heroin kingpin, Roshan Fernando (35) of Magazine Road, Borella was shot dead on Friday by two unidentified gunmen. Fernando sustained fatal injuries following gunshot injuries, the Police Media Spokesman SSP Ranjit Gunesekera told the Sunday Observer. No arrests have been made so far. The motive for the shooting is not known but according to the police it was due to business rivalry. Director, Police Narcotics Bureau, SSP Eric Perera has seized small quantities of heroin in the Talawatugoda and Kolonnawa areas. In a separate raid they also took in for questioning a man around 7 p.m. on Saturday at Keppettipola Mawatha, Kolonnawa for possessing 50 grammes and 100 milligrams of heroin. Meanwhile, there is a drastic drop in the volume of heroin in the country owing to the naval patrolling of the Palk Straits by the Indian and Sri Lankan Naval patrols.

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special Italian police unit raiding the house in a mountain hamlet in Calabria had come for a fugitive mafia boss. But what they found was more James Bond than The Godfather.

Hidden in a niche in the wall of an innocuous ground-floor room was an aperture for a compressed air pistol which, when fired, caused the floor to lower slowly, revealing a lift giving access to a secret bunker 3m below ground level.

Welcome to San Luca, stronghold of the 'Ndrangheta, the Calabrian mafia that has quietly outpaced Sicily's Cosa Nostra and the Naples Camorra to build an estimated turnover of €36 billion ($94.93 billion), winning a stranglehold over Europe's cocaine trade, all managed by invisible bosses hiding from police manhunts and clan feuds in subterranean bunkers.
"We are turning up bunkers with beds, bathrooms with running water, jacuzzis, CCTV to view the surface, internet and satellite links," said Colonel Valerio Giardina of the Carabinieri, which has this year raided 15 bunkers.
search for underground hideaways has focused on San Luca after a long-standing blood feud between two clans, the Nirta-Strangio and Pelle-Vottari, boiled over into the gunning down last August of six men linked to the Pelle-Vottari outside a pizzeria in Duisburg, Germany.Recent arrests of 'Ndrangheta drug runners in Toronto and Australia are also a reminder of the mob's reach, built on its role as trusted broker to Colombia's cocaine producers and run as an al Qaeda-type collection of loosely linked cells overseas, which in turn answer to a federation-like structure in Calabria with no single ruling godfather.
"The 'Ndrangheta cells abroad are clones of those in Calabria," said magistrate Nicola Gratteri. "The organisation cannot be monolithic, since it has joint ventures with the Mafia and with Colombian cartels abroad, but the cells abroad ultimately answer to the bosses in Calabria."
The bunkers built for those bosses come in two categories, said Giardina, starting with shipping containers buried in open country. "These often have two or three escape tunnels," he said. Police shinning down ropes from a helicopter last year found boss Giuseppe Bellocco in one such rural bunker, watching TV from a bed next to a fridge loaded with wine, beer and lobster.
San Luca boasts the second type: townhouse bunkers, accessed by trapdoors hidden in family homes behind fake kitchen appliances or under floors on sliding rails.
Giardina said in Plati police discovered "a city underneath a city" in 2001. "It was a complex of 12 bunkers, connected to each other and to escape hatches by a kilometre of Vietcong-style tunnels," he said. Five fugitives were found, including one who had been on the run for 14 years.
The underground network in Plati, built with the agreement of friendly councillors, was used in the 1980s to hold kidnap victims that gave the 'Ndrangheta the ransom money to get started in the drug trade.

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A gang which had dominated the drug scene in the northern and north western suburbs of the city has been pushed out and replaced by a younger gang following the brief spate of killings in five days last month. The ousted gang had previously taken over control of the area in the late 1990s and were associates of John Gilligan's gang.Police believe that the murders of four men in the past month from the Finglas and Coolock areas of Dublin -- including two cases in which bodies have yet to be found -- are connected to the emergence of a new gang of drug dealers on the north side of the city.It marks a significant shift in power in the city's drugs trade with gardai trying to establish if this might lead to further bloodletting.
Sources said that the killings last month marked the swift rise to power of a ruthless gang of young drug dealers, who have now achieved a dominant position in the drugs trade in a large area stretching from Baldoyle to Finglas. This area has been beset by feuding in recent years, but gardai say that last month's violence in which there was at least one attempted murder and four murders appears to have marked the successful takeover by a low-profile but ruthless gang.
On July 18, Anthony Foster, 34, was shot dead as he emerged from his girlfriend's flat at Cromcastel Court, and within 12 hours Trevor Walsh, 33, was shot dead at Valley Park Road in Finglas. Four days later, two men, Alan Napper, 37, and David Lindsay, 36, disappeared and gardai believe they were murdered.
Napper and Lindsay, both with a number of addresses in Moyne Road and Seacliff Road, Baldoyle and Grattan Lodge, Donaghmede, were last reported alive visiting a public house in Clane, Co Kildare. Gardai have yet to establish the exact details of their movements, but admit they have no idea what happened to the two after they were seen in the Clane area on July 23.
Lindsay was arrested and questioned in connection with the kidnapping of Helen Judge in September 2002, but was never charged. At the time, Ms Judge's ex-husband, Liam, was living with John Gilligan's daughter, Tracey, in Spain where he owned the public house known as Judge's Chambers. Gardai said that Liam Judge was running Gilligan's drugs distribution operations in Ireland at the time.
Gardai never fully established why Ms Judge was kidnapped, but suspected that close associates of Gilligan's were behind it. According to garda sources, it appears that the long-time associates of John Gilligan have now been pushed out of the drugs trade in Dublin.Gilligan was attacked in Portlaoise Prison last month by a young prisoner and had to be taken into protective custody. One source said that Gilligan has lost his power in the criminal world in Ireland and the new gangs that have emerged have no fear of his remaining network of ageing gangsters.

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Massimo Pisnoli, 48, was found with gunshot wounds to his face and back making his body virtually unrecognisable in what investigators said was a classic Mafia murder.
His daughter Tamara married De Rossi, a Roma and Italy midfielder, in a spectacular ceremony complete with horse and carriage in May 2006, just a month before he won the World Cup. De Rossi is also known to Manchester United fans for scoring Roma's only goal when they lost 7-1 at Old Trafford in a Champions League quarter final in April 2007. Investigators from Rome's anti Mafia department were probing Pisnoli's background and revealed he had previous convictions for robbery and theft and was said to have moved in "criminal underworld circles." Pisnoli had been missing for ten days and his daughter, 24, had told officials after failing to contact him at his home at Trullo on the outskirts of Rome. His decomposing body was found in undergrowth at Campoleone railway station, 35 miles south of Rome near Latina, an area thought to be home to at least eight Mafia clans. One police source said: "It was a classic execution a bullet in the back and one to the mouth – he was virtually unrecognisable and his body was found with its arms up in the air.
"From what we can gather it had been there at least a week and what with the hot weather it was in a pretty bad state. He had convictions for robbery and theft and we know he moved in underworld circles. "The area where he was found, south Lazio, is home to clans from the Neapolitan Camorra and the Calabrian N'drangheta."
After the discovery, De Rossi, 25, was excused from training and at home with his wife and young daughter.

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Crime Branch team gunned down notorious criminal Robert alias Rahul Raju Salve, 32, at Indrayani Nagar in the Bhosari area early this morning. The police said they shot him in an encounter. This was the first encounter killing by the city police in one-and-a-half years — in what appeared to be a response to Police Commissioner Satyapal Singh’s “bullets for gangsters” call.
Deputy Commissioner of Police (Crime) Anil Kumbhare said Salve, a resident of the Nigdi Ota Scheme with 42 offences registered against him, was killed in a joint operation by the Anti-Extortion Cell and Anti-Dacoity Squad of the Crime Branch. The police had received a tip-off that some criminals would be meeting at Indrayani Nagar and then execute a robbery at Moshi toll naka. Two Crime Branch teams were
then formed to lay traps at toll naka and at a water tank in Indrayani Nagar. The sleuths found Salve and his accomplice at Indrayani Nagar, after which police inspector Ram Jadhav asked them to surrender. Salve, however, opened fire on the police team from his pistol, using four bullets one of which hit constable Susheel Kakade on the hand. In retaliation, police inspectors Ram Jadhav of the Anti-Dacoity Squad and Kishore Jadhav of the Anti-Extortion Cell fired three bullets from their service revolvers, two of which went through Salve’s chest. As he collapsed, the police seized his pistol but his accomplice managed to escape from the spot. The cops then rushed constable Kakade and Salve to Yeshwantrao Chavan Memorial Hospital, where the latter was declared dead on arrival. The police seized a revolver and four empty cartridge cases from the encounter spot. They informed that Salve had earlier fired two times at police teams. In 2002, he had fired on two constables who were chasing him in Pimpri while in 2003, he had fired at a police team in Chatuhshrungi.
Salve had also been arrested in an attempted dacoity case in Aurangabad but escaped from the custody of Chhavani police station, Aurangabad. The police said that Salve first entered the crime files in 1996 when he was still a juvenile.
His first crime was a vehicle theft. After that, his names appeared in crimes like dacoity, robbery, house break-ins, and attempting to murder policemen and in Arms Act cases. He was booked under the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) in 2003 and acquitted in 2006. Kumbhare said Salve had been arrested at Nigdi five days ago for illegal possession of firearms and released on bail. Salve, who was strong built and exercised regularly — even in jail— had assaulted dreaded gangster Ravi Pardeshi while in Yerwada jail.

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Hundreds of federal agents fanned out across the city and elsewhere in a roundup of 62 suspects from all walks of Mafia life, from reputed acting boss John "Jackie Nose" D'Amico — a crony of former boss John Gotti — to common street thugs.
At the time, authorities made headlines by hailing the takedown as one of the largest in recent memory and predicting it would further cripple a storied crime family formerly led by the legendary "Dapper Don."
Six months later and with far less fanfare, 60 of the defendants have pleaded guilty, with many taking deals that will put them behind bars for three years or less. Two of the pleas were entered Thursday and one case was dismissed last week, leaving a lone defendant charged with murder facing trial.
D'Amico, originally charged with racketeering, pleaded guilty in May to extorting a cement company out of $100,000 and could serve less than two years in prison.
The U.S. attorney's office in Brooklyn, which has a long history of prosecuting high-profile Mafia cases with lengthy trials and sentences, has called the case a success. But some defense attorneys suggest the many plea deals show the office overreached and became overwhelmed as the judge pushed for a speedy outcome.
"There's no such thing as a 62-defendant trial," said one of the lawyers, Avraham Moskowitz. "So what's the point? The point is to make a splash."
Extortion charges against his client, a New Jersey construction official, were quietly dropped earlier this month after prosecutors conceded they didn't have enough evidence against him. But by then, the lawyer said, an innocent man had seen his reputation ruined by stories linking him to co-defendants with nicknames like "Tommy Sneakers" and "Joe Rackets."
"My client's experience suggests they brought an indictment without careful evaluation of the evidence," he said.Former mob prosecutors say there was nothing haphazard about the Gambino case. Instead, they say, it reflected a calculated shift in strategy favoring carpet bombing of the entire enterprise over strategic strikes against leadership."In my view, this is groundbreaking," said James Walden, a former federal prosecutor in Brooklyn who won major convictions against the Bonanno crime family. "They essentially took out the entire organization in one fell swoop" — an approach designed to reap a new crop of cooperators and rattle those mobsters still on the street but under surveillance.The 80-count Gambino indictment charged the defendants with seven murders, three dating back more than a quarter-century, as well as "mob-tax" extortion of the construction industry and racketeering. Among the crimes were the slaying of a court officer and extortion at a failed NASCAR track.
On Thursday, reputed capo "Little Nick" Corozzo and co-defendant Vincent DeCongilio avoided a trial scheduled for next week by pleading guilty. The indictment alleged Corozzo ordered the Jan. 26, 1996, murder of a rival mobster.Corozzo now faces 12 to 15 years in prison for murder conspiracy — by far the harshest term for any of the defendants — and DeCongilio 12 to 18 months for lesser crimes.
According to prosecutors, Corozzo, 68, was part of a three-man committee of capos formed in 1994 to help John A. "Junior" Gotti run New York's Gambino family while his father was in prison, serving a life sentence for murder and racketeering.
The elder Gotti died behind bars in 2002. The younger Gotti was charged with conspiracy last week; three previous prosecution attempts have ended in mistrials.

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Twenty-seven-year-old Shane Moloney, from Drimnagh Road in Dublin, is charged with the possession of heroin and possession of the drug for sale or supply.
Detective Diarmuid Maguire from the Organised Crime Unit told Judge John Lindsey that Mr Moloney was arrested and charged yesterday at Ballyfermot Garda Station.
He made no reply when the two charges were put to him and has been remanded in custody to appear at Cloverhill District Court on August 21st.Two other men, also in their 20s, are due before the court shortly on the same charges in connection with the haul.Six kilos of heroin were seized on Wednesday night after four cars were stopped on the Kennelsfort Road in south Dublin.

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brutal murder of four people at a provincial German ice cream parlour last night raised fears that the country is fast becoming a killing field for duelling mafia clans. The attack occurred in Rüsselsheim – home to the Opel car factory – where many Italian workers have settled, establishing pizzerias and cafes with their savings. Three men, described as being of “Mediterranean appearance” approached the ice cream salon just before dusk and fired rapidly at a group of three male customers. A woman standing nearby was also killed, but it was still unclear last night whether she was a target or was gunned down by accident.
The shadow of the Calabrian mafia may thus again be stretching over the industrial heartland of Germany. A few days ago, Italian police arrested Paolo Nirta, the acting head of the San Luca clan, a stronghold of the Calabrian gangs known as the ‘Ndrangheta. Nirta is suspected of involvement in the killing of six Italians in a pizzeria in Duisburg, in western Germany, almost exactly a year ago. That was regarded as a vengeance killing: Nirta’s sister-in-law, Maria Strangio was shot down on her doorstep just before Christmas 2006. A major man hunt was underway with helicopters and tracker dogs deployed around much of the surrounding area. The assassins were said by witnesses to have both pistols and knives.
Plainly though, the ice-cream murders may be part of an elaborate tit-for-tat. Somebody betrayed Nirta to the police last week. That usually triggers a revenge attack. Germany was shocked by the Duisburg murders last year and it will be equally concerned by the ice cream parlour killings. There are some 540,000 Italians living in Germany, most of them well integrated. They are the descendents of “Guest workers” who were brought to Germany from poorer corners of southern Italy after World War Two to help fuel the country’s economic recovery. Until last year, there was no substantial evidence of Italian mafia involvement in the German criminal economy. The ‘Ndrangheta makes its money largely through drug trafficking, manipulating contracts in the building industry, protection rackets and prostitution. Italian involvement, even in the German drug trade, has however, been marginal. Instead, the Calabrian gangs have used German-based Italian restaurants and suppliers as a way of laundering money. But, crime experts have been warning that this supposedly “white collar” crime would ultimately bring violence to the streets of Germany. “If we allow crime proceeds to seep into another economy, if drug or extortion money from Italy enters Germany, then that is no longer the end of the story,” says Federico Varese, a professor of criminology and expert on organised crime. “It is possible, that the ‘Ndrangheta will move up from simple money laundering to become more entrenched in the German economy – and that is the most dangerous situation you can imagine.”

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eath penalty for two gang members guilty of one of the largest gang killings in San Bernardino County's history.In July, the jury had found Luis "Maldito" Mendoza and Lorenzo Arias guilty in what has become known as the Dead Presidents case. They are set to be sentenced Sept. 10.The case involved a July 9, 2000, shooting at a West Side duplex in which four gang members died. Among them were Johnny and Gilbert Agudo, brothers and presidents of different West Side street gangs. Also killed were half brothers Marselino and Anthony Luna.Prosecutors alleged that Mendoza and Arias, both members of the 7th Street Locos who had grown up with the Agudos, were carrying out an order by members of the Mexican Mafia prison gang.The case was widely seen as an example of how Mexican Mafia influence has forced some Latino street gangs to turn on their own members.

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Gary Hardy has been convicted of pumping millions of pounds worth of class A drugs into Ashfield after masterminding one of the county's biggest ever narcotics empires. He controlled the Ashfield drugs scene through fear and violence and swamped the district with huge quantities of heroin and amphetamines between 2000 and 2007. The Mansfield businessman, who ran the criminal gang alongside convicted dealer John Dawes until he was jailed in 2005, earned millions of pounds from his underworld activities to finance a lavish lifestyle. Hardy consistently denied the charges during a two-month trial at Nottingham Crown Court and claimed his millionaire lifestyle had been funded through the profits of his extensive property and luxury car rental business. But a 12-man jury, which took more than three days to deliver its verdicts, declined to believe Hardy's lies and found him guilty of supplying heroin and amphetamines, of money laundering, of having £14,000-worth of cash gained through criminal activities and possessing criminal cash. But Hardy, who is expected to receive a lengthy prison sentence, was cleared of conspiracy to supply cocaine and four counts of conspiracy to supply cannabis. Fellow gang member and brother Paul Hardy is also facing jail after he was convicted for his part in flooding Ashfield and north Nottinghamshire with heroin and amphetamines. Paul Hardy, a crack cocaine addict, was also convicted of two charges of supplying cannabis resin and possessing criminal cash – but was cleared of a further count of supplying amphetamines and two charges of supplying cannabis. His former girlfriend Zoe Chapman, who has had five of his children, was found guilty of supplying amphetamines to a drug dealer lower down the chain between after Paul Hardy decided to lay low following interest from police. The brothers' mother June Muers, who had no previous convictions, was convicted of supplying amphetamines and cannabis resin, which she kept in a garden shed at her former Pearl Avenue home, and possessing thousands of pounds in drugs money. But Clipstone man Carl Busby, who had been accused of laundering hundreds of thousands of pounds of drugs money on behalf of Gary Hardy between May 2003 and December 2006, was cleared of all charges. The gang members are expected to be sentenced at Nottingham Crown Court some time in September.

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Taher Majid, Abdul Koser and Quentin Reynolds were found guilty of conspiracy to cheat the public revenue as well as money laundering charges. They will be sentenced in September. Marcus Hughes pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing and was sentenced to six years in prison. He is already serving a 12-year sentence for drug smuggling.
In 2003, 350 HMRC officers took part in raids in the UK and Spain, which were described by customs officers as some of the largest to take place in the UK.
Large amounts of cash were seized during the raids, and a ton of cannabis was taken from one of the business addresses, resulting in 33 men and six women being arrested.
The raids even took place at Carphone Warehouse’s headquarters in west
London. Two members of Carphone Warehouse’s staff were cautioned and questioned during the visit from HMRC officers, but they were not arrested or charged.
A further series of raids were carried out in 2007, resulting in half-a-million documents being examined, along with the hard drives of 391 computers.
HMRC alleged that those charged had engaged in missing trader fraud, purchasing handsets from outside the UK then failing to pay the millions owed in VAT when the handsets were re-sold abroad.Sixteen people were originally charged with cheating the revenue, and concealing and transferring the proceeds of criminal intent.
A European Court of Justice ruling is pressurising HMRC’s policy of withholding VAT refunds for up to two years while carrying out anti-fraud enquiries.A new European Court judgment states that tax offices should not withhold refunds for more than two months for an established trader.The European Court of Justice was upholding a case brought by a Polish trader who had his VAT claim withheld pending extended verification without a decision being made.The judgment of the court sets a precedent for UK traders to challenge extended verification periods of up to two years imposed in the UK by HMRC.The court agreed member states had a legitimate interest in preventing tax evasion and abuse.

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Gangland has seen Billy Martindale shot at, stabbed, spend 15 years on the run from the police and mix with some of Britain's most notorious gangsters. Martindale spent seven years of his life growing up in Manea and when his best friend Tommy Shepherd was murdered, it sent shockwaves through the Fenland travelling community. Despite being linked with numerous crimes, including murder, kidnapping, armed robberies, fraud and causing grievous and actual bodily harm Martindale has spent just six months in prison. During his stint in Pentonville, he turned to Islam, and on release met with notorious hate-preacher Abu Hamza.
He said: "It's my life from day one until now. It's been an emotional experience putting it together."Martindale is son the son of renowned ex professional boxer and prize-fighter Lew 'Wild Thing' Yates.He grew up in Crawshawbooth, Lancashire, and moved down to Forest Gate, London when he was three when his mother ran off with another man. Martindale didn't see his mother for 24 years and made contact with her six years ago.He said: "I didn't even know what she looked like. She was just a friendly elderly lady - a complete stranger - there will never be a bond or a proper relationship between us."
Martindale's father went from professional boxing to unlicensed, bare-knuckle fighting to earn more money.Martindale got into fights and scrapes as a young child and his father took out of the hustle and bustle of London and they moved to Manea when he was 10.His father left him to fend for himself with a shotgun as he travelled back to London for work.
He said: "Dad just told me if anyone came to the house and gave me trouble I should shoot into the air and crack them over the head with it. I just had fun shooting at cans and anything I could in the back garden."Martindale lived in Manea for seven years and went to Cromwell Community College, Chatteris.
He said: "It was difficult for me. I found the area to be quite a clique place and I was an outsider."Martindale found acceptance with the Shepherds - a well-known Fenland travelling family.He became best friends with their son Tommy, who was the same age. He said: "We used to wreak havoc in Manea and Chatteris. We were just kids trying to get our hands on some money so we'd steal cars and scrap metal and do whatever we could to get a note." In 1997 the dead, naked body of Tommy Shepherd was discovered rolled up in a carpet, down a dirt track in Chatteris.
With accusations of a fellow traveller being responsible Tommy's death tore the area's travelling community apart. Nobody has been charged with Tommy's murder.
Martindale said: "People wanted revenge and a lot of people went missing at that time."I know that Tommy was murdered by junkies. They just wanted to steal £5,000 from him to get drugs and they poisoned him."These scum bags will be looking over their shoulders for the rest of their lives, People are out their looking for them and I'd love to run into them myself."
Martindale was devastated and he soon became involved in more than 20 armed robberies, money making scams.He targeted drug dealers and became a hired enforcer and doorman. He said: "In the early days I would rob businesses and post offices, I'd never target individual people or mug old ladies. But after Tommy's death I'd do over drug dealers."I hate drugs - I've seen them destroy so many people's lives."
One run in with a drug dealer led to Martindale being shot at in Chigwell in 2002.
He said: "I'd received a phone call and been told to meet somebody at a garage to collect a debt, but I'd been set up. A drug dealer I'd done over wanted me dead and three people turned up in a car with a shotgun. I saw the barrel of the gun out of the car window and the bullet scraped my arm. I grabbed the gun and they sped off so I hurled it at the car."Martindale worked as a bouncer at clubs in London, Essex and Kent.
He said: "I worked in some really dodgy bars in east London and there was always trouble. I was stabbed on three separate occasions."
From the ages of 17 to 33 numerous warrants were issued for Martindale's arrest.
He escaped the police using false passports.He travelled to Miami and Spain and charges were dropped due to lack of evidence.He has mixed with notorious gangsters like Frankie Frazer, Danny Woolard, Freddie Foreman and his good friend and fighting legend Roy Shaw.He was arrested for imprisonment but the charges were dropped after the witness backed out. He said: "A friend's girlfriend got raped. She went to police and somebody was arrested but the case was dropped because she couldn't face going to court."I found him and made sure he would never do anything like that again." He was questioned over a murder but never charged and says he had nothing to do with it. Martindale spent six months in Pentonville Prison, in London for stealing a car and criminal damage. He said: "I was stuck in a cell for 23 hours a day. I said I was interested in learning about Islam because it meant I could spend more time pout of the cell but I actually got quite into it."After my release I would go to Finsbury Park mosque and I once had dinner with Abu Hamza. I had no trouble with him and he didn't fill me with hate. "I have massive respect for people who follow that faith but I found it too restrictive and just couldn't do it."

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Sean Lynch, 48, has had his palatial home and luxury motors seized by police.
He now faces a confiscation hearing in December after a jury convicted him of conspiracy to supply cocaine Assets seized include his house on a gated estate in Warlingham, Surrey, a £170,000 Aston Martin, a Rolls Royce, Mercedes and BMW convertibles, a Land Rover, a VW Golf,a motorbike and an American police car. Lynch, who also owned a villa in Spain, lived with second wife Michelle and sent their three children to an exclusive private school — paying their fees of thousands of pounds in thick wads of cash.
Lynch and his gang had been arrested when police raided addresses in Warlingham and Tooting, South London.Cops found cocaine, amphetamines and cannabis worth £600,000 at the gang’s “warehouse” in Tooting. Detectives had kept the property under surveillance for six months, watching deliveries going in and out. Kingston Crown Court heard the cocaine was still packaged in pellets which had been swallowed by human drug mules — indicating the gang were “very close to the importers”. The raids also netted weapons including flick knives and knuckledusters.
Lynch, who admitted conspiracy to supply cannabis and amphetamines, was jailed for 18 years. His right-hand man Ian Nesbitt, 46, from Tooting, pleaded guilty and was jailed for 12 years. Stephen Voller, 56, and David Warwick, 34, both from Tooting, were found guilty by a jury. Voller was given 14 years and Warwick 12.

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Giuseppe Coluccio, a suspected drug trafficker, who has been on the run since 2005. The country's defense minister, Ignazio La Russa, said the arrest showed authorities were making advances in the fight against organised crime."Coluccio had lived happily in Canada thanks to the (support) provided by the Calabrian clans – a situation that shows the extraordinary reach of the 'Ndrangheta," public prosecutor Giuseppe Pignatone was quoted by Italian media as saying. Italy's ANSA news agency reported that police found $1 million in checks at Coluccio's home.
Canadian Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day said in a statement late on Thursday that Coluccio was arrested near Toronto on a Canada-wide immigration warrant and is wanted by Italy for drug-related offenses.'Ndrangheta, based in the southern Calabria region, has reportedly overtaken Sicily's Cosa Nostra to become the most powerful Italian crime group.

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Patrizio Bosti, accused of heading a clan of the Neapolitan crime syndicate the Camorra, was arrested Saturday evening in the north- eastern Spanish city of Girona, state radio RNE reported. Police in Spain have arrested a fugitive organized crime boss who is among the 30 'most-wanted' criminals in Italy, reports said Sunday.
The 49-year-old had been sentenced in absentia to 23 years' imprisonment on charges connected with a double murder and membership of a criminal organisation. He was on the run since 2005, when he was released from custody following the expiration of the maximum amount of time he could be held on remand. He is believed to have taken over the leadership of a Camorra clan in 2007 after the previous head was jailed.

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Giuseppe Coluccio, 42, was arrested Thursday outside the luxury lakeside apartment building where he has been living in Toronto, ending two years as a fugitive, said prosecutor Nicola Gratteri.
Coluccio has been on the lam since 2005 when he fled a trial alleging he and his brother ran a mob organization that controlled maritime traffic along a 60-kilometer (nearly 40-mile) stretch of the Calabrian coast. His brother Salvatore Coluccio, 41, also is being sought.
«This is a very important arrest because it shows the connection between the 'ndrangheta in Calabria and in Canada,» Gratteri said in a telephone interview.
The Reggio Calabria-based prosecutor said the Canadian branch of the 'ndrangheta has been operating for more than 50 years and is heavily involved in drug trafficking and money laundering. Some investigators say the 'ndrangheta is now more powerful than the Sicilian Mafia, and is increasingly spreading its influence abroad.
Coluccio faces an extradition hearing within three days, Gratteri said.
In all, 28 people have been charged in the trial, which has resulted to date in 20 convictions with sentences ranging from 16 to 18 years in jail, Gratteri said.

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Gary Hardy was found guilty of supplying heroin and amphetamines and laundering his profits through a string of made-to-measure businesses. And Hardy kept it in the family, using his crack addict brother Paul to deal vast quantities of drugs worth hundreds of thousands of pounds. The family connection did not end there - their mother, June Muers, 67, helped Paul deal drugs out of her home in Kirkby-in-Ashfield. And Paul's ex-partner Zoe Chapman, 29, would courier drugs to clients in her children's pushchair. All were found guilty of drugs offences at Nottingham Crown Court on Thursday. Police seized £70,000 worth of drugs from his mother's home During the course of the trial, Gary Hardy, 46, was described as one of three drugs generals, with a huge multi-million pound drugs empire, who ran part of the north Nottinghamshire patch. He shared the area with two other dealers, John Dawes and his brother Rob, to avoid a turf war. John Dawes is currently three years into a 24-year prison sentence for supplying Class A and B drugs. His brother Rob was arrested in Dubai in May on an international arrest warrant issued by the Spanish authorities in connection with drugs charges. For every kilogram of heroin sold every seven to 10 days, the Dawes brothers and Hardy would make £8,000 profit each.
Running his turf with violence, fear and intimidation, the court heard that Gary Hardy and his family were notorious in the area, outwardly enjoying all the trappings of wealth from "successful businesses". Between 2001-07, Hardy was the registered keeper of 90 vehicles, not all at the same time, but nevertheless expensive, luxury cars. When he was arrested, he had 16 finance agreements on the cars, valued at £904,000, with monthly repayments reaching £15,200.
He would "sell" these cars on to his employees, taking instalments from them and hanging onto the log books until payments had been made, laundering his drugs cash.
Hardy enjoyed his affluent lifestyle He had a brand new home, and would pay his children's private school fees in cash, yet had several failed businesses.
Hardy was already under surveillance when a drug deal went wrong on 29 April 2003, but that failed deal ensured Nottinghamshire Police finally got some key evidence and signed up a number of witnesses to testify against him. Their following investigation looked closely into the accounts from companies he owned or was involved with. When fraud accountants went through Hardy's Apex Windows' accounts, they found in 2003, more than £1m went out on wages - a 148% increase on the previous year, but sales only rose by 34%. Employees on the books included Paul Hardy, although witnesses said he never did a day's work there.
In six years, Hardy had finance deals on 90 luxury cars Det Ch Insp Stewart Bradley who led the investigation, said: "He was a major player. The Hardy drugs group is what we would class as an organised crime group.
"Gary Hardy had a network of people underneath him, prepared to do the work for him and he remained, as was described, a general with a number of lieutenants and perhaps what you would describe as soldiers working on the ground.
"In his elevated position, he was able to keep away from the hands-on drugs himself and dealt mainly with the money. And that money ran into millions." He said some witnesses who gave evidence were so frightened they left the area and never returned. The court heard one tell how a man was beaten and stabbed at one of Gary Hardy's garages as he failed to pay a drugs debt.
On the day of the Hardy arrests on 4 January 2007, police found drugs with a street value of almost £70,000 and £16,000 in cash stashed all over June Muers' house, including in a spaghetti pot in the kitchen. Apex Windows, like his other businesses, went into liquidation
Ch Insp Barry Harper from the drugs directorate said: "I think Gary Hardy did a lot of damage to the community. "By flooding this area with drugs, it caused untold amounts of damage to people."
During the trial, in trying to justify how he kept up his flashy lifestyle when businesses were failing, Hardy maintained his car and window companies became "too successful" and had to be put into liquidation.
He had a portfolio of about 40 properties in north Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire.
One witness claimed most of the properties were empty and the money was laundered through rent books. Not a single receipt was recovered for the rents paid, a point Hardy failed to clear up during the trial.
Now the process of untangling Hardy's assets has begun, as officers have started to try to recover his ill-gotten gains through the Proceeds of Crime Act.

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Paolo Nirta ,31, was picked up at a house in San Luca, southern Italy. He is wanted on charges of Mafia association.
Italian police today arrested a wanted gang leader believed to be part of an organised crime clan involved in the massacre of six people in Germany last summer.
Nirta's family was involved in a feud that led to the killing of the six Italians outside a restaurant in Duisburg, Germany.The feud, involving two rival families, drew international attention to the 'ndrangheta, a crime syndicate based in the southern region of Calabria.Some investigators say it is now more powerful than the Sicilian Mafia.

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investigators have identified 27 crime bosses running networks from prison cells. Although they are all in jail, Terry Adams, Kenneth Noye, Brian Brendon Wright, Brian Gunn and Curtis Warren are being monitored closely.
Deputy Chief Constable Jon Murphy, of the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo), told The Times that crime specialists work together to make money through drug deals, robberies and smuggling. “British gangs are quite unlike the Italian Mafia model or the Turkish groups,” he said. “There are no set ranks, rules and structures. They are more fluid, flexible and opportunist.”
The intelligence picture was built up by Acpo working with the 43 police forces in England and Wales and other bodies. More than 15,000 individuals are said to have been identified as involved in organised crime.London has more than 170 gangs. Some have sophisticated hierarchies; others are little more than street-level groups. In Liverpool, criminal networks are deeply embedded and run by a number of families whose tentacles spread well beyond the city. Merseyside criminals control the drug trade on the South Coast. Manchester has established gangs such as the Longsight Crew and the Gooch Close Gang, while Birmingham has been dealing for years with the rivalry between the Johnson Crew and the Burger Bar Boys. Bradford is a centre for money laundering and a major distribution point for heroin by British-Pakistani gangs. Serious crime in Nottingham has been dominated by the Gunn family. Glasgow is the hub for the distribution of firearms in Scotland and the starting point for much of the heroin trade, which spreads as far north as Shetland.

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Police today busted the Australian arm of a Mafia-linked drug ring which smuggled massive amounts of ecstasy into Melbourne.In conjunction with the Australian Customs Service, police have seized 5.6 tonnes of ecstasy pills and 150kg of cocaine during a three-year operation. Almost 20 million ecstasy tablets were seized during the exhaustive probe, which involved hundreds of AFP agents. The bust is a world record amount for ecstasy and includes the largest amount of cocaine ever detected in Victoria.The drugs have a street value of about $600 million. AFP agents began raiding properties around Australia early today and by 8.30am had arrested 14 men and one woman. Nine of those arrests were in Melbourne and the other arrests were made in New South Wales, Tasmania and South Australia. AFP Commissioner Mick Keelty today named some of the arrested as Griffiths man Pasquale ''Pat'' Barbaro, Crown casino high-roller and Tony Mokbel mate Rob Karam and the founder of the Black Uhlans bikie gang in Melbourne John William Samuel Higgs.Various close relatives of Mr Barbaro, 46, were named in the Woodward Royal Commission as being members of the Calabrian Mafia gang responsible for the 1977 murder of Donald Mackay.
Mr Keelty revealed 400 AFP agents conducted more than 10,000 hours of secret surveillance on gang members and that the AFP estimated the international drug syndicate was responsible for 60 per cent of all drug importations into Australia.
Members of various organised crime gangs collaborated with each other in a rare case of unity to fund and organise the massive ecstasy shipments. AFP intelligence suggests Australian members of the Calabrian mafia played major roles in the international syndicate. They teamed up with criminals from other gangs, including some of Lebanese extraction. A founding member of a Melbourne bike gang was among those arrested today. One of those arrested in Griffith in New South Wales has strong links to the Calabrian mafia cell responsible for the murder of anti-drug campaigner Donald Mackay. That Australia was on the smuggling route of an international gang dominated by the Calabrian mafia came as no surprise to Italian organised crime experts. The Calabrian secret society at the centre of the global drug racket is known in Calabrian dialect as N'Dranghita.
N'Dranghita has had very strong cells in Australia since at least the 1930s.
It is particularly prevalent in Melbourne, Mildura and Shepparton in Victoria, Griffith in New South Wales, Adelaide and Canberra.
N'Dranghita is called L'Onorata Societa or the Honoured Society by some Italians, La Famiglia or the Family by others, and simply the mafia by most in Australia. It is the gang responsible for the the 1977 murder of Griffith anti-drugs crusader Donald Mackay.
N'Dranghita has been responsible for growing and distributing much of Australia's marijuana for decades. It also got involved in heroin importations in 1978 through now dead crime boss Robert Trimbole and is known to have been involved in massive cocaine importations since at least 2000. The AFP has been working closely with several overseas law enforcement agencies to gather evidence to bust the network's Australian arm.
The arrests followed the arrival in Melbourne on July 24 of a shipping container with three 50kg bags of cocaine hidden in a load of coffee.
AFP agents seized the cocaine and replaced it with fake drugs and left the container at Melbourne docks in the hope gang members would collect it.
Strong intelligence collected by the AFP since the cocaine arrived suggests the syndicate members became aware the shipment might have been detected by police and they abandoned it. But the AFP already had sufficient evidence from the cocaine haul, and the earlier ecstasy shipments, to begin today's coordinated raids around the nation.
Two separate loads of ecstasy pills arrived in Melbourne from Italy in shipping containers and the recent cocaine haul was imported by ship from Colombia.
Both ecstasy shipments were of world record size at the time and the second of 14.5 million tablets is still the largest single seizure of the drug in the world.
AFP agents seized the first 1.2 tonne ecstasy shipment in Melbourne in 2005 and the second 4.4 tonne shipment at Melbourne docks in 2007. Arrests were made over the first ecstasy haul and its presence revealed.
But the 4.4 tonne shipment was kept secret in the hope doing so would lead to more evidence being gathered against the international syndicate. Those arrested are expected to appear in court later today to face drug charges.

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