In a line of work that dangles riches...

Is 'Making Available' Copyright Infringement?January 22, 2007 By Ray Beckerman In 2003, the Recording Industry Association of America began a massive litigation campaign on behalf of the four major record companies against end users of peer-to-peer file-sharing programs, alleging widespread infringement of their sound recording copyrights. Somewhere in the neighborhood of 20,000-25,000 suits have been brought to date, with hundreds of new complaints filed monthly. While at first blush this battle might appear to be a simple fight between record companies and some alleged music file-sharers, it is actually much more significant because the litigation campaign rests upon a...

HOUSTON — A few short weeks ago, Garden Guy was just a mom-and-pop landscaping business that promoted itself as "making Houston beautiful since 1991" and promised to treat its customers with respect and honesty. Since then, though, the business has been vilified around the world as a bunch of bigots because its Christian conservative owners refused to do work for a gay couple. Michael Lord and Gary Lackey, a gay couple requesting bids for a landscaping job at their new house, received a polite _ and, well, honest _ e-mail from Sabrina Farber, a co-owner of Garden Guy: "I need...

NEW YORK - The president of the nation's largest municipal labor council was arrested on federal racketeering charges Tuesday, accused of stealing more than $2 million from the state, labor unions and even a Little League fund. Brian M. McLaughlin, a seven-term Democratic state assemblyman and president of the New York City Central Labor Council, has been under investigation for several years. He surrendered Tuesday morning and was released on $250,000 bail after a brief appearance before U.S. Magistrate Judge James C. Francis. McLaughlin and his lawyer, Jonathan Bach, declined to comment as they left U.S. District Court in Manhattan....

A jury convicted four alleged leaders of the Aryan Brotherhood prison gang Friday on charges of murder, conspiracy and racketeering in a federal case aimed at dismantling the violent white supremacist organization. The four defendants did not show any reaction when the verdicts were read in a 15-minute proceeding. Most jurors, who deliberated for two weeks, either looked down or away from the defendants. The trial is part of one of the largest federal capital cases, with more than a dozen people potentially facing the death penalty. More defendants face trials in Los Angeles later this year. Barry "The Baron"...

The documents seized in the FBI raid on the offices of Rep. William Jefferson (D-LA) remain unread by Justice Department investigators, pending a federal Appeals Court ruling scheduled for August 27. [snip] But we already know a bit about the charges and some of the alleged partners of Congressman Jefferson. Two people have pleaded guilty to bribing him.

In the first of a series, John A. (Junior) Gotti gives his first ever in-depth interview to Daily News staff writer Thomas Zambito He has tried to renounce the life, walk away from the Gotti legacy of greed, intimidation and murder. Yet even as John A. (Junior) Gotti says these things, he still cannot separate his newfound perspective on the Mafia from his love and respect for his father. "To this day, my father is a god to me," he said. Gotti has kept his relationship with the press to a few stray quotes and the occasional news story. But...

NEW YORK -- Prosecutors are accusing John "Junior" Gotti and his family of living lavishly on Long Island with a swimming pool, a horse barn and a staff of gardeners, drivers and housekeepers, while Gotti claims he is going broke. Prosecutors wrote in a letter to U.S. District Judge Shira Scheindlin that the lifestyle is especially surprising since Gotti has been in jail or on home detention for the last eight years and his wife does not appear to have a full-time job outside the home.

SAN DIEGO – Federal prosecutors here announced the indictment Friday of a San Diego gang founder and other leaders of the Mexican Mafia prison gang on charges of running a massive crime syndicate in Southern California. Authorities said the notorious prison gang ran organized crime out of the state's highest-security prison, ordered murders, dealt drugs and demanded money from Latino street gangs, including many in San Diego, in return for protection and guidance. The local U.S. Attorney's Office is using anti-racketeering laws to go after 22 members, associates and affiliates of the prison gang. An additional 14 people were indicted...

Thugs chanting "John Gotti rules" have leveled death threats at Curtis Sliwa and his young son, the radio host says, prompting him to beg help from his mob scion enemy to stop the goons, the Daily News has learned. The worst incident occurred Sunday when a gang of young men approached the Guardian Angels founder on Third Ave. while he was playing with his only child, 2-1/2-year-old Anthony Chester, Sliwa said. "They said that both my son and I deserved to have bullets put into our heads and they walked on," Sliwa wrote in a letter to Gotti obtained by...

ALBUQUERQUE (AP) - Jurors viewed a videotape Tuesday showing then-state Treasurer Robert Vigil accepting cash payments last year of $11,500 from an investment adviser seeking business from the treasurer’s office. Federal prosecutors allege the payments were kickbacks to Vigil in exchange for steering state business to California-based investment adviser Kent Nelson. Vigil’s defense team contends the payments were campaign contributions. The videotape was shown during Vigil’s trial on racketeering and extortion charges. Nelson was cooperating with federal investigators when he secretly taped the meeting with Vigil last May 2nd. Vigil resigned last October. He has pleaded not guilty to 28...

A few blocks down the main road from this small downtown in the north Georgia hills, the Matul family from Guatemala has opened a grocery selling fresh exotic fruits, canned juice from Mexico and international telephone calling cards. Owner Brenda Matul, 29, counts on the influx of Hispanic immigrants to the community to seal the success of her 5-month-old Tienda la Guadalupana — and her life's journey from Central America to become a naturalized U.S. citizen with U.S.-born, bilingual children. "One day we can grow more if immigrants keep coming to us for imports," Matul said about her clientele. "But...

CHICAGO - Former Gov. George Ryan, who drew international praise when he commuted the sentences of everyone on Illinois' death row, was convicted of racketeering and fraud Monday in a corruption scandal that ended his political career in 2003. Ryan, 72, sat stone-faced as the verdict was read and afterward vowed to appeal. "I believe this decision today is not in accordance with the kind of public service that I provided to the people of Illinois over 40 years, and needless to say I am disappointed in the outcome," the former governor said. Ryan faces up to 20 years in...

Many of those on the left who are attacking President Bush for toppling Saddam Hussein were not so particular when Clinton was president. The man who sent American troops into Kosovo, Bosnia, Haiti, Somalia, etc, did so with the support of liberal-leaning Congressmen and Senators. This fact needs to be borne in mind because I think provides a clue as to why the same Liberals are now snapping at President Bush’s heels. Taking a look at the 1972 George McGovern presidential campaign we find that it provided the means by which those who are deeply hostile to American values and...

Spam king and online drugstore operator Christopher William Smith, aka Rizler, 26, who is awaiting trial at the Sherburne County Jail, Elk River, Minn., used his phone privileges to arrange a hit on a witness and the witness's family. According to the indictment, Smith called an acquaintance from jail March 4 and allegedly stated he intended to threaten and intimidate a witness he expected would testify against him in his upcoming trial on drug and other charges. The indictment alleges Smith also said he intended to have the witness or the witness's family killed....

Curtis Sliwa watched the man he claims ordered a hit on him walk away from court for the second time yesterday - and said it hurt more than the ambush that almost killed him. "I would say this has been even more painful than being shot with three hollow point bullets," he told the Daily News. "It's like taking yet another slug. "I feel I have been robbed. It's like John [Junior] Gotti has been exonerated for all his sins, all his vicious crimes, simply because he announced his retirement. "I see him pictured in the Daily News, in church...

A juror in John A. (Junior) Gotti's federal conspiracy trial bailed out just as deliberations began yesterday, after telling fellow jurors she feared for her safety, the Daily News has learned. Judge Shira Scheindlin granted the woman's request to be excused, which came moments after a jury foreman was picked and the panel was about to begin deliberations. "There's a verdict, Charlie," Gotti joked to attorney Charles Carnesi, when the foreman sent a second note.

A former bartender at John A. Gotti's social club testified yesterday that the club had hot-pink walls and an elaborate buzzer system and that a crucial prosecution witness — a turncoat mobster who claims that he made plans in the club to carry out a kidnapping Mr. Gotti had ordered — was never there. The bartender, George DiBello, suggested that the witness, Joseph D'Angelo, would surely have noticed the unusual décor of Our Friends Social Club, in Ozone Park, Queens, if he had been there, as he claimed in his testimony. Was there anything unusual about the décor of the...

John "Junior" Gotti, who insists he quit the mob family run by his late father, the "Dapper Don," watched jury selection start yesterday at his racketeering retrial in Manhattan. One prospective juror was quickly disqualified: a former supervisor of the FBI's organized crime squad. The most serious charge facing Gotti is the 1992 kidnapping of radio host Curtis Sliwa, the founder of the Guardian Angels crime-fighting group, who allegedly was targeted by "Junior" Gotti because of his on-air rants against the late John Gotti.

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Celebrity private eye Anthony Pellicano pleaded not guilty Monday to racketeering charges contained in an indictment alleging he paid police officers and others to access confidential records and provide him with information. The indictment was unsealed but not immediately released. Attorney Steven Gruel, who represents Pellicano, said the indictment detailed 105 counts against his client. In addition to racketeering, he was charged with unauthorized computer access, interception of wire communications and possession of a wiretapping device, the lawyer said. Gruel declined further comment on the charges. He briefly made a copy of the indictment available to...

Oakland grocers set to fight vandals Police say they will have more details this week in the attacks on two liquor stores By William Brand, STAFF WRITER NATION OF ISLAM minister Tony Muhammad, standing in front of Muhammad Mosque 26 in Oakland on Saturday, says the Nation had no part in the destruction inside two West Oakland liquor stores Wednesday night. (GREG TARCZYNSKI) OAKLAND — The president of the Yemini American Grocery Association said Saturday that grocers have the right to defend themselves if their stores are invaded like two West Oakland markets were hit Wednesday night. The association, which...

<p>Hours before New Orleans Police Superintendent Eddie Compass announced his resignation, Tony relayed some hot information he had heard from his Capitol Hill sources. It regarded an FBI investigation currently under way.</p> <p>You can go to the source above and listen to that segment of his radio show.</p>

The jailed son of late mob boss John Gotti neared freedom on Monday after a judge agreed to release him on $7 million bond, less than a week after declaring a mistrial on the bulk of his racketeering case. Under bail conditions approved by U.S. District Judge Shira Scheindlin, John A. ``Junior'' Gotti would be released from a federal lockup in lower Manhattan, but remain under house arrest in his home on Long Island until a possible retrial early next year. Gotti, 41, was still in custody Monday as paperwork was finalized. His lawyers said he could be home with...

BOISE, Idaho -- A southwest Idaho county filed a racketeering lawsuit against agricultural companies accused of hiring illegal immigrants -- an attempt to recoup money the county says it has spent on the workers. The lawsuit by Canyon County commissioners alleges four agricultural companies and a nonprofit have taken part in an "illegal immigrant hiring scheme," and that the county has paid the cost of medical care, jails and schools."Illegal immigration is not a victimless crime. It has cost Canyon County millions of dollars, and we expect to recover it," said Howard Foster, an attorney representing the county.

A tiny upstart in the cigarette business threatens to topple a comfortable cartel engineered by big tobacco companies and their strange bedfellows, the state attorneys general.Big tobacco was supposed to come under harsh punishment for decades of deception when it acceded to a tort settlement seven years ago. Philip Morris, R.J.Reynolds, Lorillard and Brown & Williamson agreed to pay 46 states $206 billion over 25 years. This was their punishment for burying evidence of cigarettes' health risks. But the much-maligned tobacco giants have subtly and shrewdly turned their penance into a windfall. Using that tort settlement, the big brands have...

Mobtown Beat | Business Hot Contract City Bribery Scandal Tied to Influential Father and Son BOILERPLATE: Allstate Boiler Service, a company owned by Gilbert Sapperstein and housed in a building owned by his son, Mark Sapperstein, is involved in bribery scandal being investigated by the state. By Van Smith Mark Sapperstein owns 113 W. Hamburg St., an 8,000-square-foot commercial building in Sharp-Leadenhall. The South Baltimore property, though devoid of signs, houses Allstate Boiler Service, a company owned by Gilbert Sapperstein, Mark’s 73-year-old father. On Jan. 7, Allstate Boiler’s bookkeeper and office manager, Ida Marie Beran, pled guilty in a bribery...

Death is no obstacle to feeling the long arm of the Recording Industry Ass. of America. Lawyers representing several record companies have filed suit against an 83-year old woman who died in December, claiming that she made more than 700 songs available on the internet. "I believe that if music companies are going to set examples they need to do it to appropriate people and not dead people," Robin Chianumba told AP. "I am pretty sure she is not going to leave Greenwood Memorial Park to attend the hearing." Gertrude Walton, who lived in Beckley, West Virginia hated computers, too,...

A former FBI agent and an Internet penny stock adviser were convicted Monday of mining government computers for confidential information they used to manipulate the stock market. Former agent Jeffrey Royer was convicted of racketeering, securities fraud, obstruction of justice and witness tampering for leaking details of FBI investigations and executives' criminal histories to San Diego stock picker Anthony Elgindy. Elgindy was convicted of racketeering, securities fraud and extortion for his role in the scheme. He dropped his face into his hands and sobbed uncontrollably as the jury foreman read the verdict; U.S. marshals led him weeping from the courtroom....

Divided federation is taking up issue of union consolidation as some leaders thirst for change Changes are brewing in the AFL-CIO. A new committee of union leaders is exploring possible mergers and how to put new life into organizing. And when transformations eventually are made, they are likely to have a significant impact on the labor federation’s Building and Construction Trades Dept. The leadership of long-time AFL-CIO President John J. Sweeney is being tested and may be doomed by the defeat of Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry. Unions spent more than $100 million in their attempt to send Kerry to...

PAUSING in the foyer of a comfortable suburban home two days before Halloween in 2002, Kevin Barrows, a special agent with the F.B.I., could not bring himself to open the front door. He and a team of agents had just spent several hours searching every room in the house, in New Rochelle, N.Y., but they were leaving empty-handed. Months of investigating had led Mr. Barrows to believe that someone was orchestrating a huge fraud from the house, yet he had not found a single scrap of evidence. Still, something bothered him about the furniture in one of the bedrooms. It...

Linda Vester is currentlly interviewing Chad Clanton, described as a 'senior Kerry campaign advisor.' Discussing the plans of the Sinclair broadcasting group to air "Stolen Honor," the documentary about Kerry's Vietnam war service, Clanton stated: "They [Sinclair] better hope that we're not elected." Vester immediately asked if that was intended as a threat to Sinclair that a Kerry administration would not renew their broadcast licenses. Clanton tried to back off, but the threat was unmistakable. These people are thugs.

French President Jacques Chirac is the latest leader to call for the imposition of an international tax to help fight poverty. Speaking at the United Nations in New York, Chirac praised a report prepared by a French working group that proposed a global tax be levied on arms sales and some financial transactions. The report contains "technically realistic and economically rational solutions," said Chirac, who joined forces with Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva to push the anti-poverty agenda. They will attempt to push forward the plan with the goal of cutting in half the number of people in...

Shot Fired Into GOP HeadquartersSeptember 2, 2004 BREAKING NEWS: 2 Dozen Bush Supporters Were Inside Huntington Building A shot was fired at the Republican Party headquarters in Huntington Thursday night, while two dozen supporters of George W. Bush watched him accept his party's nomination on television. Huntington police said reports came in about 10:30 p.m. from the building on 4th Avenue at 14th Street. One bullet hole could be seen in a large glass window, through a sign that said marriage is between "One Man, One Woman." Police said they had not found bullet fragments inside the headquarters and had...

Some persuasion techniques are more sinister. A recent scam involved 19,000 emails a day sent to innocent internet users, threatening to inform police that their computer had child pornography on it, installed by the spammer, unless a payment of around £50 was made.