Teenagers jailed for south London murder

 

teenager accused of two gang murders at the age of 16 has been sentenced to a life term. Jordan Williams was told on Thursday he would serve a minimum of 18 years for murdering Daniel Graham, 18, who was stabbed 24 times in 45 seconds. Williams, who turned 17 last month, was part of a gang which attacked Graham as he stepped off a bus on 29 January last year. Williams was later arrested for the murder of promising athlete Sylvester Akapalara, 17, who was shot dead in Peckham, south London, a month before. But a jury cleared him of that killing, which resulted in Sodiq Adeojo, 20, being jailed for a minimum of 30 years, also on Thursday. Williams, Colin Aghatise, 16, and Lennie John, 24, all from Peckham, were found guilty on Wednesday at the Old Bailey of murdering Graham. Williams and Aghatise were ordered to be detained during Her Majesty's pleasure, with Aghatise given a minimum term of 15 years. John, 24, was jailed for life with a minimum term of 22 years. They were said to be members of the GMG gang, which is said to stand for various names, including Guns, Murder and Girls. Graham was attacked with knives and a broken bottle in front of horrified passengers as he got off a bus in East Dulwich, south London. He was helped back on to the 176 bus by passengers, but died from his injuries. Judge Timothy Pontius told the defendants: "Daniel Graham was murdered in circumstances of horrific and merciless brutality. "He was killed in an attack which, for all its brevity, was intensely ferocious. "At least four, and probably more, played an active part. They were acting like a pack of hyenas." Williams had taken one of two lock-knives he kept at home to a party where violence was likely to arise at the meeting of two opposing groups. Williams and Aghatise were both 15 at the time. All three defendants were from decent homes and had good academic achievements. But on the night "they all too readily followed the pack instinct". The court was told that Williams was a server at his local church and had been elected chairman of his school council. And John's mother was said to work at a central London magistrates court. Duncan Penny, prosecuting, said trouble flared at an under-18s event at Dulwich Hamlet football club and a gun was fired, hitting a youth in the leg. He said a row broke out between Graham's friends and another group of youths. Penny said: "Daniel's group was punched and knives were produced and it appears a firearm was discharged and at least one shot was fired. "Daniel's group fled the party and their escape route took them past East Dulwich railway station. They were pursued by members of the defendants' group." Graham had tried to take refuge on the double-decker bus before changing his mind and jumping off. But he was attacked in front of passengers by a large group of youths who subjected him to "a volley of punches, kicks and stamps" to the body and head. Penny said CCTV on the bus showed the time of the attack as 12.09am. "It lasted in the region of 45 seconds," he added. "In that short period he had received 24 stab wounds, having been descended upon by a group of murderers." Passengers made the driver drive off while Graham, who was covered in blood, was laid across two seats by a nurse and her sister. After seeing some of the attackers at the next stop, the bus drove on until police and an ambulance reached it in Lordship Lane. Williams and John were identified by a youth who had viewed them rapping on YouTube. Aghatise's DNA was found on a broken bottle with Graham's blood on it. Graham had gained seven GCSEs and was doing business studies. He did voluntary work for the NSPCC children's charity in his spare time. His mother, Stephanie, said in an impact statement to the court that she had been devastated by his death. She added: "Everyone loved Daniel. He was instantly likeable to all who knew him."

Hells Angel charged over Sydney ice labs

 

Police say they have charged a senior member of the Hells Angels bikie gang over the discovery of two illegal drug laboratories earlier this week. The 33-year-old man was arrested with an alleged Hells Angels associate on Wednesday afternoon at an apartment block at North Ryde, in Sydney's north-west. Police say they found drugs and a loaded handgun at the unit. The apartment was raided by officers investigating the discovery of two methylamphetamine labs on Tuesday in the city's south-west at Catherine Field and Narellan. Specialists from the Drug Squad's Chemical Operations Team are still working to dismantle the equipment and chemicals used in the manufacture of ice. Both men arrested yesterday have been charged with drug manufacture and other drug offences, while one has been charged over the pistol. Two other men who were arrested at the lab sites on Tuesday, aged 36 and 41, remain before the courts.

1993 £1m Felixstowe heist: Suspect Eddie Maher was 'bankrupt'

 

A man wanted in Suffolk over a £1m heist in 1993 had been declared bankrupt with debts of more than $30,000 (£19,000), American court papers have revealed. Eddie Maher, 56, originally from Essex, was arrested on 8 February after being found in Ozark, Missouri. Mr Maher had $85 (£54) in his bank account when he filed for bankruptcy in 2010. He is due in court in America on 22 February for a preliminary hearing. Anonymous tip-off Mr Maher disappeared in 1993 after a security van packed with cash was taken from outside a bank in Felixstowe. The former security guard, who had been living in South Woodham Ferrers when he disappeared, has been charged with immigration and firearm offences in the United States. Bankruptcy papers filed in November 2010 revealed Mr Maher had got into financial difficulties. They showed that he had $17,061 (£10,881) of loan and credit card debts. He also owed $1,759 (£1,121) in hospital and doctors bills and $3,148 (£2,007) in unpaid tax. The security van disappeared after stopping outside Lloyds Bank, in Felixstowe, in January 1993 Assets listed on the court papers included a rifle and digital camera valued at $170 (£108) and a 1997 Mercury Mountaineer car valued at $1,700 (£1,083). He was working as a broadband technician and earned $1,896 (£1,208) a month. His monthly expenses totalled more than $1,807 (£1,151). 'Financial management' course The papers also revealed Mr Maher and his family regularly moved home. Between May 2007 and September 2010, they lived in three addresses within the Ozark area. After being declared bankrupt in November 2010, Mr Maher was forced to complete a course in "personal financial management" on 13 December 2010. Police in America arrested Mr Maher after receiving an anonymous tip-off that he was a "fugitive wanted in England". Papers from a US District Court, in Springfield, Missouri, revealed Mr Maher cannot afford a lawyer. Suffolk police is looking to start extradition proceedings to bring Mr Maher back to the UK.

Let’s clear up a few things about Whitney Houston.

 

 First of all, she left a last will and testament. It was drawn up after her divorce from Bobby Brown, according to my sources. Daughter Bobbi Kristina is her likely main heir. Despite dire reports, Houston also was not bankrupt or broke. Even though she didn’t have a publishing legacy–others wrote her songs–she did have money from album sales and touring. She likely had advances, too, from various deals with Sony (formerly Sony BMG) dating from 2000. She made a lot of money–at least $35 million gross–from touring Europe and Asia in 2010. Sony is shipping and selling millions of her records right now. And while there may not be a lot in the vaults of unreleased material, there will be enough to do some kind of souvenir album. Her estate in Mendham, New Jersey has been on the market for three years. Yesterday, the price was dropped to $1.7 million. “The property is amazing,” says a friend. “Someone will buy it and remodel it.”  The gated home comes with an Olympic sized swimming pool that at one time bore a large “W” scripted on its bottom. Mostly, Houston had been dividing her time between Atlanta and Los Angeles. Some other things to note: Houston was not scheduled to sing at the Clive Davis party on Saturday. She was merely there as a guest and cheerleader. As I reported on Saturday night– on Thursday she spent the morning and early afternoon with musical director Ricky Minor and Monica and Brandy. Minor reported that she’d been swimming and was in a good mood. Press saw her on Thursday with Davis and the singers. I was staying in the very same Beverly Hilton Hotel. The sense that Whitney was wildly partying all over the place has been conveyed by the tabloids. It’s just not true. What she did at night outside the hotel is another story. And then there was the exclusive story we reported here about the leak on Friday night from her room into the one below. The man in the suite below her saw water cascade through his bathroom ceiling at 2:30am. When he went upstairs, he found that the bathtub had been left on and was overflowing. Bobbi Kristina, 18, was not taking a bath at that hour. But she was awake, and the television in the room with the overflowing bathtub was cracked.

Serbian fugitive Dobrosav Gavric, Russian Igor Russol and Moroccan Houssain Ait Taleb have made appearances in the Cape Town Magistrate's Court.

 

 They have all been branded by police as underworld figures with links to organised crime. Yesterday, community safety MEC Dan Plato said he was concerned about these developments. "I am worried about the fact that so many high-profile underworld figures are involved in Cape Town. I am worried about the number of foreign nationals involved in organised crime in Cape Town. "My question is: why are all these foreign people heading for Cape Town, doing their business in Cape Town and finding Cape Town so cosy and appropriate?" Plato said new names of underworld figures were daily being added to the list "known to us". The latest high-profile case involves local businessmen Mark Lifman and André Naudé, who both allegedly ran Specialised Protection Services, providing security to Cape Town nightclubs, without the necessary permits. On Friday, Naudé, the company's CEO, was released on R1000 bail after handing himself over to police. A warrant of arrest has been issued against Lifman, who is in China on business. Charges against 13 of the company's bouncers, including Taleb, were dropped last week. Yesterday, Russol appeared in court accused of extorting R600000 and a Porsche Cayenne from businesses in and around Cape Town. His bail application was postponed to tomorrow. Next month, Gavric is set to appear in court on two cases. He is accused of fraudulently entering South Africa in 2007 and is also facing extradition to Serbia, where he has to serve a 35-year jail sentence for three murders. The Serb was driving Cyril Beeka when Beeka was killed in a drive-by shooting last year. Beeka, too, has been branded an underworld figure. He is also said to have had links to SA Secret Service boss Moe Shaik. Last week, Western Cape police commissioner Lieutenant-General Arno Lamoer told parliament that drugs with a street value of R12-billion had been confiscated in the province since April , and that this was just the tip of the iceberg. Plato said that though police had managed to prevent drugs from finding their way into the provinces via the roads, the ports were "wide open". He said: "We heard through the grapevine that [some] underground figures are also responsible for drug trafficking. "We're dealing with high-profile, professional and sophisticated gang and drug bosses and we need people to outplay them. I do not believe the SAPS in its current format is in that position," he said. Plato said this was a clear indication that specialised police units should be reinstated. Plato said he had met Lifman and businessman Jerome Booysen, who have both been linked to the underworld. Booysen has been fingered in court as a possible suspect in the Beeka murder. He has also been linked to Specialised Protection Services and suspected of being a leader of the Sexy Boys gang. Both men, Plato said, wanted to clear their names and insisted they were not involved in crime. He admitted that he had been criticised for meeting the two, but said it was the right thing to do. "Many are saying: 'Don't speak to gangsters.' My take is, if we are not going to start speaking to these people, who is going to talk to them? Who is going to change their mindsets? "Booysen is the president of the Belhar Rugby Football Club. He deals with vulnerable youngsters. It was appropriate for me to face him and challenge him. But he said: 'I'm not giving them drugs'." Plato said Lifman had denied being linked to the murder of Yuri "the Russian" Ulianitski. Ulianitski was killed in a late-night ambush that also claimed the life of his four-year-old daughter, Yulia, in May 2007. After meeting Plato, Lifman left the country. Lawyer William Booth confirmed a warrant of arrest had been issued against him. Hawks spokesman McIntosh Polela said the elite unit had embarked on a "crackdown on the security industry in Cape Town".

Member of Bojovic\'s group wanted for war crime

 

The request for Spain to extradite Luka Bojovic, Vladimir Milisavljevic and Sinisa Petric will contain documents and evidence accusing them of crimes that have not yet been investigated officially, the Serbian Justice Ministry told Tanjug on Tuesday. The files will contain material used as the basis for preliminary criminal proceedings against Petric on suspicion that he led a platoon during the NATO bombing in 1999, which killed more than 90 ethnic Albanian convicts at a prison. Petric disappeared in 2003, and the preliminary criminal proceedings for the war crime were started by the Office of the War Crimes Prosecutor, based on the criminal charges filed by the Humanitarian Law Centre. The warrant issued by the Serbian Interpol, which caused his arrest in Spain, was issued on Petric because he has to serve a 15-year prison sentence. He has served less than 5 years of that. Petric was sentenced to death in Serbia, because he killed a family of three in 1994, during a robbery he committed as a member of Marinko Magda's group. The sentence was later changed to 15 years in prison and he was sent to the prison in Pozarevac, eastern Serbia. From Pozarevac, he was moved together with 11 other convicts serving time for the most serious offences to the Dubrava prison in Kosovo, and it is suspected that weapons arrived at the prison together with them. The prosecutor's office is investigating whether they killed the ethnic Albanian prisoners after being promised freedom in return. All incriminating evidence in possession of the war crimes prosecutor will be delivered to Spain along with other documentation and the extradition request, because it is required so that he could be prosecuted for the war crime as well after he is extradited. According to the Council of Europe Convention on Extradition, when an accused is extradited, he can no longer be tried for crimes that were not mentioned in the extradition request. For now, Bojovic is wanted by Serbia based only on the organized crime prosecutor's indictment, where he is described as the heir of the dead leaders of the Zemun Clan and suspected of three murders and two attempted murders. Milisavljevic is wanted in order to serve a 40-year prison sentence for crimes committed as a member of the Zemun Clan and another 30 years for involvement in the assassination of Serbia's former prime minister Zoran Djindjic in 2003. He is also wanted for taking part in the murders that Bojovic is accused of. Bojovic, Milisavljevic and Petric were arrested in Valencia on February 9 based on a warrant by the Serbian Interpol. Vladimir Mijanovic, who was best man at Bojovic's wedding, was arrested with them, but Serbia has issued no warrant on him and he was not detained by the Spanish police.

It looks as though Whitney had got to a stage where she was using Xanax like clockwork. “Mixed with alcohol, it is known to be a killer. It’s the same deadly combination that killed Heath Ledger.”

 

DETECTIVES will quiz up tonine doctors they believe could have supplied Whitney Houston with a lethal cocktail of prescription drugs. The superstar singer died in her hotel bath on Saturday after taking a host of powerful sedatives. And last night, sources claimed her drug taking had spiralled out of control in recent months, turning her into a virtual “zombie”. The 48-year-old had become a tortured recluse, regularly spending most of the day in bed before emerging in the evenings to party. Police are now anxious to find out how a recovering crack addict with a long history of drug and alcohol abuse was able to get hold of such a vast quantity of pills. A source said: “The only way Whitney could function was on a cocktail of different drugs – uppers, downers, sleeping pills, painkillers, a whole medicine cabinet. “She was living like a zombie – always on medication. The more she took, the more she needed. “With alcohol in the mix, this was a tragedy waiting to happen. But she needed quite a network to obtain drugs in that kind of number.” Officers will begin their probe at the infamous Mickey Fine pharmacy in Beverly Hills, where Michael Jackson got his prescription drugs. It’s believed at least some of Whitney’s medication was obtained there. Bottles of Lorazepam, Valium and Xanax were found in her suiteat the Beverly Hilton Hotel. All three are used to treat anxiety disorders, while Valium can also ease alcohol withdrawal symptoms and muscle spasms. It’s thought Whitney was also taking painkillers and sleeping pills. Police and the LA county coroner are working on the premise that a combination of drugs and alcohol caused the star to become heavily sedated or overdose – ultimately leading to her death. It’s also possible that she suffered a heart attack caused by an adverse reaction to her medication. An autopsy was performed on Sunday but officials said they wouldn’t have any definitive answers until drug tests are completed in several weeks. Another theory was that the singer took sedatives, fell asleep and drowned in the tub. Police say Whitney was found underwater and unconscious. But the coroner told her family there was not enough water in her lungs to conclude that she had drowned. Detectives are expected to treat the investigation the same way they handled Michael Jackson’s death. They discovered dozens of doctors were supplying the King of Pop with different prescription drugs. Jackson’s personal physician, Conrad Murray – who administered the fatal dose of hospital anaesthetic Propofol – was later found guilty of manslaughter. Yesterday, it emerged that Whitney had visited a doctor at a private clinic in Beverly Hills just two days before she died. US X Factor winner Melanie Amaro revealed that she bumped into Whitney at the surgery on Thursday. Whitney is also known to have visited other private clinics on February 7 and February 2 – and it’s possible that she visited other doctors as well. It’s thought police will also probe whether she used friends, staff or hangers-on to get prescriptions in their own names and then hand over the pills. Detectives are piecing together Whitney’s physical and emotional state before she died. She seemed to have slid back to the days when she and husband Bobby Brown regularly abused drugs and alcohol in week-long party binges. On Thursday night, Whitney looked wild-eyed and dishevelled as she left Hollywood’s Tru nightclub, where she joined revellers at a bash thrown by American singer Kelly Price. She had scratches on her wrist and blood running down a leg and witnesses say she reeked of booze, sweat and cigarettes. Whitney downed tequila at the party and went berserk when she saw her on-off toyboy lover, singer and actor Ray J, 31, talking to another girl. One witness said the former powerhouse vocalist who sold more than 170million albums worldwide seemed “wasted”. A music industry source said: “It looks as though Whitney had got to a stage where she was using Xanax like clockwork. “Mixed with alcohol, it is known to be a killer. It’s the same deadly combination that killed Heath Ledger.”

Pattaya's foreign criminals feel the heat

 

 

This is why the Provincial Region 2 has established the Transnational Crime Coordination Centre (TNCC) to deal directly with foreigners who come to Thailand to commit crimes. The existence of the centre has shed some light on how diverse the transnational gangs in Pattaya are and how their illegal businesses in this tourist centre have flourished. French nationals Nagim Hassainia, 33, and Samir Raihane, 41, who are suspects in a credit card fraud case, were arrested on Feb 2. The suspects were nabbed at a hotel in Pattaya after police found them withdrawing money from an ATM using forged credit cards containing information stolen from other countries. They sent 70% of the money back to their networks in France and took the rest of the money, the TNCC said. At least 10 members of the French gang are thought to be still on the loose. Some of them are responsible for stealing credit card information and ATM pins using a skimmer. Police seized 31 fake credit cards and 125,000 baht from the suspects. "This case could cause serious damage to Thailand's reputation," said Pol Lt Gen Panya Mamen, chief of the the Provincial Police Region 2. He said there were many foreign criminals on Pattaya's streets _ and one way to better deal with them was to improve the capacity of the TNCC, especially its ability to gather information and put it into the police database. "I have to admit there are a lot of foreign criminals who are tourists in disguise. Some are here to work with their Thai counterparts, while others act on their own," Pol Lt Gen Panya said. "Some are paedophiles. Others are criminals wanted by police in other countries yet come here pretending to be language teachers. All this makes Pattaya sound like a horrible city." Pol Lt Gen Panya hoped the Provincial Police Region 2 would achieve its goal of significantly decreasing the number of "unwanted visitors" in Pattaya within six months. The Provincial Police Region 2 is also stepping up efforts to strictly enforce the Immigration Act in which foreign suspects who are found to have criminal records or believed to be involved in a crime will have their visa nullified immediately and be extradited. These suspects will also be blacklisted by Thai immigration authorities. "They normally move around from Pattaya to Phuket, Koh Samui, Chiang Mai and then return to Pattaya again. If we can pool information, it will become easier to track them," Pol Lt Gen Panya said. Different gangs committed different crimes, ranging from theft to murder, he said. Pol Lt Gen Panya said some French gangs were known to be involved with fake credit cards and ATM cards. He said some Colombian gangs were involved with theft, whereas some Taiwanese gangs were linked to call centre scams. Pol Lt Col Chitdecha Songhong and Pol Capt Prajakpong Suriya of the TNNC, who arrested members of a French gang, agreed that inter-agency cooperation was crucial to uprooting a transnational gang. Pol Capt Prajakpong said it was difficult to locate foreign suspects even if police had pictures of them because they were frequently on the move and it was not easy to find information about them. "Pattaya is a popular criminal base because it's a hub of tourists and expatriates and the city has a lot of diamond and gold shops," he said. "The city also has many unregistered or illegal residential services which allow those criminals to stay here and hide away from immigration authorities." The TNNC is working with embassy officials in Pattaya and local banks to keep an eye on foreigners who come to the city to commit crimes.

Whitney Houston dead: coroner confirms singer was found in hotel bathtub

 

Police requested that no details about the singer's autopsy be publicly released, Assistant Chief Coroner Ed Winter told reporters on Sunday afternoon. He said toxicology results would take weeks and the results were needed to determine how Houston died. Dr Winter declined to release any details about what investigators found in the room, but said coroner's officials were not ruling out any potential causes of death. He said there were no signs of trauma on Houston's body. Detective investigating the death of Whitney Houston on the eve of the Grammy Awards are pursuing a theory that she accidentally drowned in the bath in her luxury hotel suite after taking prescription drugs and drinking heavily over the previous two evenings.

"He's Only Done Good for Us," Says Son of Alleged International Fugitive Found Hiding in Ozark,

 

"Fast" Eddie Maher's son speaks out exclusively to KSPR following the arrest of his dad, 20 years after the alleged crime spree began. February 08, 2012|Reporter: Lauren Matter, Photographer: Kuba Wuls | lmatter@kspr.com, kwuls@kspr.com 'Fast' Eddie Maher is currently in federal custody under immigration charges. Authorities believe in 1993 he stole $1.5 million during a bank robbery and fled. He was on the run until his arrest Wednesday morning in Ozark, MO. And now, Maher's son is speaking out only to KSPR News about his father's arrest. Lee King says it was one phone call from his mom that turned his life upside down. Not only did he find out his dad has allegedly been on the run for two decades, King found out he has a different last name, he's two years older than he thought and was born in the UK, a few years before this alleged crime spree started. "My dad is one of the nicest guys you'll meet, he's only ever done what's good for us," King says. King says the man he knows as his father wouldn't commit this crime.

Sun newspaper 'will continue' says Rupert Murdoch

 

News International owner Rupert Murdoch has said he is committed to publishing the Sun newspaper, following the arrest of five of its employees. They were among eight people arrested over alleged corrupt payments to police and public servants. A Surrey Police officer, a member of the armed forces and a Ministry of Defence employee were also arrested. Sun editor Dominic Mohan said he was "shocked" by the arrests but pledged to continue to lead the paper. The BBC understands picture editor John Edwards, chief reporter John Kay, chief foreign correspondent Nick Parker, reporter John Sturgis and associate editor Geoff Webster were arrested as part of the Operation Elveden probe into payments to police. The arrests marked a widening out of the operation to include the investigation of evidence in relation to suspected corruption involving public officials who are not police officers. News International chief executive Tom Mockridge issued a memo to Sun staff, which said: "The Sun has a proud history of delivering ground-breaking journalism.

Rupert Murdoch flies into London as five Sun journalists arrested over alleged corruption

 

The journalists, including The Sun’s deputy editor, were detained at dawn as part of the Metropolitan police investigation into corruption of public officials. A serving officer with the Armed forces and his wife, who is a Ministry of Defence official, were also arrested at an address in Wiltshire. It is the first time the Armed Forces have been drawn into the widespread police inquiry launched following phone hacking revelations at The Sun’s now defunct sister title The News of the World. One source suggested Mr Murdoch’s decision to come to the UK was in order to reassure news international staff about the tycoon’s support for a newspaper that he is said to cherish above all others in his media empire. The latest arrests follow the detention just a fortnight ago of four senior Sun executives, for allegedly bribing police. In total, ten Sun journalists have been arrested over alleged corruption.

drug gang threatened to kill an officer per day

 

2,000 police are hunkering down in hotels in Mexico's most violent city of Ciudad Juarez after a drug gang threatened to kill an officer per day if their chief refused to resign. Eleven police officers, including four commanders, have already been killed in the city across from El Paso, Texas, since the start of the year. The city's mayor this week ordered police to use several local hotels as temporary barracks to protect themselves from attacks on the way home from work in the city at the heart of Mexican drug violence that has left 50,000 dead in five years. Mayor Hector Murguia said Tuesday that they would stay in hotels for at least three months, with 1.5 million dollars put aside to pay for it. Murguia stood by his police chief, Julian Leyzaola, a controversial former soldier who has also been asked to resign by human rights groups for his alleged heavy-handed policing. "The chances that he (Leyzaola) resigns or that they force him to resign are zero percent," the mayor told journalists. At the entrance to the Rio motel, on Las Torres avenue, several patrols stand guard to protect access to the improvised barracks, as others monitor vehicles passing by. Last week, several banners signed by the "New Cartel of Juarez" appeared around the city of 1.3 million, to announce the killing of a police officer each day as long as Leyzaola stayed in charge of the local police. Some of the messages also accused the police chief of protecting another group, "New Generation," allied to powerful Sinaloa drug cartel of fugitive billionaire Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman. According to the mayor, the threats only showed how concerned the drug gangs were in the face of Leyzaola. Murders fell to less than 2,000 in the city in 2011 -- the year Leyzaola took control -- from 3,100 in 2010. Key leaders of city gangs like the "Aztecas" were also captured. Leyzaola already provoked controversy when he led police in another Mexican border city, Tijuana in northwest Mexico. Authorities lauded him for reducing crime there but organizations such as Amnesty International sought to put him on trial for the alleged torture of prisoners, backed by witness accounts from at least 25 police. Since Leyzaola took over the local police in Ciudad Juarez in March 2011, the Chihuahua state human rights commission has recorded 37 complaints against him, including for abuse of authority and arbitrary detentions. Gustavo de la Rosa, a commission member, told AFP that the police "were told to arrest anyone who looked like a criminal or became nervous on seeing someone in uniform." The business community of Ciudad Juarez -- the base of almost 20 percent of Mexico's manufacturing industry -- support the police chief, however. "It's clear that we have to stop the violence continuing, particularly murders of police. We have to look for means to reinforce the local police," said Alejandro Seade, director of the city's chamber of commerce.

Twenty seconds of shooting, 432 bullets, five dead policemen.

 

 Four of the corpses are sprawled over a shiny new Dodge Ram pickup truck that has been pierced so many times it resembles a cheese grater. The bodies are contorted in the unnatural poses of the dead - arms arched over spines, legs spread out sideways. The bloodied fifth man is lying three metres from the pickup. His eyes are wide open, his right hand stretched upward clasping a 9mm pistol - a death pose that could have been set up for a Hollywood film. It is a balmy evening in Culiacan, Sinaloa, near Mexico's Pacific Coast. The policemen had stopped at a red light when the gunmen attacked, shooting from the side and back, unleashing bullets in split seconds. A customized Kalashnikov can fire 100 rounds in 10 seconds. This is a lightning war. I arrive 10 minutes after the shooting and a crowd of onlookers is already thickening. "That one is a Kalashnikov bullet. That one is from an AR15," says a skinny boy in a baseball cap, pointing at a long silvery shell next to a shorter gold one. Besides them, middle-aged couples, old men and mothers with small children gawk at the morbid display. The local press corps huddles together, checking photos on their viewfinders. They are relaxed, cheery; this is their daily bread. A battered Ford Focus speeds through the crowd. The wife of one of the victims jumps out and starts screaming hysterically. Her swinging arms are held back by her brother, his eyes red with tears. It is only when I see the pained look on their faces that the loss of human life really sinks in. Anyone with half an eye on the news knows that Mexico is in the midst of a drug war, with rival cartels battling for control of a multibillion-dollar trade in the United States. The country is so deep in blood it is getting harder to shock the locals. Even the kidnapping and killing of nine policemen, or a pile of craniums in a town plaza, isn't big news. Only the most sensational atrocities now grab media attention: a grenade attack on revellers celebrating Independence Day; an old silver mine filled with 56 decaying corpses, some of the victims thrown in alive; the kidnapping and shooting of 72 migrants, including a pregnant woman. In the five years of President Felipe Calderon's administration, the government admitted earlier this month, the drug war has claimed 47,500 lives, including 3,000 public servants - policemen, soldiers, judges, mayors and dozens of federal officials. Such a murder rate compares to the most lethal insurgent forces in the world - and is certainly more deadly than Hamas, Eta, or the IRA in its entire three decades of armed struggle. The nature of the attacks is even more intimidating. Mexican gangsters regularly shower police stations with bullets and rocket-propelled grenades; they carry out mass kidnappings of officers and leave their mutilated bodies on public display; they even kidnapped one mayor, tied him up and stoned him to death on a main street. I originally travelled to Latin America with the goal of being a foreign correspondent in exotic climes. The Oliver Stone film Salvador inspired me with its story of reporters dodging bullets in the Central American civil wars. But by the turn of the millennium, the days of military dictators and communist insurgents were no more. We were now, apparently, in a golden age of democracy and free trade. I arrived in Mexico in 2000 the day before Vicente Fox, the former Coca-Cola executive president, was sworn into office, ending 71 years of rule by the Institutional Revolutionary Party. This was a titanic moment in Mexican history, a seismic shift in its political plates, a time of optimism and celebration. The clique who ravaged the country and lined their pockets for most of the 20th century had fallen from power. Ordinary Mexicans looked forward to enjoying the fruit of their hard work along with freedom and human rights. In the first years of the decade, no one saw the crisis ahead. The American media heaped high expectations on the cowboy-boot-wearing Fox as he entertained Kofi Annan and became the first Mexican to address a joint U.S. session of Congress. The first wave of serious cartel warfare began in the autumn of 2004 on the border with Texas and spread across the country. When Calderon took power in 2006 and declared war on these gangs, the violence multiplied overnight. The same system that promised Mexico hope was weak in controlling the most powerful mafias on the continent. The old regime may have been corrupt and authoritarian, but it could manage organized crime by taking down a token few gangsters and taxing the rest. Mexico's drug war is inextricably linked to the democratic transition. Its special-force soldiers became mercenaries for gangsters. Businessmen who used to pay off corrupt officials had to pay off mobsters. Police forces turned on one another - sometimes breaking into shootouts. Following the rise of the Mexican drug cartels has been a surreal - and tragic - journey. I have stumbled up mountains where drugs are born as pretty flowers; dined with lawyers who represent the biggest capos on the planet; and I got drunk with American undercover agents who infiltrate the cartels. I also sped through city streets to see too many bleeding corpses - and heard the words of too many mothers who had lost their sons, and with them their hearts. I have met the assassins, too; men like Jose Antonio from Ciudad Juarez, probably the most murderous city on the planet - just 11 kilometres from the border with the U.S. Jose stands just five foot six and has chocolate coloured skin, earning the nickname "frijol" or bean. He has a mop of black curly hair and bad acne, like many 17-year-olds. But despite his harmless demeanour, he has seen more killings than many soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. Frijol came of age in a war zone. When Mexico's two most powerful gangs, the Zetas and Sinaloa cartels, began fighting in 2004, he was just 12 and joined a street gang in his slum. At 14, he was already involved in armed robberies, drug dealing and regular gun battles with rival gangs. At 16, police nabbed him for possession of a small arsenal of weapons and being an accessory to a drug-related murder. Frijol is typical of thousands of teenagers and young men. His parents hail from a country village, but joined the wave of immigrants that flocked to work in Juarez. They sweated on production lines making Japanese TV sets, American cosmetics and mannequins, for an average of $6 a day. It was a step up from growing corn in their village. But it was also a radical change in their lives. Frijol's parents still celebrated peasant folk days and macho country values. But he grew up in a sprawling city of 1.3 million where he could tune into American TV and see the skyscrapers of El Paso over the river. Contraband goods and guns flooded south and drugs went north. He was in between markets and in between worlds. While Frijol's parents slaved for long days in the factories, he was left for hours at home alone. He soon found company as part of a Juarez street gang or "barrio," the Calaberas, or skulls. "The gang becomes like your home, your family. It is where you find friendship and people to talk to. It is where you feel part of something. And you know the gang will back you up if you are in trouble." These barrios had been in Juarez for decades. New generations filled the ranks while veterans grew out of them. They had always fought rival gangs with sticks, stones, knives and guns. But a radical change occurred when the barrios were swept up into the wider drug cartel war. Frijol learned to use guns in the Calaberas. Arms moved around Juarez streets freely and every barrio had its arsenal. "There was a guy who had been in the barrio a few years before and was now working with the big people," explains Frijol. "He started offering jobs to the youngsters. The first jobs were just as lookouts or guarding tienditas (little drug shops). Then they started paying people to do the big jobs ... to kill." I ask how much the mafia pays to carry out murders. Frijol says one thousand pesos - about $77. The figure seems so ludicrous that I ask other active and former gang members. The price of a human life in Juarez is just $77. To traffic drugs is no huge step to the dark side. All kinds of people move narcotics and don't feel they crossed a red line. But to take a life for what amounts to enough to buy some tacos and a few beers over the week shows a terrifying degradation in society. I ask Frijol what it is like to be in fire fights, to see your friends die and to be an accessory to a murder. He answers unblinking. "Being in shootouts is pure adrenalin. But you see dead bodies and you feel nothing. There is killing every day. Some days, there are 10 executions; other days, there are 30. It is just normal now." I speak to Elizabeth Villegas, a psychologist. The teenagers with whom she works have murdered and raped. I ask, how does this hurt them psychologically? She stares at me as if she has not thought about it before. "They don't feel anything," she replies. "They just don't understand the pain that they have caused others. Most come from broken families. They don't recognize rules or limits." The teenagers know that, under Mexican law, minors can be sentenced to a maximum of only five years in prison no matter how many murders, kidnappings or rapes they have committed. Many convicted killers will be back on the streets before they turn 20. Frijol himself will be out when he is 19. But the law is the least of their worries; the mafias administer their own justice. Juarez cartel gunmen went to neighbourhoods where gang members had been recruited for the Sinaloans. It didn't matter that only two or three kids from the barrio had joined the mob; a death sentence was passed on the whole barrio. The Sinaloan mafia returned the favour on barrios that had joined the Juarez Cartel. Frijol recognizes that youth prison may be hard. But it is a lot safer there than on the streets now. "I keep hearing about friends who have been killed out there. Maybe I would be dead too. Prison could have saved my life." On the streets of Mexico, death was never far away. Five sources whose interviews helped to shape my book were later murdered or disappeared. One of them, the Honduran anti-drug chief Julian Aristides Gonzalez, gave me an interview in his office in the capital Tegucigalpa. The officer chatted for hours about the growth of Mexican drug gangs in Central America and the Colombians who provide them with narcotics. In his office were 140 kilos of seized cocaine and piles of maps and photographs showing clandestine landing strips and narco mansions. I was impressed by how open and frank Gonzalez was about his investigations and the political corruption they showed. Four days later, he gave a news conference showing his latest discoveries. Next day, he dropped his sevenyear-old daughter off at school. Assassins drove past on a motorcycle and fired 11 bullets into him. It turned out he had planned to retire in two months and move his family to Canada.

ruling on how much money will be confiscated from the ringleader of an international drugs gang that was based in Wiltshire is due next week.

 

Police believe David Barnes made as much as £29m from illegal activities and want to seize it under the Proceeds of Crime Act.

Barnes, 42, of Berkshire, was convicted of conspiracy to supply Class B drugs and jailed for 12 years in 2010.

He appeared at Gloucester Crown Court on Friday, surrounded by armed police.

During the trial, Bristol Crown Court heard Barnes and seven other gang members were caught after 10 tonnes of skunk cannabis was found at a farm in Wanborough near Swindon in April 2009.

The gang had smuggled the cannabis into the UK among shipments of flowers such as tulips and chrysanthemums.

Ten tonnes of skunk cannabis was found at a farm in Wanborough near Swindon

It was then driven in lorries to Wiltshire.

Wiltshire Police said it was one of the largest drug distribution operations seen in the UK.

Barnes, from Hungerford, claimed in court that he only made £40,000 from the operation.

Police believe the gang transferred millions of pounds out of Britain by taking cash by car from Swindon to London.

From there a courier would go to a high street money bureau and wire the cash to bureaux in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Dubai.

It was then collected and the trail ends.

Judge Jamie Tabor is due to announce his ruling next Friday.

Four members of a criminal gang have been jailed for their role in one of the biggest alcohol smuggling frauds ever uncovered in Britain.

The complex scam was worth an estimated £50 million a year in unpaid duty and VAT and allowed the men to buy fast cars and luxury homes, investigators said.

They used their positions and contacts in the drinks trade to conceal dozens of truckloads of alcohol being moved into Britain without paying tax or duties in a scam known as diversion fraud.

 

Alcohol smugglers: Gary Clarke and Kevin Burrage were convicted of conspiracy to cheat the public revenue last month while Michael Turner and Davinder Dhaliwal pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to the same charges and fraudulent evasion of excise duty

 

Gang ringleader Kevin Burrage, 49, and Gary Clarke, 55, were convicted of conspiracy to cheat the public revenue last month following a three-month trial at Canterbury Crown Court.

Their accomplices, Michael Turner, 52, and Davinder Dhaliwal, 32, pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to the same charges and fraudulent evasion of excise duty.

 

 

Sentencing them, Judge Michael O'Sullivan said 'All four of you were involved in a criminal enterprise to cheat the revenue. Alcohol was diverted in the UK without paying duty or tax due to the revenue.'

Burrage, of Ravendale Way, Shoeburyness, Essex, was jailed for 10 years, and Clarke, of Maplin Way North, Thorpe Bay, Southend, was sentenced to six years, nine months behind bars.

Luxury: Bundles of cash were seized from the gang after they were found to splashing cash on luxury cars and homes

Turner, of Rendezvous Street, Folkestone, Kent, was jailed for three years, two months and Dhaliwal, of Langdale Gardens, Dartford, was sentenced to 16 months in prison.

Prosecutor Andrew Marshall said the scam heavily revolved around Promptstock Ltd, a bonded warehouse in Essex owned by Burrage.

Alcohol can be stored and moved between bonded warehouses within the EU without paying excise duties.

But once the business needs to release the alcohol to retailers the excise duty then becomes payable at the rates applicable in the host country.

Burrage's brother-in-law, Clarke, managed the warehouse which the pair used to import and export alcohol without paying a penny in tax.

The gang bought beer, wine and spirits from bonded warehouses in France and imported them duty-free into Britain, destined for Promptstock Ltd.

Once through Customs, the alcohol was illegally diverted to locations around the country where they were then sold on without duty being added.

Mr Marshall said 'What was planned and what took place was to cause enormous and continuous losses to the Revenue of millions of pounds and those losses were only stopped by their arrest.'

Over a 22-month period from January 2007, he said the total VAT and excise duty loss caused by the gang amounted to £7.49 million, but, quoting former US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, said there were 'known unknowns'.

HM Revenue and Customs officials said they believed the scam was worth around £50 million a year in losses to the Revenue.

Mr Marshall said 'Mr Burrage was the organiser and ringleader of all of this trade. It was fraudulent from the very start. It has an international element, controlling goods abroad and from abroad.'

There was a 'web of corrupt players' involved in the fraud, he added, including transport companies which diverted the loads from their intended destinations.

Mr Marshall went on 'It was not just transport companies but cash-and-carries, here and abroad, and some retailers, all of which undercut legitimate retailers and therefore imperil their businesses.'

Investigators said the gang also reversed the fraud by appearing to send lorries over to the Continent loaded with non-duty paid alcohol.

HMRC said the cargo of alcohol in fact remained in the UK and the alcohol was sold on, again with no tax added.

Turner owned Keytrades (Europe) Ltd which provided an apparently legitimate cover for the movements of the alcohol consignments.

Meanwhile, Dhaliwal operated as Burrage's right-hand man, and organised the delivery of large quantities of alcohol ready for their distribution.

Mr Marshall said the gang were responsible for 'professional offending' and made use of sophisticated concealment methods to try to hide their crimes.

In addition to the lost VAT and excise duty, he added that they ran the risk of alcohol being sold to children and falling into the hands of 'less than reputable' operations.

Senior Sun journalists arrested in police payments probe

 

Five Sun newspaper journalists have been arrested as part of Operation Elveden, the police inquiry into alleged inappropriate payments to public servants. Photograph: Martin Argles for the Guardian The Sun has been plunged into crisis following the arrest of five of its most senior journalists, including the deputy editor, over allegations of inappropriate payments to police and public officials. The five Sun journalists are understood to be: deputy editor Geoff Webster, picture editor John Edwards, chief reporter John Kay, chief foreign correspondent Nick Parker and reporter John Sturgis. The Sun's editor, Dominic Mohan, said: "I'm as shocked as anyone by today's arrests but am determined to lead the Sun through these difficult times. I have a brilliant staff and we have a duty to serve our readers and will continue to do that. Our focus is on putting out Monday's newspaper." A News International source said Mohan was "not resigning" but added that it was "obviously a dramatic day for him". Sky News reported that Rupert Murdoch is flying into the UK to reassure Sun staff that he will not close the paper in the wake of the latest arrests. The worsening crisis at the tabloid could have wider ramifications for the Murdoch media empire, according to some media experts. Clive Hollick, former chief executive of United Business Media, said the latest arrests could intensify the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act investigation into News Corp in the US. In a post on his Twitter account he added that the arrests "may lead to fines, director oustings and asset sales". He also suggested that the developments could lead to the broadcasting watchdog Ofcom review Murdoch's control of Sky television in the UK. Hollick tweeted: "Will Ofcom conclude that Sun arrests on top of hacking render NI not fit and proper to hold #Sky license and make them sell shareholding?" A Surrey police officer, 39, a Ministry of Defence employee, 39, and a member of the armed forces, 36, were also arrested at their homes on Saturday on suspicion of corruption, misconduct in a public office and conspiracy in relation to both. The new arrests at Britain's bestselling newspaper will further rock News International, which is still reeling from the closure of the Sun's sister title, the News of the World last year, after it emerged that journalists had hacked the phone of murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler. The journalists, aged between 45 and 68, were arrested at addresses in London, Kent and Essex on suspicion of corruption, aiding and abetting misconduct in a public office, and conspiracy in relation to both these offences. They are being questioned at police stations in London and Kent. News Corporation, the parent company of News International which owns the Sun and the Times, confirmed that five Sun staff were among those arrested today. It said its Management and Standards Committee (MSC) had provided information to the Elveden investigation which led to the arrests and had also provided the option of "immediate legal representation" to those arrested. "News Corporation remains committed to ensuring that unacceptable news-gathering practices by individuals in the past will not be repeated and last summer authorised the MSC to co-operate with the relevant authorities," it said. "The MSC will continue to ensure that all appropriate steps are taken to protect legitimate journalistic privilege and sources, private or personal information and legal privilege. "News Corporation maintains its total support to the ongoing work of the MSC and is committed to making certain that legitimate journalism is vigorously pursued in both the public interest and in full compliance with the law." The arrests come two weeks after four former and current Sun journalists and a serving Metropolitan police officer were arrested over alleged illegal police payments. Senior Sun employees Chris Pharo, 42, and Mike Sullivan, along with former executives Fergus Shanahan, 57, and Graham Dudman, were named by sources as suspects facing corruption allegations. All five were released on bail. Surrey police confirmed a serving officer was arrested at the officer's home address on Saturday as part of Operation Elveden. A spokesman said: "Surrey police has been working closely with Operation Elveden since it was established in 2011, with a number of its officers seconded to the [Metropolitan Police Service] to assist with the investigations. "On learning about the involvement of one of its officers, the force immediately referred the matter to the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC)." Assistant Chief Constable Jerry Kirkby said: "The force takes matters of this nature extremely seriously and we will not hesitate to respond robustly to allegations where there is evidence to support them." Deborah Glass, deputy chair of the IPCC, said: "Today's arrests are further evidence of the strenuous efforts being undertaken to identify police officers who may have taken corrupt payments." The MoD refused to comment. Officers from Operation Elveden made the arrests between 6am and 8am as part of the investigation into allegations of inappropriate payments to police and public officials. Operation Elveden, which runs alongside the Met's Operation Weeting team, was launched as the phone-hacking scandal erupted last July with allegations about the now-defunct News of the World targeting Milly Dowler's mobile phone. Its remit has widened to include the investigation of evidence uncovered in relation to suspected corruption involving public officials who are not police officers. All home addresses of all eight detained men are being searched and officers are also carrying out searches at the offices of News International in Wapping, east London, the Metropolitan police said. " larger | smaller Media The Sun · News Corporation · News International · Rupert Murdoch · Dominic Mohan · Ofcom · Newspapers & magazines · National newspapers · Newspapers · Media business · US press and publishing · US television industry UK news Ministry of Defence World news United States Television & radio US television More news More on this story Operation Elveden and Operation Weeting: the full list of arrests 30 people have been arrested so far in police investigations into phone hacking and payments to officers Leveson inquiry: James Harding, Dominic Mohan, Baroness Buscombe Leveson inquiry: Sun editor recalled for questioning on Page 3 Sun journalists think Murdoch doesn't care for them any longer Rupert Murdoch cuts off Wapping? Sun arrests show that News Corp is now at war with itself Printable version Send to a friend Share Clip Contact us

Rajina Rita Subramaniam jailed for $45m luxury spree

 

A TRUSTED accountant who fleeced $45 million from financial group ING Holdings has been jailed for at least seven years. Rajina Rita Subramaniam splurged the money on lavish products, including jewellery which she never wore, and numerous expensive properties, all of which remained vacant except for one, for which she did not charge rent. In sentencing her in the NSW District Court in Sydney today, Judge Michael Finnane described as "staggering" the sheer size of the amount she stole from ING over a five-year period. The 42-year-old, from Castle Hill in Sydney's northwest, pleaded guilty to 22 counts of obtaining benefits by deception and four counts of dealing with the proceeds of crime. When police went to her workplace, they found 21 boxes stored under her desk and nearby. "When these boxes were searched, police found large quantities of jewellery, fountain pens, champagne, crystal and Michael Jackson memorabilia," the judge said. "Much of the jewellery was still in boxes that had not been opened." The judge said that outwardly, Subramaniam was leading a normal life with her husband in a suburban house and none of the money was used to pay off any of their debt. "The agreed facts demonstrate that she became accepted as a wealthy woman and a very desirable customer of a number of large jewellery firms," the judge said. At times she would spend millions of dollars in a single lunch hour and she lavished gifts on the shop assistants. "Each of them received commissions for sales to her, and giving presents to them, in my opinion, is consistent with her wanting to be accepted and praised," Judge Finnane said. "Her gifts of $1.3 million to one shop assistant and something like $240,000 to another shop assistant are consistent with her wanting to be loved and accepted." The judge said everything she did in stealing the money and using the proceeds "points to someone who got gratification from being able to be thought of as wealthy and generous". He referred to her having frequent sex with an ING supervisor and to her husband's statement that he joined in the sexual activity, which sometimes happened between them in motel rooms or at their home. Subramaniam claimed to police that the frequent sexual intercourse she had with the employee at work was part of her ill treatment by staff. "She claims that part of the reason for engaging in fraud was resentment towards ING and her wanting revenge," the judge said. The judge said while the sexual activity may have been abusive in her mind, it appeared to have been consensual. While she was not mentally ill, she had mental disorders that needed intensive counselling, he added. He set a maximum term of 15 years.

Two arrested in connection with Cabopino stabbing

 

Two people have been arrested in connection with the stabbing to death of a man whose body was found in Cabopino in the early hours of Tuesday week. The 26 year old received three stab wounds in his back after an argument in a bar. Diario Sur reports that two arrests have been made but that the investigation remains open. Police will have to establish which one of the two arrested men was the main player in the aggression. It seems there was an argument at about 1,20am close to the Bar Mesón 24 horas in Marbella, and it was the waiter there who called the police after finding an injured man on the ground. An ambulance went to the scene, but the medics could do nothing to save the victim who had suffered three stab wounds and a blow to the head. The victim was of Ecuadorian origin but had Spanish nationality and lived in a nearby urbanisation. The waiter said that the victim did not want any problems with the two men, and even invited them in the bar to a ‘chupito’. He said that he thought the group went outside to smoke. Robbery could have been a motive, and the victim was found without his wallet and mobile phone.

Investigators found shotguns and machine guns, inch-wide metal bars guarding doors and windows, the secret room under the floor, and a hidden elevator that led to an underground bunker and an unfinished tunnel.

Eugene Paull heard the beep.

In his three-story home east of Brooksville, Paull was lying on his bed that morning last March when the security system sounded. He rolled over and glanced at two nearby TVs wired to a dozen videocameras. Law enforcement officers swarmed across his property.

Seconds before the 66-year-old could slip into a secret room he had nicknamed the "worm hole," the SWAT team caught him.

Investigators found shotguns and machine guns, inch-wide metal bars guarding doors and windows, the secret room under the floor, and a hidden elevator that led to an underground bunker and an unfinished tunnel.

On Tuesday, Hernando County investigators released details of their stunning investigation for the first time. Paull, an international criminal on the run since 1973, had lived under a false identity for 33 years. He would later tell investigators he had come to Hernando because he felt safe and hidden and free to build his fortress.

Authorities believe he had amassed a fortune from trafficking drugs in Jamaica. But they could only prove that he and his girlfriend stole a pair of dead people's identities, the original tip from federal authorities that led to the raid. The couple avoided prison time because they forfeited most of their assets: two Hernando homes, three vehicles, two campers, a pair of custom motorcycles, a 47-foot yacht and nearly $20,000 in cash.

His girlfriend, Subrena Spence, was deported to her native Jamaica. Paull received two years of probation. He moved to Miami, but federal authorities say they recently caught him with explosives and about $90,000 in cash that was found stashed inside gas cans with false bottoms.

Tuesday morning, Hernando sheriff's Sgt. Jeff Kraft, who helped lead the investigation, stood at the escape tunnel's exit, shook his head and smiled.

"It's like nothing I've ever seen in all my years of law enforcement," Kraft said. "Ever."

• • •

Paull's career in crime began in 1968. Five years later, he was convicted on a drug charge, then released. He never showed up for the sentencing.

He fled to Jamaica, where investigators say the drug trafficking began. In 1978, he obtained a passport under the name of Robert Harris.

On the Caribbean island, he owned a hotel and supported youth boxing. He fell in love with a teenager, Subrena Spence. In 2000, she obtained a fake passport. Six years later, the couple moved to Hernando and bought the home near Brooksville for $350,000. They purchased another house in Brooksville for $114,900 four months later.

Detectives, who for 11 months have continued to investigate Paull's activities, believe he brought his drug fortune with him, and he needed a way to explain it. Spence bought a yacht, named Veteran, and claimed that he chartered trips on it. The boat still sits on stilts in his back yard. It never left the property.

He also created a charity that he claimed supported veterans. Paull, who served in Vietnam, was a patriot, or at least he wanted people to think so. His walls were covered in American flags and POW posters.

To support the charity, he bought a customized motorcycle, adorned with images of war, fake weapons and a sidecar that looked like the nose of a fighter jet.

He traveled to events around the country and asked for money. Signs in his garage indicated what he charged: $1 to photograph the bike, $5 to take a picture with it, $10 to take one sitting on it. "To help homeless veterans," the sign said, "with thanks."

In one year, Kraft said, Paull and Spence raised more than $100,000. Investigators could only confirm that the couple gave $1,300 to veterans.

After being arrested and forced to take on his real identity, Paull became eligible to receive veterans benefits.

• • •

Paull, detectives say, knew law enforcement would come for him one day. To prepare, he bought a home at the end of a single-lane dirt road in one of the most remote areas of Hernando. The house, from the outside, looked normal. It had a gate with a call box. A brick driveway surrounded a 6-foot-tall fountain. He housed Rottweilers and built an aviary for his birds.

Clues of Paull's intended seclusion appeared in the back yard. He had stacks of firewood, the makings of a garden and a pond that held catfish and tilapia.

Inside the home, guns were hidden everywhere: an antique Vickers machine gun in the garage, a shotgun in a living room cabinet, a revolver in an empty can of Bon Ami cleanser.

He put in an intricate security system and sealed off the bottom of a spiral staircase to create a secret room the size of a closet. In his bedroom, Paull installed a mechanical elevator that could lower him into a concrete bunker equipped with lights, electrical outlets and a pair of heavy metal doors with dead bolts, presumably to lock behind him as he fled.

The bunker led to a 4-foot-wide plastic tube that extended into the back yard. He didn't like the small tunnels in Vietnam, so he made the pipes spacious. When finished, investigators say, the tunnel would have extended about 200 yards into the woods.

Last fall, soon after Paull received probation and sheriff's officials prepared to seize the home, Kraft met him in his front driveway as he prepared to leave. Paull talked about writing a book and said his life would be made into a movie one day.

Gangster 'Mad Dog' in savage beating of murder supergrass

 

A BRUTAL gangland thug was spared even more jail time after he admitted his role in a savage assault on a criminal who became a supergrass in a high profile murder trial. Crumlin gangster Ian 'Mad Dog' Maloney (25) repeatedly kicked Joey O'Brien in the head as he lay semi-conscious in Charlie's Restaurant, Dame Street, on January 4, 2009. sickening Maloney -- who was connected to 'Fat' Freddie Thompson's mob -- is currently serving a 12-year sentence for the €1.2m armed robbery of Paul Sheeran Jewellers in Dundrum Town Centre on September 3, 2008. Just four months after that robbery he subjected Joey O'Brien -- the State's 'star witness' in a murder trial last summer -- to a beating which a judge yesterday described as "sickening". Self-confessed Crumlin drug dealer O'Brien -- who is now in the witness protection programme -- gave the key testimony that helped secure the conviction of gangland killer Peter Kenny (30), from Rialto, for the savage murder of Johnny 'Champagne' Carroll in February, 2009. A source explained: "A lot of people want O'Brien dead -- there is a contract on his head. "Mad Dog hated him because he used to bully him when he was a young fella -- he was delighted to get a chance to batter him. "The beating that O'Brien got was very severe -- Maloney was calling him a rat as he danced on his head." Yesterday, Dublin Circuit Court heard O'Brien woke up the next morning in hospital with a broken jaw, smashed teeth and a broken eye socket. He was badly concussed and could not remember much about the attack. Pieter Le Vert, defending Maloney, submitted that his client has offered a full apology. He said Maloney's brother had died several years ago shortly after been released from garda custody and he blames the authorities for this. He said this led to his client starting to drink and use drugs before becoming involved in crime. Mr Le Vert said Maloney is now drug free and the recent birth of his son has "changed him entirely". Judge Nolan called it a "sickening assault" and said it appears Maloney inflicted most of the injuries. assault However, he said there is some hope he will reform and that he would not extend his prison term. He sentenced Maloney to four years to run alongside his current sentence. Mad Dog's friend, Jonathon Murray (22), was jailed for 18 months for his role in the assault. The court heard that Maloney has 73 previous convictions and Murray has 48, including four for drug dealing.

Canadian woman charged in Gadhafi smuggling plot

 

The Mount Forest, Ont., woman held in a Mexican jail since November in a suspected plot to smuggle Moammar Ghadafi's son and his family out of Libya has been charged with falsifying documents, organized crime and attempted human smuggling. The charges were laid the same day Cyndy Vanier's family released a letter outlining what she calls deplorable conditions endured in the Mexican jail where she is being detained. Vanier, 52, was picked up in Mexico, where she and her husband have a winter home, last Nov. 10 and held without charges until Tuesday when a judge ordered warrants against two women and two men for a suspected plot to whisk Saadi Gadhafi and his family to Mexico. Those four people were Vanier, a mediator specializing aboriginal dispute and president of Vanier Consulting, and three other arrested in the alleged plot. Vanier has been pointed to as the ring leader. The charges were outlined in a press release from Mexico's office of the attorney general, who said its investigation showed a group had attempted to smuggle Gadhafi's son and his family in July but failed. A decision was made to make a second attempt and use another aircraft company to move the Gadhafis. The charges include accusations of falsifying a passport, voter registration card and a birth certificate. A house was bought in Bahia de Banderas, Nayarit, Mexico, to hide the family. There was also an attempt to buy an apartment in St. Regis hotel in Mexico City. The allegations, unproven in court, were linked to the theft of 4,586 passports in 2009. The charges outlined in the news release are for human smuggling, organized crime and counterfeiting three official documents. Vanier and the other female suspect are being held in a federal prison in Chetumal, Quintana Roo. The men are in a facility in Veracruz. Vanier wrote in the letter released by her family that she has been abused and tortured while in custody. Until Wednesday, she had been held on a judge's order. Under Mexico's preventative arrest law, people can be held up to 90 days without charge as investigators gather enough evidence to charge them. Bail is uncommon and not available at all for people accused of serious crimes. Her Canadian lawyer, Paul Copeland, said there was no coincidence as to why the letter was released early Wednesday when Vanier was finally charged. The family had it in their possession for some time, but waited until the detention order was over "so not to prejudice the situation." A spokesman for Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Diane Ablonczy confirmed Vanier contacted the Canadian government to allege she'd been abused in Mexican custody. "Officials have received, but have not verified Ms. Vanier's allegations. Canadians officials are reviewing these allegations and will act accordingly," John Babcock said. "Ms. Vanier faces very serious allegations in Mexico including the falsification of documents, human trafficking and participating in organized crime. Canadian officials are providing her with consular assistance, but Canadians travelling abroad are subject to the laws in the countries they visit. "Canada will continue to interact with Mexican authorities on her behalf as required, and our consular officials are ensuring that her medical concerns are being addressed." In a letter to Canada's foreign affairs department obtained by the CBC, Vanier said a dozen officers took her into custody on Nov. 9 and one of them struck her en route to a detention centre as they drove past her co-accused and lawyers. "I tried to yell out the open window ... and as I did, one of the female officers struck me with her elbow on the lower right side over the kidney. I could hardly breathe it hurt so much ... I started to cry ... and they laughed at me," she alleges. Police accused her of being a terrorist and didn't allow her to call a lawyer or the Canadian Embassy, she said. Vanier said she was also denied access to the bathroom for hours and not given medical attention. Mexican authorities allege Vanier was the ringleader who tried to smuggle the slain Libyan dictator's son, Saadi Gadhafi, and his family into the country by falsifying documents, opening bank accounts and purchasing real estate. Vanier, a vacation property owner in Mexico, said she was in the country with her husband looking to buy property. Police questioned her about her real-estate hunting. Further suspicion arose because Vanier travelled to Libya in July for the engineering firm SNC-Lavalin with a former Gadhafi staffer as her bodyguard. Three other people, two from Mexico and a man from Denmark, have been detained as alleged accomplices. "I have suffered physical, mental and emotional abuse and trauma, and my rights as a Canadian citizen have been violated based on my international human rights as well as the Mexican constitution," she wrote.

German nationals face death penalty over drug smuggling charges in Malaysia

 

A district court near the Kuala Lumpur International Airport charged the three men on January 13 with drug trafficking, said a customs official who declined to be named. Airport officials arrested the men arriving from Istanbul on January 1 after finding 10.2 kilogrammes of methamphetamine hidden in the bags they were carrying, the official said on Wednesday. He said no plea had been recorded from the three pending the case's transfer to a high court once a chemist report on the drugs is ready. The two Germans have parents from Afghanistan but were born in Germany, while the Moroccan has lived in Germany for 15 years, the official said. Authorities in the Southeast Asian country went on "red alert" late last year following a surge in arrests and drug seizures, tightening passenger and luggage screening.

Times of London Dragged Into UK's Hacking Scandal - Another Rupert Murdoch newspaper being probed, says lawmaker

 

Police are investigating alleged email interception by Rupert Murdoch's Times of London, a British lawmaker said today—dragging Britain's oldest national newspaper into the broadening scandal over press wrongdoing. Labour Party legislator Tom Watson, who helped lift the lid on tabloid phone hacking, released a letter from police confirming they were investigating alleged email hacking by the Times. The 226-year-old Times has acknowledged that a former reporter tried to intercept emails in 2009 to unmask an anonymous policeman who blogged as NightJack. Editor James Harding told Britain's media ethics inquiry last month that the reporter had acted on his own and had been reprimanded. The paper later published the blogger's name, but Harding insisted it had been obtained by legal means. In the wake of the new development, Harding will be summoned back to give further testimony to the judge-led ethics inquiry.

The great Asian gold theft crisis

 

Two small faces pull the curtain back in a side room and peer round to see who is at the door. After they run back inside, their mother, Mrs Rashid, unlocks the front door. Five weeks ago, she came home one evening to find the door ajar. The downstairs floor of her house was relatively untouched but upstairs the bedrooms had been ransacked – drawers opened, wardrobes emptied, clothes and belongings scattered everywhere. "It was such a huge shock," she says, sitting on the sofa, her voice breaking slightly. Her husband, Mr Rashid (neither want to give their full names), a big man sitting across the room, shakes his head. "They took it all," he says. The thieves who broke into this semi-detached house in Earley, near Reading, stole around £70,000-worth of gold jewellery. To those who are not from a south Asian family, it might seem remarkable to own so much valuable jewellery, but families such as the Rashids (Mr Rashid runs a small business) live in ordinary houses and are not particularly wealthy. Their gold collection – elaborate necklaces, rings, earrings and bangles – is treasure that has been handed down from generations of their families in Pakistan or bought as wedding gifts. It's our savings, our security, says Mrs Rashid, visibly upset. If, in future, the family needed money, they would have sold some pieces. "It's like paying a mortgage for 20 years and then having a house worth thousands of pounds afterwards – it's the same thing with gold," she says. "Our parents gave it to us, we would have given it to our children, they would have given it to their children," says her husband. They tried to put their gold in the bank, but "there were no lockers available. Everyone is looking for one." With other investments looking distinctly shaky in the economic crisis, last year gold prices reached record levels. In the autumn, an ounce reached a peak price of £1,194; today it is worth around £1,100 and analysts predict it could reach a new peak later this year or early next, as people seek safer investments, and demand for gold jewellery rises with the growing middle-classes in India. Asian gold (sometimes called Indian gold) is a broad term that covers jewellery bought and held by south Asian families, and often passed down through the generations. It tends to be the highest quality – often 24 carats, the purest gold – and it has vastly increased in value, sometimes to the point where a family can't afford to insure it. Thieves know that some south Asian families may have a large collection of gold at home, and it is these houses they target. There are no figures for the number of gold thefts, let alone the theft of Asian gold, but everyone I speak to believes the number of robberies is increasing. Last year, several police forces in areas where there is a large Asian community, such as Leicester and Slough, ran awareness campaigns after a spate of opportunistic robberies – there have been several reports of women who have had their gold jewellery snatched in the street – and burglaries. For a while, an attempted gold theft was a line of inquiry in the murders of Carole and Avtar Kolar in Birmingham in January, though the police later ruled this out. Mr Rashid shows me the window in the downstairs bathroom that was broken, and where the thieves must have got in. He thinks the house was being watched, because he noticed a silver car outside the front some days before. "My family is so frightened," he says. "My kids won't go upstairs on their own, it's a completely different life since it happened." They feel the police have not been very supportive, and they have little hope the perpetrators will be caught. "I was already upset, and a policeman said: 'Your gold must have been melted down by now,'" says Mrs Rashid. "I was even more upset when he said that." The Rashids know of several other families in the area who have been burgled. "A few watches and a BlackBerry were taken, but they were looking for gold," says Vikas Tandon, whose house in the area was broken into in September. "They seemed to know where to look – I am confident they used metal detectors. There were bowls of jewellery in one of the rooms, with real gold and artificial jewellery mixed in together. They only took the gold, so they knew what they were looking for." Tandon has now installed CCTV cameras "to give the family more confidence. The loss of the gold itself is bad, but the psychological after-effects of being burgled are worse. Everyone is scared." A local councillor, Tahir Maher, says: "A lot of residents have been very badly affected. It started in the summer. It is very much Asian families who are being targeted." In one day, he says, five homes in the area were burgled and gold stolen. He went door-to-door warning families to keep their gold in safes, or put it in the bank, "although banks have started to stop giving people safe deposit boxes, so people are keeping their gold at home". It isn't just homes that are targeted. This month, in Bradford, two men wearing balaclavas stole bagfuls of gold worth up to £100,000 – a third man had driven a 4x4 into the back of a jewellers as it was closing up. The terrified staff fled. In areas of Birmingham where there are a large number of Asian jewellers, several shops have been robbed. In the Handsworth area, where many south Asian people come to buy jewellery, there are numerous jewellers. Wedding sets – an elaborate necklace and earrings in 22-carat gold – can cost upwards of £5,000 for a fairly basic design, though the sets I see on display in many of the shops are much cheaper, lesser quality versions. Most of the jewellers have CCTV cameras and metal shutters. One of the jewellers I go into is protected by cameras, a metal grille, bulletproof glass and two time-lock doors. Another jewellers across the road was robbed last year during the day by three armed men. "There were customers in the shop," says the owner, who does not want to be named and is reluctant to go into details. He says there is an increased level of fear among jewellers specialising in Asian gold. "There is a fear daily. This is what we are living with now." Nigel Blackburn is chairman of Lois Jewellery, one of the biggest gold buyers in Birmingham's Jewellery Quarter. The staff behind the counters are busy dealing with a steady stream of customers bringing everything from random old bits of broken chains and odd earrings, to cases full of gold jewellery. It is weighed, the quality gauged, and cash is handed over. I watch some people leave with bundles of notes – one man, who has brought in several kilos of gold, walks out on to the street with nearly £75,000 in £50 notes stuffed into a plastic carrier bag. Blackburn's company buys £4-5m worth of gold every week, and about £500,000 of that is Asian gold. Much of it comes from jewellers wanting to get rid of stock, from owners selling pieces and from smaller dealers selling it on. He shows me a tub of bangles ready for smelting (once molten, they are poured into a mould and come out as gold bars). The prices have rocketed. Six years ago a kilo of Asian gold jewellery would have fetched £6,000; now it is worth £30,000. How much of it is stolen? Hopefully none of it, he says. His staff do what they can – sellers fill out a form before their gold can be bought – but he says: "ID means nothing these days – criminals can forge anything." Mainly his staff rely on judgment. "If someone brings in a gold chain that has been snapped, it could have been pulled off someone's neck," he says. "If someone is out there" – he points to the timelock door where people can be seen before they are admitted – "and they look nervous or they just don't look 'right', that will raise alarm bells. We will not buy from anybody we're not sure of. There are unscrupulous [dealers] round here. They buy it, they melt it and then you can't prove anything." Many of the dealers have smelting equipment, and it can be done in a matter of minutes. Inevitably, sometimes stolen gold "slips through the net. But we've got the CCTV to give the police. We have cameras trained on the scales, so we film everything we buy, and the people who sell it." He works closely with the police and they are called any time he is suspicious of somebody; he was responsible for 14 arrests one week. If there's a robbery, especially in the Midlands, he will be alerted, "so we know what to look out for". Another jeweller in the area who buys gold says she knows of dealers who don't care if they buy stolen gold. She thinks she has been offered stolen Asian gold in the past, "but I refused to buy it. I don't want to make my money in a dishonest way." But there are numerous ways to easily sell gold with few questions asked. "There are places in shopping centres that will buy gold and pay good prices. Even Tesco now buys it," says one jeweller. There is also a wealth of online scrap gold dealers who will pay upwards of £800 an ounce for the finest quality (usually Asian) gold – simply send the jewellery off in an envelope and wait for money to be sent back. "One of the issues is that gold jewellery is often not traceable," says Paul Uppal, MP for Wolverhampton South West, who has taken an interest in the issue of gold theft. "Constituents had spoken about it, and also coming from an Asian family it was word-of-mouth as well. At the moment, it's easy to smelt the gold down and sell it off." Gold sales aren't covered under the Scrap Metal Dealers Act, which requires dealers to keep detailed records of metal received; many think the act is inadequate. It could be updated later this year if a current six-month pilot scheme is a success, but it isn't clear if precious metals will be included. "Anyone can walk into a jewellers and the gold can be smelted down within 20 minutes," says Uppal. "There needs to be some sort of audit trail. I've mentioned it to ministers whenever I can but the problem is, it seems to be viewed in the grand scheme of metal theft. This is quite nuanced, and very specific to the Asian community as well." In Earley, councillor Maher has helped set up a neighbourhood watch-style group aimed at the Asian community worried about gold burglaries. It is still a new scheme, but he says it is growing. "People are looking out for each other," he says. He is working with the police closely because he says his big fear is that "people may take matters into their own hands in a bad way". The way he talks makes it sound like a community under attack – Maher knows of families who have lost tens of thousands of pounds' worth of gold, including elderly people, a single mother and another woman who miscarried after discovering her house had been broken into. "People are living in fear. Mothers were scared to be at home with their children in the day, and older people were frightened of being attacked in the street or followed home," he says. "There is a lot of mistrust. This has cost the community a lot."

Malaya case hears dramatic statement from Fidel San Román

 

The constructor, Fidel San Román, who is now 72, on Monday ratified, one by one, all the payments which the prosecutor considers he made to Juan Antonio Roca, the man who was the Municipal Real Estate Assessor in Marbella Town Hall. As the Malaya case continues in Málaga, the amounts paid by San Román totalled 3.08 million € and were given in exchange for first occupancy licences for the properties he had built in the town. It was a dramatic statement to the court. ‘When the homes were ready to be handed over to the purchasers, the Town Hall told us that the money was needed, and if not paid, things could not move forward’, he said talking about a development of 800 apartments. He told the court that in 2005 alone he paid Roca more than three million € in ‘white physical cash taken out of the accounts of his companies’, and that the payments were normally made in Roca office in Marbella, but sometimes in Madrid. It’s a direct contradiction of claims made by Roca in the case so far. Roca has admitted receiving payments from Fidel San Román, as well as Aifos and Construcciones Salamanca, but said the payments were not made for favours but for ‘advisory work’. Román dismissed this saying his family business had never paid for advisors. The developer is presenting himself now as a victim of blackmail. Not paying would have been ‘business suicide’ and added that he knew that he doing something bad, but that he did not have any other option. The prosecutor is asking for a nine year prison sentence and 48 million € fine for San Román on charges of bribery and money laundering.

Five Britons in court in UK for Mallorca pyramid fraud

 

Five British citizens are in court in the United Kingdom shortly for having allegedly set up a pyramid selling fraud which resulted in 70 residents of Calvià on Mallorca being defrauded out of 12 million €. They are alleged to have captured 150 investors in several countries, promising enormous profits on the stock market from a company called Gilher Inc. The accused are charged with massive fraud, money laundering in Panama and the Seychelles, although they are all claiming innocence. The Serious Fraud Office says the operation started in 2001 and has named the main accused as 60 year old John Hirst, from Brighouse, and Richard John Pollet from Poole, both of whom had luxury villas in Calvià with an active social life. They were members of Mallorca Cricket Club and the Rotary Club, and they offered interest of up to 18%. It was 1.5% return per month, making 18% per annum, and a 2% bonus was paid if invested for a year. Police say that they managed to capture as many as 70 British residents of Mallorca, mostly retired people who often handed over their life savings and sums of between 11,000 and 223,000 €. Similar numbers of victims were seen in France and the United States, who paid over some 12 million € in total under the promise of large profits. Problems started at the end of 2009 when the first complaints about fraud were seen. Hirst and Pollet have both denied the charges when they appeared at Bradford Crown Court in a plea and case-management hearing. Hirst pleaded not guilty to money laundering linked to a 33,000 pound transfer from the Bank of Cyprus to Gilher Inc, and a 428,000 pound investment in Last Second Tickets Limited. His wife Linda, pleaded not guilty to various money laundering charges including one related to the purchase of a 552,000 pound house with her daughter Zoe in Send, Surrey in 2008. All five defendants were granted bail until the pre-trial hearing which is expected on April 20, and Judge Durham Hall has confirmed the trial date has been set for June 18. It’s expected to last eight weeks.