Gang leader confessed to having incited the shooting of several individuals, including his wife and businessmen, according to a document found on a floppy disk discovered in the home of a former national police chief as part of an investigation into a criminal organization. Police seized a computer, floppy disks and documents found in the home of former National Police Chief Adil Serdar Saçan during a raid as part of the investigation into organized criminal activities in 2003. One of the disks included the transcript of an interview with Alaattin Çakıcı, arguably the most famous mafia boss in Turkey. According to the transcript, Çakıcı listed shootings he ordered in the past. Among the victims was his wife, Uğur Kılıç, broker Adil Öngen, columnist Hıncal Uluç and former Fenerbahçe soccer team Chairman Emin Cankurtaran. Çakıcı says about the shootings that he did "what was necessary," according to the document. Çakıcı was convicted of "leading an organized criminal gang" by an İstanbul court in 2007. He was interrogated by Prosecutor Zekeriya Öz at the Beşiktaş courthouse last year as part of the Ergenekon probe, a clandestine terrorist organization charged with attempting to overthrow the government.
According to the transcript, Çakıcı also confessed to preventing around 40 businessmen from entering bids in the sale of Türk Ticaret Bankası.

Sean Sullivan used to fight for big paydays in the ring now he's battling to recover other people's debts.And the 40-year-old, who pushed two-time world super middleweight champion Anthony Mundine to the wire in their 2003 fight this week revealed to Sunday News he's finally throwing in the towel on his 18-year career.
The never-say-die fighter's decision comes almost nine years after doctors and the boxing fraternity first suggested it."I don't want to make some big announcement but realistically I've got to the stage where the money really isn't there any more," Sullivan said."You don't want to price yourself out of the market ... but I don't really go looking for fights any more and I guess I'm happy to say I'm calling it a day. I have retired."Sullivan was initially reluctant to confirm his new occupation to Sunday News."Don't mention the debt collection to be honest," he said.
The father-of-two feared the admission would only fuel speculation he's working for feared Auckland gang the Headhunters."The boys in blue think I'm prospecting for the Headhunters," he said."I've never, ever, ever, been interested in joining any gang. And I've never prospected for any gang, or been interested in it. I wish they (police) would just get their facts right.

"As soon as you go to that gym (the Headhunters boxing gym in Ellerslie, Auckland) they say you're associated with the Headhunters and ... you're involved with organised crime. That's not me."

Sullivan admitted he had previously, inadvertently, worked with some Headhunters doing debt collection for former employer Kimball Johnson an underworld heavy turned country and western singer known as the "enforcer" who died of cancer in 2007.
"A couple of the lads that worked for Kimball probably associated with the gang.
"So that's where it's fallen into place for the police. But as I said, I'm virtually a gang of one and that's me."Johnson was a highly respected underworld figure.
His coffin was carried to his funeral in March by Headhunters and a death notice was placed by "all the brothers from Paremoremo Maxi and west" and signed by a Hell's Angels member.Sullivan, like Johnson, has found himself on both sides of the law.For just over two years Sullivan was a police youth worker in Mangere but his provisional contract was not extended in 2003 after police took issue with who he was associating with. Some of his boxing supporters were gang members.He then started working for Johnson.Last year Sullivan was acquitted along with another debt collector of kidnapping a car dealer and trying to extort $21,700 from him.He is currently before the courts on fraud charges. In July 2007, another newspaper reported Sullivan was a Housing New Zealand Corporation (HNZC) tenant who was sub-letting his taxpayer subsidised Mangere home for a $77 a week profit.It was claimed Sullivan who owned a holiday home in Russell at the time paid $133 a week for the state house, despite not being eligible to have one in the first place, and charged his tenants $210 a week.When the tenants allegedly applied for a state house and were told they were already living in one. Sullivan said he could not comment on the HNZC case, as it was before the courts.HNZC told Sunday News Sullivan faces two charges of using a document with intent to defraud between 2000 and 2005. HNZC is seeking $34,422 from him and the case is back in court next month.Sullivan said the kidnapping and extortion case should have never made it to court."I was found not guilty like I should have been from day one. (It) ruined my life for that period. I was on bail for two and a half years. They took my passport away so I couldn't travel. And I was tarnished with that brush."Sullivan told Sunday News he was a "very successful" debt-collector and operated by "word of mouth".He said he got "a lot of (debt collecting) skills from Kimball and some of his colleagues".But he said he did the job by the book not by bashing people into submission."It's knowing how to put payments in place and organising time arrangements and stuff like that," he said."Sometimes you've just got to pursue it and just not give up."In a death-bed interview in March 2007, Johnson talked openly about his method of collecting debts.
In one incident he bought a $17,000 debt off an elderly couple who appeared on TV show Fair Go, then hunted down the conman. When he refused to pay, Johnson beat him to a pulp hitting the man with a chair until it broke, then used two others.Johnson who also told the interviewer he once bit someone's ear off in a fight was charged with causing grievous bodily harm but the charge was dropped when his victim failed to appear in court.Sullivan said he had got into doorstep fights with debt-collection clients. But that only happened when he was repossessing chattels such as fridges, washing machines and beds something he no longer does."I don't mind repossessing someone's car because they can just catch public transport to work. They can walk to work, they can cycle to work, or whatever," he said."But when you're taking someone's fridge or freezer, that's what they use to feed their families and it's harder ... the old heart rules the head."Sullivan has a five centimetre scar on his left cheek from "some no-neck" who attacked him during a job."I went around there with my boss from the finance company and this gentlemen tried to attack the boss so I stepped in to help him and (the debtor) put my head through a window it came out the other side," he said."I recovered from that and I think he wished he never attacked the boss after that. It was more than just a knockout. But the writing was on the wall after that ... no more chattels."Sullivan, who when Sunday News met him looked more like a suburban dad on holiday in velcro rubber sandals, three-quarter shorts and T-shirt than the brawling boxer he's known as, said he has been "more blessed than most" in his fight career.He has previously held the light-heavyweight, super-middleweight, welterweight and middleweight national titles and been ranked as high as No7 in the world's welterweight division by the World Boxing Association and the International Boxing Federation.
He pushed world-ranked Danny Green so hard in 2004 that the Australian had to be hospitalised after the fight.Green had to have three litres of intravenous fluid to counteract the dangerous dehydration and exhaustion he got trying to knock out Sullivan, who is known for his extreme fitness and always finishing bouts on his feet."There's a lot of `what ifs' and `what could of beens'. A world title bout would have been great, but I fought Mundine and Green," he said."I fought for the Commonwealth title, and I had a month to lose two stone and I did it. I went over there and I won the fight. So I've done alright."But Sullivan has not won a fight since 2003 and could not remember his boxing record or who his opponents were in his last two fights at the Headhunters Fight Nights in May and December 2007."I just lined up, got in there and did the business. They gave me a week's notice, but I'm not exactly going to say no to WD (Headhunters boss Wayne Doyle)," he said. "I wasn't in the best shape. I was drinking beer and enjoying life."Sullivan was warned to quit boxing as early as 2000 after collapsing in a post-bout sauna.Former trainer Karl Turner had to resuscitate the fighter, who had stopped breathing and had no pulse.Later that year, a neuropsychologist recommended Sullivan never enter the ring again. Tests concluded that his brain function was abnormal.Sullivan who still coaches continued to fight. But Father Time looks like it has at last beaten arguably the toughest fighter to ever come out of New Zealand. Or maybe not!"I'm not fussed about fighting but if I get a good offer and they give me time to prepare ... it'll be on."

Panchalingam Nagalingam, was a member of AK Kannan, one of two warring Tamil gangs that engaged in extortion, drug trafficking, weapons dealing, attempted murder and murder in Toronto. who was deported in 2005 because of his involvement in a violent Toronto street gang, arrived back on Tuesday morning, and Canadian officials say they facilitated and paid for his return. The circumstances have one official lamenting that the government is "in the business of putting gangs and gangsters out of business, not in bringing them back to Canada."Police were furious on Friday and immigration officials were at pains to explain why the government had paid to fly a gang member, once charged with hacking two people in the head with a meat cleaver, back to Canada more than three years after he was deported to his native Sri Lanka.A spokesman for Jason Kenney, the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism, said the government was outraged that it was forced to return Mr. Nagalingam to Canada because of a legal agreement entered into by the previous Liberal government.The Ministry of Justice agreed in December, 2005, that it would allow Mr. Nagalingam to return to Toronto if the courts ever overturned a decision that found he was a danger to the public, officials said. The Federal Court of Appeal did just that in April, 2008, ruling that the judge who decided Mr. Nagalingam's case had made a procedural mistake. Canadian officials started discussions about Mr. Nagalingan's return to Toronto last June, after he went to the Canadian High Commission in Colombo and said he feared for his safety. He was given a temporary residency permit in January that allowed him to enter Canada, but it was cancelled upon his arrival at Pearson Airport. "We are very disappointed by the outcome of the court's decision. And we are outraged that we are forced, because of a legal agreement negotiated by the previous Liberal government, to return this dangerous individual to Canada," said Alykhan Velshi, Mr. Kenney's spokesman.
"The agreement made under the previous Liberal government was not required by law and is very unusual; however they made it anyway and, sadly, we are bound by it." He added that "because of the Liberals' agreement which we were legally bound to implement, we unfortunately had to pay for his return flight.""Since being returned to Canada, Nagalingam has been held in detention, where we will strenuously argue that he should remain," he added.

A 36-year-old Sri Lankan citizen, Mr. Nagalingam was a member of AK Kannan, one of two warring Tamil gangs that engaged in extortion, drug trafficking, weapons dealing, attempted murder and murder in Toronto. The gangs were responsible for dozens of shootings, one of which killed an innocent bystander at a doughnut shop.

At an Immigration and Refugee Board hearing on Thursday, an immigration official read a police statement that said Mr. Nagalingam had been identified as a gunman in an unsolved shooting in Scarborough in 2000 that left two teenagers dead. He had also smashed a chair over the head of a man at a community function and assaulted a security guard at a theatre, the official said. On two occasions, Mr. Nagalingam was shot at by rival gang members. "Nagalingam has demonstrated that he will not hesitate to use violence, and he has challenged rival gang members in public settings," the official said, reading a statement by the Toronto Police Service."This individual in my opinion is a recipe for yet another disaster on the streets of Toronto. He is a danger to the citizens of Canada and should not be allowed to stay in Canada."Mr. Nagalingam thanked God and the immigration department "for helping me to get back here" and said he had turned over a new leaf. "I have a child outside, I have my mother and father. I decided to start my life again."Immigration states here I am a danger to the Tamil community," he added. "Won't I get a chance for me to reform, to start my life again? That's all I ask for."
The Refugee Board ordered him detained on the grounds he is a danger to the public and a flight risk. In the meantime, the government has already commenced proceedings to have him deported once again. He was to appear before the Board again next Thursday.Mr. Nagalingam first arrived in Canada in 1994 and was accepted as a refugee the following year. But Toronto police quickly identified him as an AK Kannan gang member. He has three criminal convictions but he has faced other charges that were dropped. For example, in 1998, he was charged with assault with a weapon after he allegedly struck two rival gang members in the head with a meat cleaver. Police arrived at the scene and "did see the accused attempting to strike several other persons with the meat cleaver, before he like the others began to flee," but the victims could not be found and the charges were stayed.

third homicide to take place in Salinas in the past 24 hours happened Friday afternoon when a man was fatally shot in front of an apartment complex, police said.
The 24-year-old received multiple gunshot wounds to the torso at about 12:45 p.m. at 945 Del Monte Ave.He was pronounced dead a short time after police officers arrived at the scene. Officials are currently looking for the shooter who fled on Del Monte Avenue to an apartment complex on N. Sandborn Road.There is no word at this time if the shooting was gang-related and dozens of people who gathered around the crime scene gave little information to police about the gunman or gunmen, officials said.
The victim is the latest in a string of homicides -- nine in all -- to hit Salinas, a city of about 140,000.Less than 24 hours earlier, two teenagers were shot dead in the parking lot of 918 Acosta Plaza at about 8 p.m.Carlos Mejia, 17, and Francisco Alfaro, 16, were approached by two men who pulled out handguns and fired multiple gunshots, authorities said.Police Chief Dan Ortega said he isn't sure if Friday's shooting was in retaliation the shootings of Mejia and Alfaro.The chief did say, however, that the streets of Salinas would be heavily protected Friday evening and into the weekend."The gang task force is in town tonight (Friday) and we will still have operation Cal Grip with the CHP going on. So we're going to have the streets saturated tonight and this weekend," Ortega said.Police are investigating Thursday evenings shooting as gang-related, but the mother one of the teenagers gunned down said her son wasn't involved with gangs.Carlos Mejia was a bass player in the school band for years and was going to graduate from Everett Alvarez High School, his family said."There is nothing we can do. We were trying as hard as we can, he was always refusing, he was never trying to get in that (gangs). I don't know what to say," said Mejia's mother, Marta.Mejia's dad took him and his sister to school every day to watch his activity, and the family said Carlos refused gang life despite the pressures.Mejia's sister told KSBW Action News 8 she has no idea why anyone would go after her brother."They're going to regret what they did to him, because he didn't do anything bad," Vanessa Mejia said. "I don't know why they went after him if he never did anything to them, and I hope they get what they deserve for doing that to my brother."The rash of homicides comes just one day after Salinas Mayor Dennis Donohue attended a summit in Santa Rosa along with officials from 12 other gang-plagued cities to talk about the need for sustained state and federal support.

Donahue said the $2.6 million he learned would be directed to Monterey County pales next to the $14 million he must cut from the Salinas general fund over the next three years.

At the current pace, 2009 would shatter the previous homicide record for Salinas that was set in 2008 with 25.

Irish police believe they now know who killed rugby player Shane Geoghegan and expect to charge the suspect this weekend.Last night, officers were concentrating their inquiries on a young man who is in custody in Limerick. He was arrested earlier this week in connection with the murder. The brutal killing shocked the country and led to a major crackdown on Limerick's criminal gangs.The development follows an intensive week of investigations where 120 detectives, working in 36 teams, repeatedly interviewed 16 people (eight women and eight men). Eight individuals remained in custody in stations in Limerick and Clare last night.
Mr Geoghegan (28) was shot dead by members of the McCarthy-Dundon gang, in the early hours of November 9. The gunman mistook him for a rival member of the Collopy gang.
The prime suspect is a 23 year old from Dublin and is well known in criminal circles. He moved to Limerick and is well connected to senior members of the McCarthy-Dundon gang. He was recently arrested by gardai for transporting drugs into the city from Dublin and has appeared before the courts in connection with it.
At a recent court appearance, members of the McCarthy-Dundon gang, wearing bullet proof vests, waited outside the court buildings to transport him away.It is expected that the young man will appear in court within 24 hours in connection with the murder.Mr Geoghegan, captain of Garryowen thirds team, was walking home from a friend's house in the Kilteragh housing estate, Dooradoyle, when he encountered the gunman. He ran for his life, but was cornered in the back garden of a neighbour's home and gunned down, with one bullet striking him in the head.Limerick's most senior garda officer, Chief Supt Gerry Mahon, described the case as one of the most significant investigations to take place in the division.Investigating detectives are also attempting to bring a number of other people who, they believe, were also involved in the murder, to the courts.Fifteen of the 18 individuals arrested and questioned so far are from Limerick and some are members of the McCarthy-Dundon gang.
Another member of the notorious gang, who is also suspected to have had a major role in the murder, remains on the run in London. He fled Limerick after the shooting and a bench warrant is out for his arrest in relation to another matter.

John Gotti's Bergin Hunt and Fish Club crew are in jail or dead.With the arrest this month of reputed Gambino crime family hit man Joseph Watts, only three members of Gotti's crew remain alive and on the street.Reputed soldiers Ignazio (Iggy) Alogna, Michael (Mikey Gal) Guerrieri and John (Jack) Cavallo are survivors - and schemers.
They've struggled with serious illnesses and staying on the right side of the law.
"They don't have pensions to live on," pointed out Bruce Mouw, the former supervisor of the FBI's Gambino squad."These old guys will scheme until they die."Alogna, 75, a widower raising a grandson in Pennsylvania, once held the rank of capo but was busted down to soldier for trying to extort a businessman without permission."There's not going to be anything from this end, you know better than that," a man who identified himself as Alogna's son told the Daily News.
Long Island resident Cavallo, 60, beat a rap in 2007 after his lawyer persuaded a jury the feds nailed the wrong "Jack" for running a gambling parlor.Last year, 82-year-old Guerrieri got permission - because of his deteriorating health - to stop reporting to a probation officer after a gambling conviction.The crew's glory days were the 1970s and 1980s, when Gotti was a charismatic thug worshiped by his underlings.Gotti inherited the club on 101st Ave. in Ozone Park from Gambino capo Carmine Fatico. It was named for Bergen St. in Brooklyn, but misspelled. "The crew was remarkably loyal and disciplined," said a knowledgeable law enforcement source.
Of the core group, only Gotti's so-called "adopted son," Lewis Kasman, turned rat.
The inner circle included Gene Gotti (jail); John Carneglia (jail); Edward Lino (slain); Sal Scala (died recently in prison), and Anthony (Tony Lee) Guerrieri (dead).Other confidants included Angelo Ruggiero (dead); Anthony (Tony Roach) Rampino (jail); Vincent Artuso (jail); Ronald Trucchio (jail); Thomas (Tommy Sneakers) Cacciopoli (jail), and Charles Carneglia (currently on trial).The club's brick facade is intact, and the building houses a medical supply business and dog groomer."After Gotti died [in 2002], people started coming by and taking pictures," said Pedro Severino, owner of PSC Medical Supply. "Last year, three old guys came in a black Lincoln Town Car with a driver. They came in and looked around talking to each other, and then they left."Guerrieri summed up how much that old gang meant to him at a bail hearing where he refused a judge's order to stay away from wiseguys.
"I don't know no doctors or lawyers," he said, according to the Web site ganglandnews.com. "Who am I supposed to hang out with? Send me to jail. I can talk to all my friends in jail."His wish was granted, but three days later Guerrieri changed his mind and agreed to abide by the bail conditions.

Graphic photos of the alleged thief’s corpse were splashed over the front pages of Mexican tabloids beneath headlines such as “Dead Rat” and “Military Justice.” The confessed shooter, retired general Alejandro Flores, was widely hailed as a hero for firing at the 30-year-old man who had tried to force his way into the military man’s Mexico City home. “Of course he did the right thing,” wrote Felipe Alcocer in one on-line forum on the incident. “I wish everyone would act in the same way and get rid of this anti-social scum.” Given Mexico’s widespread breakdown in security, the praise for Flores’ Feb. 5 act of self-defense is unsurprising. The conviction rate in the thousands of murders and kidnappings afflicting the nation every year is estimated to be as low as 5%. Women and children are also increasingly among those killed by criminal gangs. And the limits on the legal system’s ability to stem the tide of violent crime has produced a growing, shadowy movement for vigilante justice. In recent months, at least three new clandestine groups have promised to hunt down and murder criminals to help restore order. As in the killing of the alleged thief by Flores, such groups have been cheered on in public forums. “My sincerest congratulations to these brave men with their courage and determination,” wrote a reader of Mexican newspaper Milenio. “God help them with their noble cause.”

It is too early to say whether these self-proclaimed avengers will become a significant force in Mexico’s battle with crime. Some of them may simply be angry citizens sending out messages not backed by any action. Others could be fronts for drug gangs, who want to present themselves as public guardians while running their own criminal rackets. But whomever is really behind these particular groups, the growing demand for justice by any means necessary raises concerns about the security situation in Mexico if the government remains unable to suppress the crime wave.

The most widely publicized vigilante campaign has emerged across the Texas border in Ciudad Juarez, which has become Mexico’s deadliest city with 1,600 murders last year. A self-styled Juarez Citizens’ Command sent an e-mail to local media in January saying it will give the government until July 5 to restore order or execute one criminal a day. Signed by “Comandante Abraham,” the group claims it is financed by local businessmen, and includes university students, entrepreneurs and professionals in its ranks. It offers to cooperate with military intelligence and says it supports the government, but argues that the elected politicians have failed.A second shadowy group, called the Popular Anti-Drugs Army, materialized among farming towns in the southern state of Guerrero in November. Displaying blankets with written messages on bridges and buildings, the group claims to be made up of family men who have come to together to force drug dealers off the street. “We invite the people to join our struggle and defend our children who are the future of Mexico,” it said on one of the blankets. Unlike the Juarez group, the Guerrero “Army” has been linked to several killings, including the decapitation of an alleged drug dealer in December. Local press allege the group is commanded by a rancher whose children were targeted by the gangs.Sociologist Rene Jimenez notes that vigilante justice has already become a reality in several parts of the country. “The state is failing to keep control in certain areas so people take justice into their own hands,” he said. “This vigilantism shows that the conflict is entering a new phase. Violence will breed more violence.”
There are certainly some unfortunate precedents: Self-proclaimed anti-gang vigilantes became a key part of the civil war in Colombia, where they morphed into paramilitary armies with thousands of members. These groups fought leftist guerrillas and allied with the government to bring down major drug traffickers such as the notorious Pablo Escobar. Many of the paramilitary leaders later confessed they had funded their own activities by dealing drugs, but claimed they virtually stopped anti-social crime in areas under their control. Gustavo Duncan, who authored a book on the Colombian paramilitaries, says similar organizations could emerge in Mexico amid the breakdown in state authority. “While Mexico may not ever get as bad as Colombia, some of the factors are very similar,” Duncan notes. “When the state cannot keep control in certain areas, it leaves a vacuum for these type of organizations to step in and in many ways they become the state.”

Gunmen killed a police officer and a jail guard Friday and left signs on their bodies saying they had fulfilled a promise to slay at least one officer every 48 hours until the Ciudad Juarez police chief resigns.The slayings were a chilling sign that criminal gangs are determined to control the police force of the biggest Mexican border city, with a population of 1.3 million people across from El Paso, Texas.Ciudad Juarez police have long come under attack, and many officers have quit out of fear for their lives, some after their names appeared on hit lists left in public throughout the city.Police officer Cesar Ivan Portillo was the fifth officer killed this week in Mexico's deadliest city.Police already were on "red alert" — meaning they could not patrol alone — after cardboard signs with handwritten messages appeared taped to the doors and windows of businesses Wednesday, warning that one officer would be killed every 48 hours if Public Safety Secretary Roberto Orduna does not quit.Mayor Jose Reyes Ferriz insisted Friday that he would not back down."We will not allow the control of the police force to fall in the hands of criminal gangs," he said.More than 6,000 people have been killed in drug violence across Mexico over the past year as gangs battle each other for territory and to fight off a nationwide crackdown by the army. Nearly a third of the slayings have taken place in Ciudad Juarez, and more than 50 of those dead are city police officers.Violence also has spilled across the border into the U.S., where authorities report a spike in killings, kidnappings and home invasions connected to Mexico's murderous cartels.Homeland Security officials have said they will bring in the military if the violence continues to grow and threatens the U.S. border region.
"The violence is spreading like wildfire across the Rio Grande," said George Greyson, a Mexico expert at the College of William & Mary in Virginia. "It's a major national security problem for us that is much more important than Iraq and Afghanistan."Also Friday, the U.S. State Department renewed a travel advisory warning Americans about the increased violence along the U.S.-Mexico border.
Some Mexicans have questioned whether President Feline Caldron's two-year, nationwide crackdown on drug gangs was worth all the killings.But Caldron and his administration have defended the fight, with Economy Secretary Gerard Ruin Mattes saying on Wednesday that if Mexico gave up its fight against the cartels, "the next president of the republic would be a drug dealer."Portillo and city jail guard Juan Palo Ruin were killed as they left their homes before dawn to head to work, city spokesman Jaime Toreros said.
Three days earlier, assailants fatally shot police operations director Sacramento Peruse, the chief's right-hand man, and three other officers who were sitting with him in a patrol car near the U.S. consulate.The bodies of Peruse and one of the officers were sent to their home states Thursday to be buried, and the city planned to hold a ceremony Friday for the two others from Ciudad Juarez.City spokesman Jaime Toreros said police have been asked to patrol with their guns in their hands.Reyes Ferriz earlier ordered police to travel in groups of three patrol cars, with two officers in each vehicle.Orduna has not spoken publicly since the threats. A retired army major, he took over as chief in May after former Public Safety Secretary Guillermo Prieto resigned and fled to El Paso following the slaying of his operations director.For Orduna's protection, the city has built his bedroom at the police station so he does not have to go home. He also travels in different vehicles when he does go out.

Man was shot while driving down a road in Ogden late Friday night. Police say the man was headed west in the 600 block of 7th Street around 10:50 p.m. when a Durango filled with people pulled up next to him. Someone inside the Durango started shooting, hitting the man once in the shoulder. The victim then drove to an apartment complex near 600 North and Lincoln Avenue, where he passed out and crashed into several parked cars. He was taken to the hospital but is expected to survive.
Police believe the shooting is gang related.

Narco gangsters hurled two grenades at a police station in the Pacific resort town of Zihuatanejo on Saturday, wounding one officer and four civilians.Police and soldiers stepped up patrols and set up extra checkpoints after the attack in the popular beach town north of Acapulco, according to the Guerrero state Public Safety Department.Three taxi drivers, a woman and a policeman were hurtGrenade attacks have become a fixture in Mexico's brutal cartel-related violence. Last week, five civilians and an officer were wounded in a grenade assault on a police patrol in western Michoacan state.In central Mexico, gunmen wielding AK-47s opened fire on two restaurants Saturday, killing two people. The first attack occurred in the town of Acelia and the second in at a highway eatery south of Mexico City.Police were trying to determine the motive and whether the two attacks were related.Gang violence is surging in Mexico despite the deployment of 45,000 soldiers across the country to root out drug cartels. Beheadings, attacks on police and shootings in clubs and restaurants are a daily occurrence in some regions.Last year, 6,000 people died in violence related to organized crime.Federal police, meanwhile, arrested a man suspected of directing drug dealing in Mexico City suburbs for the Beltran Leyva drug cartel. Gerardo Gonzalez Benavides was arrested Friday at a Mexico City shopping mall and was being questioned Saturday, the Attorney General's Office said.

Gardai in Dublin were working last night to head off an all-out gang war which was sparked by the murder on Wednesday of Johnny 'Champagne' Carroll, one of the city's top drug dealers.Eight men and three women were being questioned by detectives in five separate stations around the city centre yesterday evening and arrests are expected.The republican splinter group, the Irish National Liberation Army, is at the centre of the threatened war and its members are believed responsible for murdering Carroll, 33, in Grumpy Jack's pub in the Coombe.The gang suspected of carrying out the murder is headed by the INLA leader in Dublin, a man aged in his 30s who currently lives in Finglas, and his close associate, a major Dublin criminal figure who has been involved in drug smuggling since the Eighties. Carroll was killed because the gang wished to take over his drug-dealing turf on the north side of the city.Last night, gardai were on high alert as Carroll's associates, who include some of the most violent criminals in the south inner city, were swearing to avenge his murder.

John Gilligan built Jessbrook Equestrian Centre and his mansion on drug smuggling and robbery, but now the €5m complex is the State's storeroom -- with cheap furniture, including exam desks and chairs, all piled up in the centre of the vast indoor arena.Jessbrook was Gilligan's vanity project and a way to launder the pots of dirty money he made from the drugs trade.But it was also built as a route into civilised society, so the gang leader and his wife Geraldine could rub shoulders with decent people who were unaware that the Squire of Jessbrook was a hoodlum importing vast quantities of cannabis into Ireland.It was at Jessbrook that Gilligan viciously beat Sunday Independent journalist Veronica Guerin when she bravely asked him about his criminal activities. She was murdered before the assault charge could be dealt with by the courts.Now Jessbrook is in tatters, the once elegant driveway is pockmarked with potholes and the pristine paddocks are overgrown with weeds including what looks like ragwort.Since the Criminal Assets Bureau successfully took control of the 100-acre estate, the equestrian centre at Jessbrook has become a warehouse for the Office of Public Works.There's a small staff on duty and the twisty back roads around Mucklon in Co Kildare are a regular destination for trucks carrying inventory from the OPW.It's all non-valuable bric-a-brac; old and broken computer monitors, out-of-date publications, non-confidential paperwork and scaffolding planks. The synthetic surface where show jumping horses were once put through their paces has been removed and a five-inch layer of hardcore and gravel laid along the exterior walls of Jessbrook, that front on to the main road, as a courtesy to their neighbours.But it cannot hide the feeling of decay. When he fought tooth and nail in the courts to keep Jessbrook, Gilligan claimed the Criminal Assets Bureau's valuation of his country bolthole at €5m was too low. Now it looks like a a very generous estimate.Up at the main house Gilligan and his gang felt they were untouchable. Gilligan amassed millions but he had no class and his pride and joy was a tacky but hideously expensive private bar made of solid oak with Budweiser, Heineken and Guinness on tap and an array of crystal champagne flutes.Now there is a rank smell and bad atmosphere about the place -- bad enough to put off any prospective private purchaser -- even at a knockdown price,The OPW is paying a rent of €65,000 a year to use Jessbrook as a warehouse

Jamie "The Iceman" Stevenson claims his 12-year sentence for money laundering is excessive as police cannot prove he committed any other crimes. The multi-millionaire crook, not due for release until 2013, has asked the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) to examine his case. If his brass-necked legal bid is successful, he could be out by the end of the year. One source said: "Stevenson has no previous but he built up a drugs network with a multi-billion pound turnover.
"It's ludicrous to claim he should be freed early simply because he's never been caught before." Stevenson, 43, of Burnside, Glasgow, was jailed in April 2007 despite his "untouchable" reputation. He and nine others - including his wife Caroline, stepson Gerry Carbin and Carbin's partner Karen Maxwell - were charged with drug and money laundering offences. But only Stevenson and Carbin, 29, were convicted of money laundering after striking a deal with prosecutors. The Iceman remains the prime suspect for the murder of fellow gangster Tony McGovern in Springburn, Glasgow, in 2000. Stevenson's 12-year, nine-month sentence was the longest ever for money laundering in Britain. He was also ordered to hand over s750,000 of his dirty money but is thought to have millions more stashed away.
He claims police exceeded their powers when bugging his home as part of anti-drugs campaign Operation Folklore. Despite his fortune, Stevenson plans to use taxpayers' cash to fight the appeal. He will get 90% from the Scottish Legal Aid Board to make his application to the SCCRC. His lawyers will only receive more money if the appeal goes to court. The SCCRC said: "We don't comment on individual cases."

Mexican officials Wednesday said they were still identifying the victims of a series of gunbattles Tuesday that left several dead and more injured amid a scene of shot-out cars, homes and businesses.Pedro Sosa López, a chief of Tamaulipas state police department, said six men were confirmed dead. One was identified as Jose Alejandro Rivera Torres, a civilian. On Tuesday, reports of injuries and deaths varied widely, with some reports of as many as 12 people killed.Sosa said no others had been identified and that he could not confirm reports that a high-ranking Gulf Cartel boss was among those killed or possibly captured.He said seven alleged assailants were being detained but did not have further details.
The gunfire volleys between federal police officers and suspected gang members occurred in six parts of the city and were attributed to the Gulf Cartel's struggles to maintain control of one of the key pathways for smuggling drugs into the United States.This city is said to be key territory for the cartel's drug-smuggling organization and its assassins, the Zetas. It is across the Rio Grande from McAllen and is one of Mexico's most important manufacturing centers.The violence involved automatic weapons and grenades and began when police stopped a vehicle at a checkpoint in an upscale neighborhood of Reynosa, witnesses said. That set off running gunbattles through the streets, with gangsters commandeering vehicles and using them to block intersections.
Witnesses said the battles raged on for more than an hour Tuesday morning. Civilians ran for cover and children crouched under desks.
“We were hearing the gunfire,” said Enrique Marquez, assistant director of a middle school near one of the gunbattles. “I was there with my microphone, telling everyone to be calm, to exit calmly.”All got out safely, he said, but that school and at least one other remained closed Wednesday for fear of more violence.
The gunfire was over when Martin Marquez arrived to open his florist shop Tuesday, but evidence of the violence lay everywhere.
The front window was a lattice of bullet holes, broken glass filled the show room, and a mirrored door in a back room was shattered.
“We came to see this,” he said. “Total disaster.”He marveled at the one thing that had survived unscathed — a shelf with small statues of the Virgin Mary and Jesus Christ.“Not even touched,” he said.

Ricardo Fanchini is one of the world's most well-connected gangsters, with mobster friends as far afield as Moscow, New York, London, Antwerp, Naples, Poland and Israel.

"He was like the CEO of crime and used to organise crime summits in Austria, where people from the Camorra [Neapolitan mafia], the Colombian cartels, the Russian mafia, met up and divided up the world," said a Belgian reporter who has investigated Fanchini for years but does not wish to be identified.

Born in 1956 in the industrial city of Katowice in southern Poland to a Polish mother and an Italian father who had himself grown up in the mafia-infested city of Naples, Fanchini fled to the West in 1977, settling first in Germany and eventually moving to the Belgian port of Antwerp. But he was one of several gangsters who returned to the East in the early 1990s to fill the vacuum left by the collapse of communism and became known as the Polish Al Capone. Polish journalist Jaroslaw Jakimczyk told the BBC: "He was one of the most dynamic of that group in the 1990s, and was linked with the Pruszkow Gang."

The Pruszkow Gang dominated Polish organised crime, being responsible for the trade in drugs, stolen luxury cars from Germany and black-market vodka.

Although their power was broken and most are now in jail or dead, Fanchini continued to prosper, partly because of his connections to Russian mafia bosses including Semion Mogilevich, who was a guest at his wedding, and arms smuggler Viktor Bout. He and his Russian partner, Boris "Biba" Nayfeld, set up an import-export business that traded in everything from cigarettes and chocolates to electronic goods. He also benefited from a tax exemption, for the importation of vodka into Russia, granted by corrupt officials close to the then President Boris Yeltsin. At the time he also bought a luxury yacht, the Kremlin Princess, and often turned up in Monte Carlo. Mobster Semion Mogilevich was a guest at Fanchini's first wedding But Fanchini lost powerful friends when Yeltsin left office, his company went bankrupt and he was prosecuted by the Belgian authorities for embezzlement and money laundering. While in prison serving a four-year sentence, Fanchini was dealt a further blow when a huge consignment of drugs was seized by the Dutch police. The 1.8 million ecstasy pills, weighing 424kg, were destined for sale to the US market, where Fanchini and Nayfeld had links with the Russian community in the Brighton Beach district of Brooklyn, New York. When Fanchini left prison he moved to London. In 2006 he hired out the Grand Hyatt Hotel in Berlin for a sumptuous party and followed it up with another bash in Moscow, which was attended by hundreds of gangsters as well as celebrities and legitimate businessmen. But Fanchini was living on borrowed time. In England he reportedly split his time between a Mayfair townhouse and a plush mansion in a gated community in Surrey, not far from the home of Formula One driver Jensen Button. But the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) caught up with him and on the morning of 3 October 2007 officers from the Metropolitan Police's Extradition and International Assistance Unit knocked on the door of his townhouse in Mount Street. He was using the name Ricardo Rotmann, which was the surname of his third wife, Katja, a German, with whom he has a child.
Fanchini had been identified by various European law enforcement agencies as an international criminal for years His second wife, Jolanta, is still in prison in Belgium after being convicted of money laundering. Fanchini made no attempt to fight extradition and in January last year he was handed over to US marshals at London's Gatwick Airport. He was due to go on trial later this year. According to the indictment, Fanchini's gang smuggled heroin and cocaine from Thailand to the US, via Poland and Belgium, for 17 years. The drugs were hidden in the back of televisions and eventually found their way to Brighton Beach and Staten Island in New York. But his attorney, Gerald Shargel, obtained a plea bargain and in November he pleaded guilty to a single charge - conspiring to distribute 424kg of MDMA (ecstasy) - and he now faces 10 years in jail.

Journalist Vladimir Kozlovsky, who has covered the activities of the Russian mafia in New York for years, said: "The indictment was massive. He was accused of a million crimes going back 20 years. There were so many boxes of evidence that he had to have a separate cell to house it all.

"The trial was due to last at least four months so, like 90% of cases over here, it was plea bargained and he could be out in seven years."
Another former Fanchini associate, Viktor Bout, was arrested last year But the DEA has also hit him hard financially. Fanchini has agreed to forfeit $30m - $2m of which will have to be paid on the day of sentencing - and DEA officers have also seized more than 40 properties across the world with an estimated value of more than $67m. Nayfeld and two other co-defendants, Arthur and Nikolai Dozortsev, all pleaded guilty to laundering Fanchini's money. Speaking at the London School of Economics last year, the US Attorney General, Michael Mukasey, highlighted Fanchini as an example of close global co-operation in the fight against crime. He said: "Fanchini had been identified by various European law enforcement agencies as an international criminal for years. "It took a lot of co-operation and co-ordination between the US, UK and other countries to bring about his arrest."Detective Inspector Paul Fuller, head of the Metropolitan Police's Extradition Unit said: "We work tirelessly to ensure that those wanted for crimes are brought to the justice system. It is important that Londoners know that we are arresting and extraditing foreign criminals on a daily basis." Dominique Reyniers, of the Belgian Justice Department, confirmed Fanchini was also the subject of a separate investigation into alleged money laundering in Antwerp. It is thought that inquiry looked at property investments he made in the Ukrainian resort of Odessa. Fanchini's friends Mogilevich and Bout have both been arrested in the past year and he himself will be in his 60s by the time he comes out of jail in the US.

Denmark’s national police has proposed employing an extra 140 officers to be deployed in the six police districts hardest hit by gang warfare between bikers and immigrant gangs. The 140 officers will solely be involved in containing the continuing violence between the two groups. Financing for the special units is to be taken from the DKK 850 million funding passed by Parliament last year, and which is designed to strengthen the police force. “It is extremely important that we pull the criminal gangs up at the roots. But it will need a lengthy and insistent effort. So we are satisfied that that extra resources are to be made available. It will be a major benefit if the responsibility for the effort is placed in special police units,” says Parliamentary Legal Committee Chairman Peter Skaarup of the Danish People’s Party. Over a third of the new officers are to be located in Copenhagen, where continuing open street shootings and attacks are causing serious concern.
“This is certainly something that all of the police districts will be happy about,” says Copenhagen Police Spokesman Flemming Steen Munch. Apart from the extra officers, the Prosecutor’s Economic Crime Unit is also to be given added resources in order to strengthen its Al Capone operations – hitting gang members by investigating tax issues and economic crime. The National Investigation Centre is also to be strengthened with eight officers while the Security and Intelligence Service can expect a further 10 employees.

Nicole Marie Alemy was driving her husband's Cadillac in suburban Surrey when she was shot.The 23-year-old White Rock, B.C., resident's son was unhurt, though traumatized when the car coasted into a tree by the side of the road Monday morning.Vancouver and its suburbs have been under attack as criminals trade shots in an undeclared gang war that's taken as many as half a dozen lives and wounded several people in the last few weeks.Another killing took place Tuesday as federal Public Safety Minister and Solicitor General Peter Van Loan met local mayors, police officials and relatives of two innocent victims caught in a gang-style execution that claimed six lives in 2007.Vancouver police would not confirm details but witnesses told reporters a man was killed and his intended victim wounded in what appeared to be a botched murder attempt at a south Vancouver basement suite.

"They're hitting people in broad daylight in shopping centers," he said, adding the body count is similar to a surge in the fall of 2007. "There were gun battles with armored vehicles in the streets."

Vancouver is a major import and export point for the international illegal drug trade the city's recent violence centers around the illegal drug trade.Criminologist Rob Gordon said gangs have become far more brazen in the past few months, gunning down people in public.Gordon said gangs are likely gearing up for an increase in business during the Olympics. He specifically cited the marijuana business in Whistler where alpine events will be held. And, that he, said, could lead to greater violence as gangs fight over their share of the drug market at that time."Vancouver is not going to look particularly good while the world is watching if we have another one of these outbursts during Olympic events," Gordon said.Royal Canadian Mounted Police Deputy Commissioner Gary Bass said the province's criminal justice and bail systems need to be reformed.Last week, the provincial government announced initiatives to employ more police and prosecutors, introduce tougher laws and build more jails and courts. The government also promised to crack down on illegal guns and owning armored vehicles and body armor."Recent gang violence has been both shocking and appalling, and British Columbians have had enough," Premier Gordon Campbell said.

Clinton Shawn Martin Jr., 24, of 31 E. Market St., Harrisonburg, was arrested in early January. Police say Martin is a local leader of the Gangster Disciples, specifically the six deuce trey set, according to multiple search warrants filed in the case by a CHARGE Gang Task Force investigator.Martin was one of four people arrested in January in connection to a two-year gang investigation. He was arrested on Jan. 15 as he attempted to trade drugs for guns in the Roses parking lot on Mason Street.Martin faces 46 charges, including drug distribution, firearms violations and gang participation.

"[The Gangster Disciples] are probably one of the more prevalent gangs in this area," said Lt. Kurt Boshart of the Harrisonburg Police Department. "They're probably one of the most organized."

Randy Crank, president of the Virginia Gang Investigators Association, a group that provides resources and training to local law enforcement agencies, said Harrisonburg's gangs are most likely independent groups and have no official affiliation with the major gangs or their nationwide network of chapters."What you have is homegrown," said Crank. "They will use the national gang signs, symbols, colors and hand signs even though they don't have any ties nationally."Boshart said Martin grew up in Harrisonburg, but might have had some ties nationally.Crank said Gangster Disciple members, or those claiming to be members, can usually be identified by the use of a three-pointed pitchfork and six-pointed star in "taggings," or graffiti, and other materials. They also go by the numbers "74" - a reference to the seventh and fourth letters of the alphabet, "G" and "D", he said. Boshart said this case, and several recent cases, show that gangs exist in the Shenandoah Valley and are growing."We're seeing a steady progression unfortunately," he said, adding that it's getting more violent.
A few years ago, he said, he would tell people that there was some gang activity, but it was rarely an issue and even when it was, it rarely turned violent.
But that's changed, he said."Last year, we could say at least we didn't have a murder," said Boshart. "Unfortunately, we can't say that now."Boshart was referring to the shooting of Reginald "Shay" Nicholson, 19, of Staunton. Nicholson was mortally wounded on Nov. 9 after he left a party at an apartment in the Hunters Ridge complex off Port Republic Road. Nicholson died 12 days later at the University of Virginia Medical Center.Police say the killing was gang-related, pointing to witness statements that say a group of people entered the apartment prior to the shooting yelling "Bloods in the house." As gang activity becomes more violent in the Valley, police say local residents need to step up."Gang activity is a community issue that the community needs to get behind," said Boshart.He said it needs to be a collaborative effort between the educational, business and faith-based communities, as well as public safety agencies and parents."Everybody plays a part," said Boshart, adding that residents need to report what they see. "If you're driving down the road and see some suspicious gang activity and say ‘We'll just let the CHARGE Gang Task Force handle that,' we've lost. The community has lost."Boshart said continuous education is the key to ending gang activity."Everybody has to stay educated, especially if you're dealing with children," said Boshart. "What we learned last year might not apply this year."

Confiscated almost €300,000 from the assets of major gangland figure Michael "Roly" Cronin, who was murdered in the centre of Dublin last month.The money was handed over after a High Court decision yesterday afternoon.The Cab was granted a freezing order against Cronin in March 2001 after it seized three properties at Buckingham Street in the north inner city; Ballyboden, Rathfarnham; and Finebar-Fort, Wellmount Road in Finglas.The houses were subsequently sold by the receiver on behalf of Cab and following the statutory seven-year wait, an agreement was reached in court yesterday in which two sums of cash, €103,000 in one bank account, and €180,000 in another, were officially handed over to the Finance Minister.Also in the High Court yesterday, the Criminal Assets Bureau secured an order handing over €38,662.75 to the State.The money was the proceeds of drug trafficking by Cab target Michael Shannon, who gave an address at Minart House at Sligo Road in Longford.The cash was seized as part of a search of a house at Bishopscourt in Ennis, Co Clare and was subjected to a freezing order for the past seven years.Shannon, who then had an address at Lenihan Avenue, Prospect, Limerick, was sentenced to eight years in prison after he pleaded guilty at Limerick circuit court in October 2002 to possession of 100,000 ecstasy tablets with a street value of more than €1m.A third convicted drug trafficker also fell victim to the Cab in the High Court yesterday afternoon.The court heard that Stg£22,000 was seized from Kevin McEvoy, of Ajax Court, Townspark, Antrim, as he attempted to board a flight to Amsterdam in February 2007.The court was told that McEvoy had 48 criminal convictions, including some for drug trafficking.The Cab secured a consent order to confiscate a total of €31,995.28.

Tyrese Sharod Smith still calling the shots on the street. The founder of the King Mafia Disciples had established a violent reputation in Salt Lake City in the early 1990s as he sought to make the gang he founded while serving time in juvenile detention the most powerful in the region. As KMD tried to build notoriety through robberies, drug deals and attacks on rival gangs, Smith's rap sheet grew. He landed in prison in 1994 for a drive-by shooting -- and then arguably committed his most violent acts from behind bars. Gang members operating on Smith's orders in February 1996 shot 19-year-old Joey Miera through an open window as the teenager slept on the floor of his cousin's Salt Lake City home. Miera, who had no gang ties, was killed in a case of mistaken identity. The brutal case spotlighted an aspect of security in Utah's corrections system that has found renewed importance with a recent spike in gang membership and violence: how to keep gangsters in lockup from contributing to crime on the streets. Vigilant watchfulness » It's a job far more complicated than just keeping a gang member behind bars until his or her sentence is completed, and one both the prison system and Salt Lake County Jail have devoted more resources and officers to in recent years. "Most of the public, they look at it like the guy has been picked up, he's gone through the court process and now, everything is good," said Pete Walters, who oversees the gang unit at the Utah State Prison and is president of the Utah Gang Investigators Association. "They get to make phone calls. They are all allowed to get and send letters. The majority of them have visits. … They, a lot of times, still have an influence over some of the groups in the neighborhood." Walters' job, and that of other gang investigators in the corrections system, is to figure just how much influence certain gang members have and how the information officers gather on the inmates could thwart plans gang members may be making from inside their cells. In an activity known as "fishing," inmates can pass messages between their cells by way of make-shift delivery devices called kites, made with a piece of string, a note and a weight. Letters can contain hidden code words, symbols, or drawings to signal an attack on a rival. Phone calls could also contain hidden messages. Corrections gang officers are trained to intercept and decode the hidden messages. The officers chat up inmates to find out which gangs are feuding, and, most importantly, talk with local law enforcement agencies.

Ian "Blink" McDonald has been banned from every prison in Scotland. The bank robber was blacklisted after he hurled abuse at a warder while visiting a murderer friend in jail. A source said: "Blink's still got a lot of friends in prison and some of them are serving long sentences. "He's gutted he won't be able to visit them and was furious when he was told he's banned from every prison. "He's spent half his life trying to stay out of jail, now he can't get in...but he isn't seeing the funny side. "He'll have to get another conviction before he manages to see his old pals anytime soon." McDonald, 47, was visiting a pal with Paisley gangster Grant Mackintosh when the bust-up happened at Glenochil Prison, near Stirling. Mackintosh recognised a warden he had a run-in with while serving time in Glenochil almost 20 years ago. The officer burst into tears when the pair targeted him for threats and abuse. McDonald was arrested and fined £200 for breach of the peace following the incident in October. Bosses barred him from all 16 Scottish Prison Service jails after a meeting which pin - pointed potential troublemakers. They have in formed McDonald he will not be able to visit any of his banged-up cronies. McDonald was jailed for 16 years in 1992 following a botched £6million bank robbery in Torquay. A teller was shot in the head during the raid. McDonald was released after 10 years.
He was also sentenced to six months for assaulting a prison officer while on remand in Barlinnie in 1986 for attempted murder. The SPS said: "Intelligence is sent to each governor each time there is a incident with a visitor. "It's at the governor's discretion whether to refuse someone entry."

Mexican authorities found five abandoned bullet-riddled and bloodstained vehicles on Wednesday, fueling their hunt for drug gang killers following a wave of border-region slayings and clashes with soldiers that left 21 people dead, an official said.The hours-long skirmishes around the town of Villa Ahumada on Tuesday were part of a wave of drug violence that has engulfed parts of Mexico _ and has even spilled across the border _ as the army confronts savage narcotics cartels that are flush with drug money and guns from the U.S.President Felipe Calderon says more than 6,000 people died last year in drug-related violence, and U.S. authorities have reported a spike in killings, kidnappings and home invasions linked to the cartels _ some of it in cities far from the border, such as Phoenix and Atlanta.

Investigators on Wednesday were searching for assailants after finding five abandoned vehicles near Villa Ahumada, where gunmen a day earlier had kidnapped nine people, starting the violence.

They executed six of the kidnap victims along the PanAmerican Highway outside of the town, said Enrique Torres, spokesman for a joint military-police operation in Chihuahua state.Villa Ahumada is 80 miles (130 kilometers) south of the border city of El Paso, Texas.An army convoy heading toward Villa Ahumada to investigate reports of the kidnappings Tuesday came across gunmen who had just executed the six kidnap victims, Torres said.A shootout between gunmen and soldiers ensued in which seven gunmen and one soldier died, Torres said. Another soldier was wounded.Soldiers rescued the three remaining kidnap victims and took them into custody for questioning, Torres said. The men say they are businessmen and were wrongly accused by their captors of belonging to the Sinaloa cartel.In the meantime, other gunmen fled on foot as soldiers rappelled down from military helicopters to chase them through the snow-covered desert.Further down the highway, a series of other shootouts left seven more assailants dead.Villa Ahumada, a town of 1,500 people, was virtually taken over by drug gangs last year when attackers killed two consecutive police chiefs and two officers. The rest of the 20-member force resigned in fear, forcing the Mexican military to take over for months.Unable to hire new recruits, the town hired unarmed residents to keep watch and alert state police about crime.The army was patrolling the town's streets Wednesday.Also Wednesday in the town of Reforma in Chiapas state, three suspected drug hitmen died during a shootout with police. Assailants opened fire after police raided a safe house for arms and drugs, a Reforma municipal police spokesman said. He was not authorized to give his name.

Manila Mayor Alfredo Lim has ordered the Manila Police District to put an immediate end to the gang wars in the city citing records of the Presidential Anti Organized Crime Commission that over 30 street gangs caused trouble in Metro Manila. PAOCC Commissioner Grepor Belgica’s report named the notorious among the over 30 street gangs as Trece Hudas, Tau Gamma Phi fraternity, the Bulabog Boys, and Walang Sawa sa Alak (Wasalak).
Most of these gangs are involved in crimes like robbery and even drug trafficking.

Targeted in Operation Axe, following a lengthy investigation into drug trafficking in Montreal, Ottawa and Kingston, Ont., and targets both dealers and gang leaders who is an influential member of the Hells Angels former underling network who is currently serving time at a penitentiary in Kingston.The inmate is serving time for offences that took place during the biker gang war in the1990s, but he is now facing new charges related to the current investigation which targeted at least two major Montreal-based street gangs.The inmate was scheduled to have a parole hearing in the coming weeks.Another inmate at a federal penitentiary, the Leclerc Institution in Laval, is also expected to be placed under arrest.In executing search warrants Thursday, the police hope to seize drugs and firearms.Some of the people targeted in the operation are currently in jail

Memoirs by the notoriously violent jailbird Charles Bronson, the Krays, and former drug smuggler David McMillan's Escape, which tells how he broke out of Thailand's Klong Prem prison.The party also criticised prison libraries for stocking the autobiography of "mad" Frankie Fraser - the legendary gangster who was a peer of the Krays - and bare knuckle fighter/armed robber Roy Shaw's Pretty Boy, as well as Hitler's Mein Kampf."Jack Straw has said that he wants to prevent criminals from profiting from their memoirs, yet prison libraries have been purchasing their books to lend to other criminals," said shadow justice secretary Dominic Grieve. "It beggars belief that books glorifying crime and violence are being made freely available to prisoners."Party research also found that inmates in HMP Erlestoke in Wiltshire are able to borrow books including Nine Lives by Bill Mason, subtitled "confessions of a master jewel thief", Charles Bronson's memoir Bronson, Pretty Boy by Roy Shaw and Dennis Stafford's Fun-loving Criminal, subtitled "the autobiography of a gentleman gangster".Gloucester Prison library, meanwhile, stocks Gitta Sereny's Cries Unheard: the story of Mary Bell, Charlie Kray's Doing the Business and former gangster Dave Courtney's Dodgy Dave's Little Black Book.

Francisco Velasco Delgado is being questioned by prosecutors in the AG office's organized-crime division.They said prosecutors planned to ask a federal judge to allow them to hold the police chief without bail.Retired Gen. Mauro Enrique Tello Quiñones, 63, was found dead last week inside a van on the Cancun-Merida highway together with army Lt. Gertulio Cesar Roman Zuñiga and a civilian, Juan Dominguez Sanchez

."The result of the autopsy shows that they were tortured before being riddled with bullets,"

the Quintana Roo state Attorney General's Office said.Velasco's arrest followed the arrival at police headquarters in the municipality of Benito Juarez, which includes Cancun, of some 25 soldiers who locked down the station for about an hour Monday morning.Before he was taken into custody, Velasco told reporters the soldiers were conducting a routine inventory and inspection of police weapons and that the military presence did not mean the army was taking charge of public safety in Cancun, as it did earlier in violence-wracked Tijuana, which lies near San Diego, California.Tello Quiñones, who served as military attache at the Mexican Embassy in Spain and as commander of the military zone of the western state of Michoacan, was laid to rest with full military honors after a ceremony attended by Mexican President Felipe Calderon.The mayor of Benito Juarez, Gregorio Sanchez, said that Velasco was "comparing information" with federal prosecutors, and named Gumercindo Jimenez Cuervo acting police chief.Since taking office in December 2006, Calderon has deployed more than 30,000 soldiers and federal police to nearly a dozen of Mexico's 31 states in a bid to stem the wave of mainly drug-related violence blamed for more than 8,000 deaths over the past two years.
The anti-drug operation, however, has failed to put a dent in the violence due, according to experts, to drug cartels' ability to buy off the police and even high-ranking prosecutors.

Mexican soldiers fought gun battles with drug cartel hitmen near the U.S. border on Tuesday after gangsters abducted local police in violence that killed 21 people, including an army sergeant.Soldiers pursued the hitmen through freezing desert in the northern state of Chihuahua after they dragged nine people, including some police, out of houses and shot six of them at a ranch in the early hours of Tuesday, the army said.Heavily armed soldiers burst into the ranch, near the Texan border, and shot dead several of the hitmen, later chasing another group by helicopter before killing them too, army spokesman Enrique Torres said from the area.

"The bodies were strewn across the desert outside the nearby town of Villa Ahumada," said Torres.

It was one of the bloodiest scenes this year in a spiraling drug war that killed more than 5,700 people across Mexico in 2008.
President Felipe Calderon deployed the army and federal police to tackle drug violence at the end of 2006, triggering a series of vicious turf battles. Daylight shootouts are on the rise in northern border cities.Chihuahua state and its main border city Ciudad Juarez have become the deadliest flashpoints in the drug war as cartels fight over trafficking routes into Texas and murder police accused of working for rival gangs.Residents in Villa Ahumada, a cattle ranching community in the state, said they saw a convoy of SUVs ride through the snow-covered town before dawn on Tuesday and several people were abducted from their homes. Some people later heard shots in the countryside.
"People are really afraid of a revenge attack by hitmen after this violence," a local journalist who asked not to be named told Reuters from Villa Ahumada.More than 2,000 of the drug war deaths recorded last year were in Chihuahua state, including the murder of 13 people at a party in August.The presence of more than 3,000 troops and federal police in Chihuahua has done nothing to contain the violence. Ciudad Juarez, a manufacturing city in the desert across from El Paso, Texas, has seen beheadings, daily shootouts and a surge in kidnappings and extortion.Mexico's army and drug trade analysts say the country's most-wanted man, Joaquin "Shorty" Guzman, has declared war on Chihuahua's drug baron Vicente Carrillo Fuentes, and the Gulf cartel based around the Gulf of Mexico has joined the fight.

"Whitey" Bulger. Bulger has been on the run for 14 years wanted for the murders of 19 people. F.B.I.doubling the reward for information leading to his capture to $2 million.Bulger, the former head of the notorious Winter Hill Gang and an FBI informant, fled in January 1995 after being tipped by a former Boston FBI agent that he was about to be indicted on federal racketeering charges. He was later charged in connection with 19 murders.The FBI announced the new reward on Wednesday with federal prosecutors, state police and state prisons officials. Bulger , on the FBI's "Ten Most Wanted" list, provided the FBI with information on his gang's main rival, the New England mob, in an era when bringing down the Mafia was one of the bureau's top national priorities.Authorities say that the last credible siting of Bulger was in London back in 2002. Bulger sits next to Osama Bin Laden on the FBI's ten most wanted list. On Tuesday, special agents from Boston flew to Washington to meet with members of the foreign press, trying to generate an international buzz about the 79 year-old gangster.Authorities are hoping someone will recognize Bulger or his travelling companion Catherine Greig and contact them. Bulger is considered a source of embarrassment for the FBI after it was revealed the South Boston gangster had a cozy relationship with FBI agent John Connolly. Bulger and his crew continued to commit crimes during the ‘80s and ‘90s all while under the protection of the feds as a government informant.Connolly is now serving ten years in a federal prison for tipping off Bulger to a pending indictment. The government is offering a $2 million dollar reward for the fugitive’s capture.

mafia group, connected to the Casalesi Clan was discovered after two years of investigation by the Roman branch of the Carabinieri. The criminal organisation was operating in the southern part of Lazio, illegally acquiring numerous commercial activities, mostly car dealers, that were gathering enormous patrimonies. 40 arrest warrants were released form people accused of association with the mafia, money laundering, fraud, extortion, falsified invoices, tax evasion worth millions of Euros and fraudulent transfer of goods. Over 500 agents from the Carabinieri were involved in the investigation in the provinces of Rome, Latina, Frosinone and Caserta. Numerous seizures are in progress in different areas of Italy and abroad of goods and businesses controlled by the criminal organisation worth over 80 million Euros.

Accountant Stephen Corso was in deep trouble. His clients, including longtime friends, told federal authorities in Connecticut in 2002 that he had stolen more than $5 million.Then the Ridgefield man who loved to gamble took the biggest risk of his life: He decided to become an FBI informant in Las Vegas, known as an open city because the Mafia felt it could operate freely.Corso’s fateful decision came as federal agents in New York were struggling to build a case against two former police detectives long suspected of collaborating with the mob. Investigators were dealing with uncooperative witnesses and a statute of limitations.After a secret meeting with an FBI agent at a hotel, Corso was fitted with a wire and went to work taping conversations of suspected mobsters from around the country. He would spend years recording conversations on more than 900 tapes as he lived a transient life sleeping on the couches of friends, including what authorities called some unsavory characters.“We came across anything and everything,” said FBI agent Kevin Sheehan.
Soon Corso was introduced to Louis Eppolito, one of the detectives suspected of carrying out mob hits.“It was divine intervention,” Robert Henoch, a former New York prosecutor who handled the case, said at Corso’s sentencing Tuesday when he received a year in prison. Or maybe it was dumb luck, he added.Either way, Corso began to fill in the holes in the case. The former detective bragged about dunking someone’s head in acid and threatened to decapitate another person, Henoch said.At one point, Corso was threatened with execution if he turned out to be an informant, authorities said. He had no backup as he secretly recorded the conversations.
“I don’t think he would have lived too long in Las Vegas or anywhere,” Sheehan said.
Corso offered the detectives drug money to finance a film project at a 2004 meeting in Las Vegas. Eppolito, a decorated former detective and son of a mobster, was living in Las Vegas and trying to peddle screenplays and was unconcerned about the source of the cash.Eppolito and the other detective, Stephen Caracappa, were accused of participating in eight mob-related killings between 1986 and 1990 while working for the Luchese crime family in one of the worst cases of police corruption in New York history.A New York jury found the detectives guilty in 2006, but a judge dismissed their racketeering case after determining the statute of limitations had passed on the slayings. A federal appeals court later reinstated the verdict after prosecutors argued that the murders were part of a conspiracy that lasted through a drug deal in 2005 with Corso.“There never would have been justice without Mr. Corso’s cooperation,” Henoch said.Corso’s intelligence led to other prosecutions and saved investigators millions of dollars, authorities said.Authorities said they offered to put Corso in a witness protection program, but he declined because he would not be able to see his wife and three children.Corso, who faced the possibility of more than seven years in prison but won the reduced sentence for his extraordinary cooperation, is scheduled to surrender May 6.Susan Patrick, whose family lost more than $800,000 to Corso, said he was a family friend before the thefts. Corso has been ordered to pay restitution to the Patricks and other victims.
“This started a six-year nightmare,” she said at his sentencing. “We will never be whole for our losses. I don’t believe Mr. Corso is at all sorry.”Corso, who apologized to the victims and his family, said at the time that he ripped off millions from his clients to finance a life of “girlfriends, jewelry and going out.” Prosecutors say he also had significant gambling losses while living a second life in Las Vegas.Corso told the judge his parents were first-generation Italian immigrants who struggled so that he could have a better life. His family, who helped pay for his education at New York University, hated the mob, he said.“And I threw it all away,” Corso said. “I simply lost the way I was raised, how I was raised, but I know for the last six years I functioned and there was never a moment, never a second, that I ever considered doing anything wrong.”Authorities say Corso remains in danger because of his cooperation with them.“Mr. Corso will live the rest of his life with a target on his back,” said his attorney, J. Bruce Maffeo.

New war on the streets. Deadly shootouts between police and organised crime gangs are now a defining feature of police work and life in South Africa.In the past two weeks in and around Durban, more than 16 criminal suspects, and an innocent bystander, it seems, have been killed in shootouts with police, bringing to the fore the use of deadly force in apprehending suspects.Do these incidents reflect a new, tougher, if not gung-ho approach to combating crime? Have some policemen interpreted too literally the recent shoot-to-kill utterances of some leading politicians?
'Mkhize opened fire when police tried to pull his car over' And how do we know that vital witnesses are not being deliberately taken out by cops on the take? These are just some of the questions various commentators, including violence monitor Mary de Haas, are asking in the wake of yet another suspect killed in Durban this week.
Police said former Maphumulo taxi boss Bongani Mkhize, 44, had been "positively linked" to the recent murder of inkosi Mbongeleni Zondi in Umlazi, and had opened fire when police tried to pull his car over. He was killed when police returned fire.
The Mercury disclosed this week that Mkhize had applied to the Durban High Court in October last year for an interdict restraining police from "killing, injuring, threatening, harassing or in any way intimidating" him.In applying for this order, Mkhize claimed he was being sought by the organised crime unit in connection with the murder of Kranskop policeman Supt Zethembe Chonco.At the time seven other suspects wanted for Chonco's murder had been killed in separate incidents, either allegedly resisting arrest or while accompanying police on investigations.
Police consider the Chonco murder case closed, with all suspects killed, but could there be a link between the Chonco case and Zondi's murder?Head of the provincial organised crime unit, Johan Booysen, would not elaborate on this, but said two suspects in the Zondi murder were in custody, and one had made a full confession.
The day before Zondi's murder, five alleged criminals died in a shootout on the N3 near Camperdown after police received a tip-off about nine men headed to Pietermaritzburg to commit a robbery.Ordered to pull over at a roadblock, the suspects opened fire on the police, who returned fire in self-defence, killing five men, said SAPS spokesperson Director Phindile Radebe."This serves as a warning to everybody that the police are serious about fighting fire with fire," responded KwaZulu-Natal Safety and Security MEC Bheki Cele.Since then another 11 suspects have been gunned down in separate incidents in and around Durban, described as "Wild West-style" clashes.In reality, though, such shootouts bear little resemblance to the Wild West.

They are more violent, involving sub-machine guns, AK47s, R4 rifles, hijacked vehicles, criminal syndicates operating with military-style efficiency and elite police units often operating undercover.

"Indeed, it is a war out there," said Institute for Security Studies (ISS) director Johan Burger.Burger said the number of suspects killed had risen significantly recently, as had the number of policemen killed.He said this was despite the actual number of attacks on police having decreased over the past few years.He said concerns that police had become "trigger happy" were understandable, but needed to be seen in the context of the dangers of combating organised crime, and legislation governing use of deadly force."The legislation is very clear. Police can shoot to kill to protect lives, but any incident where police do kill someone is independently investigated by the Independent Complaints Directorate (ICD), irrespective of the circumstances."Burger said he shared editors' concerns that "shoot-to-kill" rhetoric from politicians might have led to a perception that police were "protected and entitled to use more force than they were legally entitled to"."If they are implying that the police must use deadly force when justified, that's fine, but when it is interpreted by police on the ground that they have wider authority to use more force than legally empowered, it becomes very dangerous."He said incidents where police did shoot to kill also needed to be balanced against the realities of crime in South Africa, particularly the fact that criminal gangs had becoming organised, dangerous, and prepared to kill.
Burger said it was a fallacy that police had to wait until they were being shot at before resorting to deadly force."The moment they judge that their lives are in danger, or members of public are threatened, they are entitled to shoot to kill," said Burger.And it's happening - a new era in the war on crime has begun. Who is winning remains to be seen.

Six shootings in six days have prompted British Columbia's attorney general to appeal to the public for help in stemming the gang violence plaguing Vancouver-area streets.Wally Oppal said members of the public have a large part to play in ending the gang strife behind the six shootings - four of them fatal."We're very concerned, very, very concerned with what's going on," Oppal told reporters in Victoria on Monday."The fact is we've got a number of factors at play; One, you have a public out there that apparently wants drugs. Drugs are illegal. They are not governed by any laws, so you have a bunch of outlaws out there who are selling drugs. They are fighting for territory."Oppal said the police need the public to come forward with information instead of clamming up about the outlaw gangs that are fighting a deadly turf war on the streets of Metro Vancouver."The police go to these scenes and they get no help from anybody," he said."There are people out there who know what's happening. People out there who are privy to information, yet nobody goes to help the police. Everybody abides by this code of silence."The gang war has been going on for years but the latest carnage began a week ago when a man was found shot dead in an apartment in Surrey.Within 24 hours another man was gunned down while in his truck at a busy mall in Surrey, while a woman was found shot to death in her pick up truck in Coquitlam.Then on Friday a man was shot in his truck at a mall in Langley. He died over the weekend.It appears most, if not all, of the shootings were gang-or drug-related, although a shooting in Coquitlam on Saturday that left a man wounded was a robbery.The sixth shooting happened Sunday night and targeted a man on Vancouver's west side, with one report suggesting the victim had gang ties.Over the last couple of years the area has seen dozens of gang-related shootings, including brazen daylight attacks in crowded public places.The murder in the mall parking lot in Langley took place during the day, and a stray bullet shattered the window of one nearby vehicle.The Vancouver-area gang wars gained national attention in October 2007, when two innocent bystanders were murdered along with four men with gang ties in a Surrey apartment building.Oppal said the government, from Premier Gordon Campbell on down, is concerned about rising gang violence in British Columbia."We all need to get involved. We have to take back the streets from these people who are out there." We need to help the police."

Most feared gangsters in Edmonton, a high-ranking lieutenant in Redd Alert with the street name Crewboss. Now he's a bedridden paraplegic living in a city hospital, the victim of a vicious swarming by his own gang that put him in a coma for weeks.
"For the past two years, he's just been lying here like this," says his older brother, Andrew Reid. "He's not getting any physical therapy. They told me he's too violent to work with, but look at him. What could he possibly do?" A spokesman for the hospital (the location won't be revealed for security reasons) was not able to explain yesterday why Sinclair has languished there for two and a half years, at an estimated cost of $1,400 per day. Sinclair's feet, legs and right arm are slowly bending and twisting as his muscles atrophy. He has only partial use of his left hand and he's subject to involuntary ticks and twitches. Reid, 51, who helped raise his brother, wants Sinclair to get some therapy so some day he will be well enough to move out of Edmonton, change his identity and start life over away from gangs.
"If we can get him in a wheelchair, we can take care of him," Reid said. "They could still come after him and finish him off." "I want to work," Sinclair says with a broad smile and thumbs-up. Reid gives Sinclair a hug. "He was such a happy kid, always smiling. And funny. He loved to laugh." Things began to unravel, Reid says, when Sinclair fell in with a rough crowd as a teenager. At age 22, he was sentenced to eight years in prison for aggravated assault for a fight in Boyle, 100 km north of Edmonton. He was sent to the maximum-security Edmonton Institution, home to some of the most dangerous criminals in Canada. "I knew it was going to be bad for him," Reid says. "I warned him. Keep your head down and stay away from the gangs."
Six years into his sentence, Sinclair called Reid to proudly tell him he had joined Redd Alert and was moving up the ranks. "He was really pleased with himself," Reid recalls. "Things just kept getting worse after that." In 2004, Sinclair was charged in connection with a brutal robbery of a 77-year-old man lured to a downtown apartment by a prostitute. Sinclair was accused of waiting at the apartment, then pulling a gun on the victim and smashing out his teeth with it until the man gave up his bank card and PIN number. Sinclair was in the Edmonton Remand Centre waiting for his trial on those charges in May 2006 when he was swarmed by up to 10 other Redd Alert members. Reid says they wanted to get rid of Sinclair because someone wanted to take over his position in the gang hierarchy. "He wanted out anyway," says Reid.
According to testimony at three of his attackers' trial, Sinclair got into a fight with Johnny Jacknife, another RA member. It was broken up but later flared up again in Sinclair's cell. Two more men joined in and Sinclair was knocked to the ground. Several others streamed into the cell and kicked him while he lay unconscious.
Sinclair was rushed to hospital, where he clung to life with a severe brain injury. He's been in hospitals ever since. The charges in connection with the robbery were stayed. "Now he's stuck here in limbo," Reid says. "Maybe if we can get him well enough, he can still make something of himself. All that time he spent in jail just made him angrier and more violent. He's not the same guy. He wants to do something good." "I was bad," Sinclair says, giving another thumbs-up. "I'm not any more."

Reputed Chicago mob boss convicted in the murders of the organization's Las Vegas link and the man's brother has been sentenced to life in prison.U.S. District Judge James B. Zagel sentenced James Marcello on Thursday after a federal jury held him responsible for the deaths of Tony "The Ant" Spilotro and his brother Michael. Tony was the inspiration for Joe Pesci's character in the movie "Casino."Marcello was convicted in September 2007 with four others in the landmark Operation Family Secrets trial.Zagel says Marcello had to pay for his crimes.Marcello declined to address the court before he was sentenced.Former police officer Anthony Doyle is the last defendant convicted at the trial who has yet to be sentenced.

In the state of New York it has become common place to have police bust up mafia operations. It occurred again on Wednesday when thirteen alleged members of the Genovese crime family were charged with various crimes. Gambling, as it is in most mafia cases, was at the forefront of the charges. The indictment that was unsealed refers to the "operation of illegal gambling businesses." The men were also charged with extortion, narcotics trafficking, and loansharking. Of the thirteen people that were charged, six of them were arrested early Wednesday morning. The other seven were either in the process of turning themselves in or were already in custody from other charges. Among the arrests was a former acting boss for the Genovese crime family. Several of his soldiers were also picked up in the raid. Thomas Tassiello, another Genovese family member was charged in a separate indictment on charges of extortion and racketeering. The sting stems from the crime family shaking down local businesses, mainly bartending school owners in both Jersey City and Manhattan. Genovese soldiers reportedly took over the businesses after the owners could make their payments on loansharking debts.

Colombia's most-wanted drug lords has offered his gunmen nearly $1,000 US for every police officer they murder in a major coca-growing region, a senior official said on Friday.National police chief Gen. Oscar Naranjo said Daniel Rendon, known as Don Mario, had made the offer in a bid to halt police operations targeting his drug trafficking ring and coca crops in the hills of Antioquia province."When a criminal gives an order like Don Mario's, to pay two million pesos for the death of each and every one of my police officers, I know my officers are fulfilling their duties," Naranjo told local television.Colombia's most infamous drug lord Pablo Escobar, who was shot dead by security forces in 1993, used a similar strategy in the 1990s and his hired gunmen killed dozens of police officers in Medellin, Antioquia's main city.Rendon is one of the three most-wanted drug traffickers in the Andean country, the world's biggest cocaine producer, and authorities are offering a reward of up to $2.2 million for information leading to his capture.
He belonged to one of the paramilitary groups that began demobilizing after a 2003 peace deal with the government of President Alvaro Uribe, but he refused to confess his crimes as required under the accord and went into hiding.Early last year, Rendon's group kidnapped 25 men he had accused rivals of sending to kill him in a turf war.Uribe has sent troops to secure areas once controlled by armed groups and violence has ebbed, but leftist rebels and former paramilitaries still battle for control of the nation's vast cocaine trade.

Police in New York have arrested 13 alleged Mafia gangsters believed to be involved in various crimes including racketeering, extortion and cocaine distribution.Most detainees are suspected members of Genevese organized crime family.They are facing lengthy sentence if found guilty.The arrests, trials, inner bickering and turncoats in mafia organization, have weakened the five mafia crime families in New York, including the Bonnano, Colombo, Gambino, Genevese and Luchese.

Jersey City police said that two teens were stabbed at the Newport Centre Mall Saturday night during a melee that involved at leat 18 persons and was reported to be a gang fight.Responding to a disturbance on the first floor of the mall around 8:53 p.m., police and mall security found a 15-year-old boy who had been stabbed in the stomach, reports said.Another juvenile, of unknown age, ran from the mall after being stabbed and went to the Jersey City Fire Department station on Marin Boulevard.
Firefighters said that he had stab wounds in the shoulder.Additional police units responded to the area and rounded up some of the teens.One of the victims told police that he was with three 15-year-old friends when around 15 males approached them. One youth wearing a ski mask and with his forearm in a cast asked if he was affiliated with a certain street gang and then stabbed him, reports said.

Outlaw bikie gangs warring for dominance in the illegal drug market could be a motive for the bombing of a Sydney Hells Angels base, police say.Officers said it was lucky no one was killed by the powerful explosion about 4am (NZ time) yesterday, which left sheets of roofing iron, rubble and shattered glass scattered across Crystal Street at Petersham.As investigators look into the bombing, police fear revenge attacks may follow."Tit-for-tat revenge attacks are not unknown obviously within outlaw motorcycle gangs," Gang Squad Detective Superintendent Mal Lanyon told reporters.Furthermore, he said investigating incidents which involved the gangs often proved difficult."One of the problems with investigating any outlaw motorcycle gang incident is the code of silence that operates within the actual gang structure itself," he said."People ... within gangs are reticent to come forward and provide information to the police and that's why we have to be dedicated and professional in the way we investigate so we can make arrests."Supt Lanyon said detectives were keeping an open mind about the motive for the bombing, but said involvement in the illicit drugs trade was a big part of bikie gang culture."There is obviously a large number of factors that may influence people or may influence other gangs to come in conflict, obviously drug supply and the proceeds from drug supply is something that fuels outlaw motorcycle gangs ... and that would certainly be a motive," he said.
Witnesses have told police they saw two men in a dark four-wheel drive leaving the scene of the bombing on Wednesday, Superintendent David Eardley said.Investigators are also looking at any links between the blast and shots fired into a nearby tattoo parlour."The cause of the explosion is still being determined, but we are satisfied it is as a result of a deliberate act," Supt Eardley told reporters.He was unclear about what role the Petersham building played in the Hells Angels operation and did not say what police had found inside the property."Whether it is the headquarters I'm not quite sure, but it is certainly a premises that's linked to the Hells Angels motorcycle group," Supt Eardley said."I believe it is a premises that has come under notice previously."Nearby resident Kenneth Goodman told News Ltd the explosion damaged windows in his building."I heard the four explosions which we figured were gunshots, then approximately two minutes after, we heard the loud explosion," he said."I came out, walked up the street and then saw all the glass, rubble and carnage, pieces of tin, all across the road."There was heaps of smoke. It smelt like a gun powder, plastic-like smell."Supt Eardley said he was concerned about the potential harm the explosion could have caused."It was probably by sheer luck that no person was killed in the incident ... that no innocent bystanders were killed," he said.