True Detective

'Fat Freddie' Thompson in Alicante and his lieutenant who shot Foley is in Malaga

Monday 30 June 2008

'Fat Freddie' Thompson and two of his key associates have fled to Spain in fear of their lives.The trio, including the gangland figure reported to have shot Martin 'Viper' Foley, left the country at the weekend.
Thompson is thought to be in Alicante and his lieutenant who shot Foley is in Malaga.
Early Saturday, the home of another associate was ripped apart in a grenade attack.
The 2.20am explosion came horrifically close to claiming the lives of the children of the household. They had been watching television until 2am.
The grenade was rolled into the sittingroom of the house, ripping out the ceiling and attic.Gardai are convinced that the departure of Thompson and his pals will do little to calm his two feuds with the INLA and another jailed drug dealer.a consortium of criminals have pooled €40,000 to have Thompson taken out. Already €20,000 has been paid over to the INLA to carry out the contract.The INLA have brought in a hitman from the North to carry out the contract.
Meanwhile, Thompson's gang have three criminals trying to shoot the INLA's Dublin chief.The ongoing violence has left local people terrified. Locals are also furious that the gangs are tarnishing the good names of the communities in the Crumlin/Drimnagh areas and the south inner city."When our children are looking for jobs, it doesn't help them when these thugs are spoiling the reputation of the area," said one local.One of those arrested was the criminal who shot Foley earlier this year and who has now fled to Malaga.Officers seized a bulletproof 7 series BMW in the chase, along with a stolen BMW about to be fitted with false plates

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Delfon L. Hare sentenced to 30 years

Saturday 28 June 2008

Delfon L. Hare of Riverdale on Friday, based on his recent and prior drug convictions. Once Hare is released from prison, he must serve 10 years of supervised release.According to a guilty plea in Hare's case, he sold cocaine in Hyattsville and elsewhere in Prince George's County on three occasions in 2006. Prosecutors say law enforcement officers observed all three transactions and recovered the drugs.

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Megan Smethurst Protection officers found 2.3 pounds of ecstacy, worth an estimated $10,000, in her purse

Megan Smethurst, 20, was apprehended at the Peace Arch border crossing after an inspection by U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers found 2.3 pounds of ecstacy, worth an estimated $10,000, in her purse, according to a press release by the Border Protection. Smethurst was a participant in the NEXUS traveler program. NEXUS participants are prescreened, low-risk, frequent border crossers who have undergone a background check, according to Border Protection.

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Raymond Owen had more than 1kg of cocaine, worth more than £55,000, and almost £214,000 cash scattered about his rented house

Raymond Owen had more than 1kg of cocaine, worth more than £55,000, and almost £214,000 cash scattered about his rented house on Grantham Green, Middlesbrough.
Bundles of £2,000 to £50,000 were unveiled under boards in the loft, behind a bathroom wash basin, in the cupboard under the stairs, under drawers, behind the cooker and washing machine and even in the vacuum cleaner.The 44-year-old admitted possession of cocaine with intent to supply and concealing criminal property.Robert Mochrie, mitigating, said Owen was profiting from cocaine dealing but the cash in the house was money that he owed, not his.Owen was caught in a “web” of cocaine addiction and pressure to store and supply drugs to pay off spiralling debts.
But Judge Peter Bowers said Owen was heavily involved in the commercial supply of cocaine.

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Michael Hunt, 30, threw a package containing 24.3g of heroin, worth £2,430 on the streets, out of a window,

Friday 27 June 2008

Michael Hunt’s home in Haswell Court, Stockton, was searched by police on April 19 last year and Hunt, 30, threw a package containing 24.3g of heroin, worth £2,430 on the streets, out of a window, Teesside Crown Court heard.Digital scales and 11 pieces of paper carrying his phone number were also found, said prosecutor Harry Hadfield.While on bail during long delays bringing the case to court, Hunt, pictured, was caught with heroin on April 1 this year.He ran from police in Talbot Street, Stockton, and discarded three packages in a garden. They contained a total of 280.6g of heroin worth £14,180.A drugs squad officer believed only a trusted member of the illicit drugs market would be caught with that amount, the court heard. Hunt had some scales in his pocket and 2.3g of cannabis.He admitted two charges of possessing a Class A drug with intent to supply and one of possessing a Class C drug.He had previous convictions, but none for drug dealing.Brian Russell, for Hunt, said Hunt was intimidated to transport and store drugs, gaining only drugs for his own use.The judge, Recorder Henry Prosser, accepted he was not at the top of the hierarchy, but dealing was taking place at Hunt’s house and the offences were “hugely serious”.Hunt’s partner at the time of the first raid, Leanne Saunders, 26, a Stockton Council drug support worker, who also worked with drugs group PANIC, was given an 18-month conditional discharge with £100 costs.She admitted possession of 0.02g of heroin - traces found in a Kinder Egg. It was accepted she relapsed into heroin use and was not involved in dealing.

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Adam D. Meyer,Elizabeth S. Lawyer "It was a heroin deal gone bad,"

Wednesday 25 June 2008

Adam D. Meyer, 22, formerly of Dixon, and Elizabeth S. Lawyer, 26, were arrested Thursday in the apartment they share on state Route 84.They are in Winnebago County Jail. Meyer, whom investigators believe is the shooter, is being held on $1.5 million bond; Lawyer, who is accused of providing the gun, is being held on $1 million.According to investigators, the afternoon of May 27, Larry "Chico" D. Wright, 36, was sitting in his car on Parmele Street and 20th Avenue in Rockford when he was shot.
The arrest was the result of a tip made to State Police in Sterling, Blackhawk Area Task Force Master Sgt. John Biffany said."It was a heroin deal gone bad," Biffany said.Two weeks before the shooting, Meyer was charged with misdemeanor possession of a hypodermic needle for heroin use. Lawyer has a misdemeanor conviction for possession of drug paraphernalia, court records show.
No further arrests are planned at this time, Rockford police said in a news release Thursday.

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Julia Ann Santos,Marisol Sanchez charged with possession of heroin

Marisol Sanchez, 39, of 659 State St., Apt 2B, was charged with possession of heroin with intent to distribute, two counts of possession of cocaine with intent to distribute and violation of a drug-free school zone, police documents state. Sanchez also had an outstanding default warrant. Julia Ann Santos, 33, of 102 Waite St., was charged with possession of heroin with intent to distribute, three counts of possession of cocaine with intent to distribute and violation of a drug-free school zone, documents state.

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Spanish police say they have arrested six people on suspicion of smuggling heroin

Spanish police say they have arrested six people on suspicion of smuggling heroin from Turkey and distributing it just outside Madrid.Police say investigators have seized 28 kilograms (62 pounds) of heroin, five rifles, two guns, ammunition, a large amount of jewels and more than €185,000 (US$290,000) in cash during raids.
The suspects, which included one Turkish national, allegedly used a distribution point in Canada Real Galiana de Valdemingomez, a shantytown to the southeast of Madrid.Police said Tuesday the two suspects were carrying a large bag full of cash at the time of their arrest.

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Charles Joseph Campbell Sr.,Cathy Lynn Campbell,Charles Joseph Campbell Jr, family was booked at the Mackinac County Jail

Charles Joseph Campbell Sr., 50, was arrested for possession with intent to deliver marijuana and for maintaining a drug house. He posted $1,000 bond and was released.
Cathy Lynn Campbell, 52, was arrested for maintaining a drug house and was released on a personal recognizance bond.
Charles Joseph Campbell Jr., 19, was released on a personal recognizance bond after his arrest for possession of marijuana.
The family was booked at the Mackinac County Jail. Moran is a small community just north of St. Ignace.

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Antonio T. Mickens charged with trafficking crack cocaine, and possession with intent to deliver cocaine and Ecstasy

Antonio T. Mickens, 22, was charged with trafficking crack cocaine, and possession with intent to deliver cocaine and Ecstasy; while McKenzie C. Rogers, 24, was charged with possession with intent to deliver heroin and marijuana, and resisting arrest, police said.Also, Tyrone L. Carson, 23, was arrested on warrants charging him with armed robbery and assault and battery with intent to kill in connection with a May 23 robbery and shooting on School House Road, police said.The three men were among 60 people arrested in the special operation, police said.The department’s Community Response Team, K-9 and Organized Crime/Narcotics units, Gang Task Force and road patrol officers participated in the arrests.

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Filiberto Parra Ramos aka "The Bitch", was arrested along with 58 other men

Filiberto Parra Ramos, nicknamed "The Bitch", was arrested along with 58 other men on Saturday (local time) by soldiers who raided a childrens party in a neighbourhood of Tijuana across the United States border from San Diego, California."When they identified him they separated him from the group," a spokesman for the Baja California state police said.Parra Ramos is considered one of top leaders of the Tijuana cartel, which is headed by the Arellano Felix family.President Felipe Calderon has deployed 25,000 troops and federal police to fight the well-armed cartels that smuggle cocaine, marijuana and amphetamines to the US.About 1,550 people have died this year as drug gangs battle each other and security forces.

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Fat’ Freddie Thompson is lying low in Salou in Northern Spain

Monday 23 June 2008

Fat’ Freddie Thompson is lying low in Salou in Northern Spain after he fled Dublin with a €40,000 hit-bounty on his head.
Meanwhile, Thompson’s arch enemy INLA gangster Declan ‘Whacker’ Duffy has also fled Ireland in a last-minute bid to avoid assassination. Following a series of vicious stabbings shootings between the rival gangs Gardai fear - open warfare on the streets of Ireland’s capital city Dublin.With both fractions locked into a deadly feud the Gardai have warned more than 100 criminals in Dublin that their lives are in danger - and they should take precautions.The INLA are making a comeback. They've abandoned all pretence of being republican revolutionaries and are now openly operating as bona fide criminals.
THEY may regard him as one of Ireland's most wanted, but when gardai met with drug dealer Freddie Thompson before Christmas, it was not to arrest him, but to warn him about a threat to his life. Thompson, one of the countries biggest drug dealers, and the leader of a gang based in Drimnagh in Dublin, has been targeted by the Irish National Liberation Army and is regarded by gardai as a "dead man walking".
When they met the 27-year-old last month, gardai told him that the INLA was preparing to murder him. Only a few weeks before, an AK-47 assault rifle that was to be used in the assassination was intercepted on a busy Dublin street. It was the most chilling reminder yet that the INLA has become a bigger threat than the IRA in the capital, where it has been linked to murder, extortion, grenade attacks and drug dealing. Officers regard the threat against Thompson as being very real because the INLA is determined to take over his lucrative drugs territory across the south city.
Despite being warned last summer that there would be consequences if they didn't leave Thompson's patch, the INLA continues to deal there and even put a pipe-bomb in a car used by the gang leader last September.
The INLA has now decided to eliminate Fat Freddie, as he is known. The gang boss is taking the warnings very seriously and moves between safe houses around south Dublin as well as spending long periods in Spain and Holland.
The threats against Thompson and the re-emergence of the INLA as a major criminal group have coincided with the release from prison of its Dublin commander, Declan "Whacker" Duffy last February. The last 12 months has seen the INLA grow to such an extent that it is now carrying out more criminal acts than the IRA and has moved in on turf controlled by the provisionals. It is under active garda investigation in relation to four murders last year. The group is suspected of murdering drug dealer Roy Coddington in Co Meath last March after the 36-year-old refused to pay protection money.
Gardai investigating the double murder of garage owner Brian Downes and his employee Eddie Ward in Walkinstown last October are also examining potential INLA involvement.
It is known that the organisation attempted to extort money in the months before the double murder but that Downes refused to pay. He was warned that this would lead to his murder; one of the main lines of inquiry is that Downes was shot as a result of the refusal.
The killing of his friend and fellow car dealer Seanie McMahon last November could also be linked to the INLA, according to senior gardai. The group had also been attempting to extort money from McMahon and were worried that he would try to avenge his friend's death. This theory is being actively investigated at the moment.
It is not just the activities of drug dealers and businessmen that have been interrupted by the re-emergence of the INLA as a criminal force to be reckoned with. The IRA in Dublin has also felt the heat.
An arrangement has existed for over 20 years where dealers across the capital pay off the IRA for protection and to ensure that they are not targeted by anti-drugs groups.
Criminals such as 'The Viper' Martin Foley routinely pay the movement. In the last year the INLA has been seeking a share of what it sees as the Republican pie and has approached IRA 'clients' seeking extortion payments. The IRA is furious about this but the INLA has stood its ground. A senior member even inflicted a terrible beating on one of Dublin's most senior IRA figures in a packed pub in the Coombe last July.
The beating is part of a deliberate campaign by the INLA to sideline its rivals which so far has worked. The IRA did not respond (political considerations means it has to be discreet about using violence) and the INLA is now collecting cash that has traditionally gone to the Provisionals.
One of the IRA's most valuable volunteers in Dublin over the last 30 years recently defected to the INLA in a move which shocked both Sinn Fein and the IRA. He was an expert on financing the movement.
Because of the INLA's links with foreign arms dealers, forged through 30 years of the troubles, the group has access to a deadly arsenal of weapons and is not afraid to use them. For example, a senior INLA commander became involved in a minor dispute with a petty criminal last June and threw a hand grenade at his home in the south-inner city.
Nobody was injured in the attack. Just weeks later another grenade attack occurred at a house on Slane Road in Crumlin following the death of an inmate in Mountjoy prison. Garda forensic experts linked these two incidents and an investigation determined that the INLA sold a south-Dublin criminal gang the device for around 2,500.
The two grenades were part of a batch smuggled by the INLA from the former Yugoslavia and it is feared that they could control dozens of the devices and are selling them to Dublin gangs in a lucrative sideline.
A specialist garda unit has been set up to investigate the huge increase in pipe bomb and grenade attacks and the army bomb disposal unit was called out on 16 separate occasions in just six weeks last summer.
The extent of the criminal activities of the INLA is not only concerning senior gardai but it is also beginning to have political consequences. In the most recent report of the Independent Monitoring Commission (IMC) last November, the organisation was named as being involved in protection rackets as well as offering its services to organised crime gangs, most especially in Dublin.
If the current degree of criminality continues there is speculation that the IMC will have little option but to declare the INLA's ceasefire as being over. Money raised in Dublin gets sent to the INLA leadership in Belfast and is used to run the organisation there.
Garda sources say that the core membership of the INLA only runs to around 20 individuals.
The organisation is most active in Tallaght, Blanchardstown and Finglas but operates across the city. Detectives say that the INLA has taken advantage of the void left by the weakening of the IRA since the peace process. The group has exploited the demise of several major criminal gangs over the last two years as an opportunity to make serious money.
Gardai say that unlike the IRA there is no political aim or doctrine behind the INLA other than to make as much money as possible. They say that they are now more feared than the Provos in Dublin and will quickly grow far bigger if they are left unchecked.
Duffy's history of no mercy THE man reputedly in charge of the INLA's Dublin unit is 33-year-old Declan "Whacker" Duffy. Duffy, who is from Armagh, re-assumed control of the organisation when he was released from prison last February after he completed a nine-year sentence for his role in the so-called 'Ballymount Bloodbath' in 1999. The INLA took six men hostage when they went to a factory in the Ballymount industrial estate to demand money from the owner.
The men were viciously tortured and transported to a van. Twelve of their friends then arrived, after which a massive brawl ensued. INLA volunteer Patrick 'Bo' Campbell died after being struck with a machete. Duffy, who had wanted to shoot one hostage, was in charge of the operation.
He was convicted on the strength of a note to the INLA leadership that was discovered in his possession detailing exactly what happened at the warehouse.
While serving his sentence in Castlerea, Duffy worked as the bodyguard of notorious INLA murderer Dessie O'Hare, the 'Border Fox'. Gardai believe that O'Hare works as an enforcer for Duffy, using his reputation for extreme violence to collect drug debts and extort money. Duffy had been out of prison less than six months before he came to the attention of the authorities. Last August the Garda Special Branch received a tip-off that a man had been kidnapped and was being held hostage at a house on Cushlawn Drive in Tallaght. When armed detectives raided the house they discovered a 21-year-old man bound and gagged lying naked in the bath upstairs. He was in agony and covered in blood, having been attacked with a wheel-brace and a broom handle. The torture had lasted hours. The victim was a son of a small West Dublin businessman from whom the gang was trying to extort money. Nine people, including Duffy, were arrested in a downstairs room. Gardai believe that those in the house were an active INLA service unit. The man was so scared of the gang that he refused to make a complaint. A file on the incident has been sent to the Director of Public Prosecutions.
Following a dispute last summer with a small drugs gang in the south-inner city Duffy was told by gardai that a contract had been taken out on his life. In an interview he said: "Anyone who even considers taking up the contract will be held as accountable as those taking it out." Duffy has previously bragged about kneecapping people and is known to be fond of inflicting violence. He cannot return to Northern Ireland because he is wanted for questioning over the murder of Sgt Michael Newman who was shot dead by the INLA in Derby in March 2002. He joined the INLA at 13 after his older brother was shot dead by the British army in 1987 and has served five years for escaping from custody at gunpoint. Duffy lives in the Coombe with his partner. Their house is a two minute walk from the home of his enemy, Freddie Thompson.
INLA working every angle of crime GARDA sources say that the INLA "has its finger in literally every pie" when it comes to criminality in Dublin. The group makes its money on a day to day basis by extorting cash from businesses across the capital. A company is approached and told that it has to pay a certain amount each week to ensure it is "protected". People feel they have little option but to pay.
Those who have refused have found their homes firebombed, family members beaten and . . . in four cases last year . . . murdered.
The INLA supplies bouncers and security guards to dozens of pubs and clubs in Dublin and also receives payments from drug dealers in order to let them operate free from threats and intimidation.
In some areas INLA members will deal heroin and cocaine themselves over the heads of established dealers and will use violence to force them out and claim the turf for themselves. The sale of pipe bombs and hand grenades brings in significant sums.
The most recent fundraising initiative involves them buying the drug debts of petty addicts from small to medium dealers. If an addict owes /10,000 the INLA adds around /5,000 to the principal and warns that if the debt is not paid they will be murdered.
Gardai have identified several cases where the parents of addicts have had to remortgage their houses in order to pay the drug debt because they are terrified of what might happen if the bill is not settled.
Gardai have had success against them.
Last November they arrested a man carrying an AK-47 in a bag on Camden Street with 21 rounds of ammunition. The previous month members of the Special Branch swooped on premises in Stanhope Street and discovered three pipe bombs, two handguns and ammunition as well as balaclavas and fake security guard uniforms. gangland boss, Declan 'Wacker' Duffy grins like he hasn't a care in the world as he is frisked down by members of the Garda Special Branch. The obese INLA godfather has begun to style himself as the Republic's version of Loyalist psychopath Johnny 'Mad Dog' Adair.
These days cops try to watch Duffy's every move because they feel it is now only a matter of time before he is responsible for the deaths of innocent people. This Republican hypocrite has brought terror to the streets of Dublin since his release from prison 18 months ago.Last summer Duffy, who is heavily involved in drug racketeering, was behind a number of bomb and grenade attacks on homes in south inner city Dublin.The cowardly 37-year-old from Armagh used lethal M75 and M52P military grenades that are believed to have been smuggled into the country with drug shipments. Luckily no-one was injured in the mindless attacks. In one of the houses he targeted, a grenade bounced off a living room window and exploded outside.
If it had gone through the window, the children who were sitting inside watching TV would have been shredded by the deadly weapon. Since his release Duffy and his mob have been at war with the criminal drug gang led by Fat Freddie Thompson.'Wacker' and his mentor, mass murderer Dessie 'the Border Fox' O'Hare, have been trying to extort cash from drug dealers in the past year. At the same time, they have been providing other drug traffickers with 'protection'. The series of grenade attacks last summer erupted

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Alice English was found guilty last month by Quebec Court

Alice English, a 55-year-old mother of four and grandmother of 12, who worked as a guard for 16 years, was found guilty last month by Quebec Court Judge Patrick Healy on four counts of trafficking in drugs and one of conspiracy to traffic.Both the Crown and defence had suggested a sentence of 5 1/2 years.Healey's decision gives English 64 months and one week in jail - five years, four months and one week.
During her trial, Healy dismissed court testimony English gave in February as "self-contradictory." He accepted without argument an earlier confession by English videotaped by investigators during which, he noted, the accused appeared relaxed and even joked.English provided "a complete confession," the judge concluded. "It was clear and deliberate, fluid and unrehearsed. It was replete with factual details that were provided spontaneously and without suggestion or prodding."The gravity of the offence was compounded by the breach of trust that had been placed in English as a public servant, Judge Healy stated, as well as the quantities of drugs involved.
Evidence showed that while on sick leave, about 5 a.m. on July 7, 2005, English carried coffee cans into Bordeaux prison containing 110 rocks of crack cocaine, weighing 38.5 grams, 2.8 kilograms of marijuana, 1.1 kilos of hashish, one gram of cocaine, pornographic magazines and five cellphones with batteries.
She placed the contraband in a garbage bin, where it was discovered about 6:30 a.m.
The value of the contraband, once in prisoners' hands, had been pegged at $257,500 in police testimony.

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Filiberto Parra Ramos, nicknamed "The Bitch", was arrested

Filiberto Parra Ramos, nicknamed "The Bitch", was arrested along with 58 other men on Saturday (local time) by soldiers who raided the party in a neighbourhood of Tijuana across the United States border from San Diego, California."When they identified him they separated him from the group," a spokesman for the Baja California state police said.Parra Ramos is considered one of top leaders of the Tijuana cartel, which is headed by the Arellano Felix family.President Felipe Calderon has deployed 25,000 troops and federal police to fight the well-armed cartels that smuggle cocaine, marijuana and amphetamines to the US.About 1,550 people have died this year as drug gangs battle each other and security forces.

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Michael Dudas pleaded guilty Thursday in federal court to conspiracy to import marijuana.


Michael Dudas pleaded guilty Thursday in federal court to conspiracy to import marijuana. He is scheduled to be sentenced in September. Dudas, 35, front man of a Canadian rock band faces decades behind bars after admitting he smuggled loads of marijuana is among dozens of people arrested in a two-year investigation that nabbed drug smugglers flying tons of drugs across the Canadian border into Washington.Key members of the smuggling operation were arrested in 2005 in Snohomish County. Dudas is among the many drug smugglers who have used Snohomish County as a distribution point for their operations. Earlier this month, federal authorities arrested the suspected kingpin of a multimillion-dollar drug ­trafficking ring with ties to the Hells Angels. The traffickers used the county as a shipment hub, authorities said.Three Snohomish County residents also were indicted in connection with the smugglers busted June 5, including two people who are accused of storing the dope on their properties.The drug traffickers allegedly trucked potent "B.C. Bud" in hollowed-out logs and stuffed in plastic drain pipes across the Canadian border to places such as Arlington and Stanwood. The dope was shipped across the country."We're a distribution point and they're smuggling in every way possible -- boats, helicopters, trucks and backpacks through the woods," Washington State Patrol Lt. Richard Wiley said. Dudas admitted he paid $33,000 for a Robinson R-22 helicopter in Ohio and arranged for a pilot to fly marijuana into the states, federal prosecutors said. The dope was stuffed in large duffel bags and strapped to the outside of the helicopter. The cargo was off-loaded at a remote landing zone near Darrington, authorities said. Two marijuana loads were seized in 2005. The pilot and off-loaders already have been sentenced in related cases.Among those nabbed were two former part-time Edmonds Municipal Court judges, attorneys James White and Mark Vanderveen. They admitted to being paid off to help assist the drug traffickers. Authorities were tipped off to the attorneys' involvement after Doug Spink, a bankrupt Canadian businessman, was captured in February 2005 on U.S. 2 near Monroe. He had more than 374 pounds of cocaine in the back of his vehicle. The $34 million bust was one of the biggest in state history.Authorities say they've seen a drop in marijuana smuggling across the Canadian border, but pot production is up in the state. Drug traffickers with ties to Canadian operations are setting up indoor marijuana farms across the Puget Sound area, Wiley said. The rings are buying houses and paying people to tend the growing plants.The operations are bringing violence with them, authorities said. Two people were shot to death last year in an Everett house, where police found hundreds of marijuana plants. The victims were being paid to care for the dope.

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Transportation Security Administration and a former Delta Air Lines employee assigned to Atlanta's airport have pleaded guilty in federal court

Friday 20 June 2008

The former Delta employee, 42-year-old Leslie Adgar, and 1 of the former TSA workers, 44-year-old Jon Patton, pleaded guilty on Wednesday to conspiring to distribute cocaine and heroin.Two former employees of the Transportation Security Administration and a former Delta Air Lines employee assigned to Atlanta's airport have pleaded guilty in federal court to involvement in a drug-smuggling operation.
The other former TSA worker, 24-year-old Andre Mays, pleaded guilty to entering a secure airport area in violation of screening requirements.Sentencing is scheduled for Sept. 17. Adgar and Patton face a minimum sentence of 10 years in prison. Patton could receive up to one year in prison.

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Laura Trevino,Adriana Trevino,Evelia Trevino arrested for attempting to smuggle cocaine into the United States

A woman and her three daughters have been arrested for attempting to smuggle cocaine into the United States in what the port director called a "first."
U.S. Customs and Border Protection announced Friday that the four Brownsville women were detained late Wednesday night at an international bridge after a dog smelled narcotics on their 2006 Mercedes.The women tried to flee back to Mexico, but were caught. Customs officials noticed "unusual bulges" on the bodies of mother Maria Venegas Viuda de Trevino, 59, Adriana Trevino, 23, and Evelia Trevino, 27.
Also arrested was Laura Trevino, 31, who was driving. The daughters are all U.S. citizens. Their mother is a Mexican citizen living in the U.S.In total authorities seized nearly 37 pounds of cocaine with a street value of more than $1.1 million. The four women are being held pending a hearing.

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Baltasar GarzĆ³n, travelled to MĆ”laga those arrested in‘operaciĆ³n Troika’ face charges of illegal association, money laundering,

Wednesday 18 June 2008

Baltasar GarzĆ³n, travelled to MĆ”laga where he ordered one of the people arrested in the city, Spanish woman Leocadia MartĆ­n, to jail without bail on money laundering and other charges, and extended the detention time of Svetlana Kousmina, a Russian woman, wife to one of the men arrested in Marbella as part of the case. In MĆ”laga provinces searches were carried out in Marbella, Estepona, MĆ”laga City, Torrox and Nerja with another one of the heads, Alexander Malyshev being arrested at his home in Frigiliana.he has released four of those arrested as part of the ‘operaciĆ³n Troika’ against the Russian mafia in Spain, sending another person to prison and extending the detention time for a further 13 people after his questioning carried out over the weekend.
The interrogations continue today of the twenty people in total who were arrested in Madrid, Palma de Mallorca, Alicante, and MƔlaga. Those still in custody are being held in the cells of the National Court in Madrid, and the judicial order for the case will be made public later today.
It is now reported that at least 15 million € worth of assets have been impounded in the case, but that sum does not include the bank accounts of those arrested.
Among those being held is Gennadios Petrov, considered by the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor as the head of one of the most dangerous Russian mafias in the world, and who was arrested in his mansion at CalviĆ” on Mallorca.Police have impounded several luxury cars which belonged to some of the accused, along with 12 million € in cash and dozens of yachts and luxury villas. The investigation by the Anticorruption Prosecutor and the Judicial Police started more than two years ago and has resulted in 20 arrests so far.
All those arrested face charges of illegal association, money laundering, and the falsification of public, mercantile and tax documents, which under the Penal Code means sentences of between six and nine years.

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Francis Smith who lives in Alhaurin, Malaga,not guilty verdict

The case against a man accused of conspiring to distribute a staggering £2.6 million worth of cannabis has been dropped – because the evidence has been destroyed.
Francis Smith had denied conspiring with van driver Roy Selby and others to distribute the 1.2 tonnes of cannabis in February 2006 near Rugby.
Selby, now 43, from Stockton, was jailed for two-and-a-half years in August that year after he admitted possessing the cannabis with intent to supply it.
It was alleged that evidence was found linking Smith (56) who lives in Alhaurin, Malaga, on Spain's Costa del Sol, to the packages of cannabis seized from Selby's van.His case had been adjourned for trial after he entered his not guilty plea at a hearing at Warwick Crown Court in May.On that occasion prosecutor Adrian Keeling said: "This case relates to the stopping of a vehicle back in 2006 when 1.2 tonnes of cannabis worth £2.6 million was found."He said it was alleged that wrappings around the cannabis revealed Smith's fingerprints, but a report had to be prepared on exactly where the prints were, and on which layer of wrapping – which he commented 'could help one side or the other' in the trial.But at a resumed hearing Mr Keeling told the court that the prosecution was offering no evidence against Smith.He explained that when Selby's van was stopped for a routine check and shocked police officers discovered the consignment of cannabis in the back, Smith was living outside the jurisdiction of the courts.He was arrested earlier this year when he returned to the UK to attend Cheltenham races."The evidence against him rested in no small part on three of his fingerprints on the packaging which wrapped the cannabis in the back of the van."The packaging was to be further examined to establish on what part of the packaging the fingerprints fell, and the alignment of them on the packaging."But when that was put in train the unfortunate discovery was made that all the exhibits had been destroyed."When the case against Selby was completed, two entries were made on the police system – one that the matter was still outstanding against another potential defendant (Smith) and another saying it was a closed case.
"Of those, it is unfortunate but perhaps inevitable that the one saying the exhibits could be destroyed was the one which was followed; the cannabis, the wrapping, everything has been destroyed."So we have come to the reluctant view that there could not be a fair trial of this defendant. The only course open is to offer no evidence against this man."
So Judge Trevor Faber formally entered a not guilty verdict on Smith, who had been in custody since his arrest.

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Brink's-Mat bullion Detectives last week found six suitcases crammed with gold inside a London deposit box.


Police have begun a search of over 7,000 safety deposit boxes in what is believed to be a massive crackdown on British gangsters.Around 300 officers are involved in what is being described as a hunt for cash, guns, drugs and child pornography. They believe they could find contents worth tens of millions of pounds.Cops said the raids on three London depots, thought to belong to the Safe Deposit Centres Ltd company, would target the “top tier” of Britain’s criminals as part of a two-year investigation into money laundering, dubbed ‘Operation Rize’.
Two people, believed to be connected to Safe Deposit Centres Ltd, have so far been arrested in the blitz.Scotland Yard detectives last week found six suitcases crammed with gold inside a London deposit box. They could help solve a crime so spectacular it panicked the international gold market, reconfigured London's criminal map and left a trail of murders in a gangland feud over the whereabouts of the missing bounty.
The gold 'grains' - carefully wrapped in plastic and wedged inside travel luggage - were hidden inside a deposit box raided by the Metropolitan Police last week as part of a huge two-year investigation into the proceeds of organised crime. Scotland Yard sources, pointing out it was too early to glean the origin of the gold, have confirmed they are examining the 'possibility' that it may have come from the 1983 heist in which bullion worth £26m was stolen from the Brink's-Mat warehouse near Heathrow Airport by six armed robbers.
Commander Allan Gibson of Scotland Yard's specialist crime directorate said his officers had never seen anything like it. The haul is thought to be the single largest discovery of unexplained gold seen in Britain. Provisional estimates suggest the suitcases' contents could be worth £8m, potentially a significant portion of the Brink's-Mat loot never recovered, and eclipsing the £2.6m stolen during another of Britain's most high-profile crimes, the Great Train Robbery of 1963. Alongside the gold, Scotland Yard officers last week found £30m in cash, much of it stuffed into plastic supermarket bags, which officers believe are also the profits of organised crime. For those officers investigating what happened to the unrecovered bullion stolen in the Brink's-Mat raid the find may yield vital clues to a crime that has perplexed some of Scotland's Yard's finest. Although the Metropolitan Police would not reveal the weight of last week's discovery, Gibson said the suitcases were so heavy officers struggled to pick them up. The weight of the stolen Brink's-Mat gold was three-and-a-half tonnes.
'We have identified six suitcases of gold grains which, if real, could be very, very valuable. It's a phenomenal amount. They were wrapped like a large packet of peas and were so heavy officers couldn't pick them up,' said Gibson. Police are stressing that the focus of their inquiries is on the people who rented the boxes.The raids on thousands of deposit boxes in London last week were based on intelligence indicating they contained the proceeds of crime syndicates who for years had viewed the storage space as a safe deposit for assets. Although last Thursday's discovery of gold in Operation Rize, which yesterday still involved more than 200 officers, has still to be fully analysed, sources said the gold appeared to be the genuine article.
Numerous attempts to locate the Brink's-Mat bullion have been made over the years. In 2001 police excavated land owned by a builders' merchant in Kent after receiving a tip-off that gold bars had been buried there, but as in other instances found nothing. Unsubstantiated rumours, meanwhile, claim that proceeds from the gold have been invested in property abroad. Last week's discovery was found in storage vaults belonging to a firm called Safe Deposit Centres Ltd, of which two directors have been arrested on suspicion of money-laundering offences and bailed to return to a central London police station in September. The firm was established in 1986, three years after the Brink's-Mat robbery, raising the possibility the gold was kept in temporary storage before being hidden inside the vault. Investigators will attempt to ascertain whether such a large amount of one of the world's most precious metal - its price reached a record high last March as the global financial crisis increased its investment appeal - can be linked to any modern crime, although it remains more likely the stash relates to a more historical crime. It remains unclear how much of the £26m of Brink's-Mat bullion has been recovered or melted down so far. After escaping from Heathrow with their haul, the robbers turned to one of Britain's most notorious criminals for help in transforming the bullion into cash. An expert in his field, Kenneth Noye even mixed some of the gold with copper to alter its purity and disguise its origins.
Detectives investigating the crime found 11 gold bars worth £100,000 wrapped in cloth in a drainage trench at Noye's former Kent home. The 60-year-old was jailed for helping to launder some of the proceeds, but not before he stabbed to death an undercover detective staking out his house. He was cleared of murder after pleading self-defence, but later jailed for murdering Stephen Cameron on a slip road of the M25 in a road rage incident. The killing is just one brutal episode in a trail of death and wrecked lives among those who have become embroiled in a deadly feud over where the gold from Britain's biggest bullion haul might have been stashed.
Last year two ageing hitmen were jailed for the murder of millionaire businessman George Francis, a former associate of the Kray twins, who had survived a murder attempt in 1985. He was the sixth person linked to the Brink's-Mat heist to have been murdered. Another two have killed themselves. Francis was entrusted with part of the haul belonging to 'Mad' Mickey McAvoy, who was jailed 25 years for his part in the robbery. McAvoy is one of only two men convicted in connection with a crime that involved armed men bribing a security guard to let them into the Brink's-Mat warehouse at 6.30am on 26 November 1983. Once inside, they poured petrol over staff and threatened them with a lit match if they did not reveal the combination numbers of the vault.
Another well known criminal, conman John 'Goldfinger' Palmer, was cleared of smelting and recycling the Brink's-Mat bullion in 1987. Palmer, who allowed Noye to use his jet to flee the UK after he stabbed Cameron, was accused by Spanish police last year of masterminding a crime organisation in Tenerife. The 58-year-old spent four years in prison from 2001 after being imprisoned for timeshare fraud that affected up to 20,000 victims.
So far, officers have investigated a third of the 7,000 storage units. Gibson said: 'It is a difficult job in difficult conditions and officers are working through the night to get the job done. Every box is a story, a potential investigation.'

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Sir Mark Thatcher, son of former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, branded a "dirty player"

"Spain is heavily mentioned by Simon Mann. It was where the plot started and that country has very good intelligence service," he said, adding that a special relationship still existed between the west African nation and its former colonial rulers. "And yet not a hint was given from Spain and we wonder why.
Sir Mark Thatcher, son of former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, branded a "dirty player" who hoped to reap huge benefits from the plot and claimed that Ely Calil, the London-based businessman who allegedly financed the project, was planning to "silence" Mann. Mann, a 55-year-old former SAS soldier, faces the death penalty if convicted of leading attempted coup in 2004. Speaking ahead of the trial which opens today in the capital Malabo, President Teodoro Obiang Nguema said he "strongly suspected" that authorities in Britain, Spain and America were fully aware that a coup attempt was being staged and did nothing to stop it or warn him of the danger. He said he found it very hard to believe that three countries which had such powerful intelligence services could have failed to have known about the plot.
"Simon Mann is British and given his reputation as a mercenary his movements would have been monitored all the time by British intelligence," the leader of the oil-rich nation said. "And yet they did nothing."
He said the same was true of Spain where Severo Moto, the opposition leader who was to be installed as the new president following the coup, now lives in exile.
"The US has the greatest involvement in Equatorial Guinea with investments worth $30 billion (£15 billion) that they have a right to protect. For the US to not to have taken notice or claim ignorance of the movements of the plotters is doubtful."
But he admitted that there was little he could do to prove it, saying: "We don't have firm evidence that Western powers were involved, just strong suspicions."
At a press conference in his presidential office, the former governors' house from Spanish colonial times, the president, who wore a diamond-encrusted gold watch, claimed he was aware of Sir Mark Thatcher's role in the alleged plot. "He is known as a dirty player. He spent his life getting involved in all sorts of dubious deals and he jumped quickly into this boat expecting to reap huge financial benefits," the 66-year-old leader said of the former British Prime Minister's son. Equatorial Guinea has said it will issue an international warrant for his arrest and others named by Mann as co-conspirators.
A friend of Sir Mark last night said: "Sir Mark has made it clear he was not involved in the alleged attempted coup and has no further comment to make. "He doesn't know Sir Mark and Sir Mark doesn't know him and I suggest he keeps his opinions to himself." Security on the island had been heightened ahead of the trial amid fears that an assassination attempt would be made on the nation's most famous defendant. "We have precise information about this and have taken measures to ensure his safety," said the president. "This Ely Calil is a man with a lot of money and a lot to lose. He will try his best to kill Simon Mann or kidnap him or any other means of silencing him because he doesn't want Mann to continue revealing information that could be used against him."
Mr Calil, who has denied knowledge of the plot, has previously accused the president of bringing a "malicious prosecution" against him.
Jose Pablo Nvo, the lawyer hired last week to defend Mann, yesterday said his client seemed in good spirits but was understandably nervous about the trial.
"He feels as anyone would feel ahead of such an event," Mr Nvo said. "He is a human being after all and therefore feels nervous. But he seems relaxed and we had a glass of wine together." The president last night assured reporters the trial would meet international standards. "I do believe the trial of Simon Mann will qualify as just and transparent on all levels set by international standards," the president said.
It was hoped that Mann would give evidence from a purpose built bullet proof glass box in the courtroom, the location of which is a closely guarded secret, but it has not been constructed in time for the opening of proceedings this morning.
Instead, authorities have introduced a raft of security measures designed to protect Mann. Those attending court, including journalists, international observers and lawyers, will be forced to leave their shoes outside and don flip flops . Long sleeve shirts, wristwatches and pens have also been banned.
The president denied the measures were extreme. "We are very much aware of sophisticated gadgetry and weaponry that can be used to inflict harm," he said.
If Mann is convicted and avoids the death sentence, it is possible that he may be able to serve at least some of his sentence in a UK prison.
The president said he would not rule out sanctioning such a move if the judges felt he had cooperated fully with authorities. "If they think that the level of cooperation has been good enough there might be some clemency," he said. "It could be that we negotiate with the British government."

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Christopher Ferraro pleaded guilty to two counts of trafficking in commercial quantities of drugs.

Tuesday 17 June 2008

Christopher Ferraro, 29, of Doncaster, organised safe houses for the storage of drugs for the syndicate, which called itself The Company.
The Supreme Court heard Ferraro's friends from his days at Whitefriars College, Joseph John Mansour and Bart Rizzo, ran the drug business while Mokbel was on the run in Greece. While Mansour and Rizzo allegedly personally received instructions from Mokbel, Ferraro did not know him and played a lesser role involving storing amphetamines and drug-making chemicals in return for cash. From January 2006 to June 2007, the group moved 42kg of speed with a wholesale value of $4.2 million but with a street value many times that, the court heard. Ferraro's cut was $500 for each pound of amphetamines he stored for The Company. Defence lawyer Rob Melasecca said his client wasn't in it for the money. He said Ferraro, who has cerebral palsy, was bullied as a teenager because of his disability. He felt indebted to Rizzo and Mansour as they were his close friends and protectors at school.
Ferraro, who has no prior convictions, pleaded guilty to two counts of trafficking in commercial quantities of drugs.

Judge Betty King will sentence Ferraro at a later date.

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Frank Keys Jr. faces up to 40 years in prison after he was found cruising down the highway with more than 200 grams of heroin in a diaper

Frank Keys Jr. faces up to 40 years in prison after he was found cruising down the highway with more than 200 grams of heroin in the diaper he was wearing, federal officials said.Keys told officers he was wearing a diaper and when they asked if there was anything in the diaper, he 'shook his head affirmatively.'Officers then removed a package containing about 257 grams of heroin from the diaper."

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Wilfredo Abrahante,William Abrahante convicted drug dealing

The U.S. Attorney's Office in New Haven announced Monday that Wilfredo Abrahante, 29, of Graveline Ave., was given ten years in prison, followed by five years of supervised release after court evidence revealed phone conversations from May 2006 in which he set up drug deals at his former residence, 238 South Colony St. in Meriden.His brother William Abrahante, 29, of North Second St., was convicted of operating through a third-party in the basement of his residence, which police said was operated as a crack house.

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Mahmood Hussain jailed for 14 years ,Michael Hogan jailed for 10 years

Sunday 15 June 2008

Mahmood Hussain, date of birth 21/09/1976, Buckingham Street, Rochdale - jailed for 14 years
Michael Hogan, 07/07/1961, Sawyer Street, Rochdale - jailed for 10 years
Carl Singleton, 04/03/1975, Great Lee Walk, Rochdale - jailed for 8 years, 6 months, plus 4 months of an unexpired sentence.
Gazanfer Hussain, 11/12/1981, Lightwood Road, Normacott, Stoke-on-Trent - jailed for 6 years
Bilal Moghal, 06/10/1958, Vincent Road, Sheffield - jailed for 6 years
Shaied Iqbal, 04/08/1976, Drummond Road, Aston, Birmingham - jailed for 6 years, 6 months
Mohammed Yousaf, 18/06/1969, Normandy Road, Perry Barr, Birmingham - jailed for 8 years
Ansar Iqbal, 25/05/1977, Selston Road, Aston, Birmingham - jailed for 8 years
Abdul Jangeer Aziz, 06/12/1980, Stockingstone Road, Luton, Bedfordshire - jailed for 5 years, 9 months
Shezad Rehman, 27/06/1980, Meir Road, Normacot, Stoke-on-Trent - jailed for 6 years
Gang was behind large-scale drugs trafficking in Stoke-on-Trent, Manchester, Birmingham and Bedford. Thirty-nine kilos of heroin, 1.5 kilos of amphetamine and an amount of cocaine were seized during the ten-month probe. Detectives from Staffordshire Police’s Major Crime Unit worked closely with colleagues in Greater Manchester, Bedfordshire and the West Midlands to break the ring. The men were arrested over a period of six months as officers pieced together the syndicate structure and how they operated. This led to a number of separate seizures and arrests. Initial enquires by Staffordshire Police in June 2006 led them to Luton in Bedfordshire where a man was seen to hand over a bag to Abdul Aziz. Following the transaction Bedfordshire Police stopped a taxi. They found five kilos of heroin and arrested Aziz, who was a passenger in the taxi. Greater Manchester Police worked closely with Staffordshire Police to identify that Michael Hogan was actually the courier of the heroin and that he was living in Rochdale. As a result of this work Staffordshire Police were able to observe Hogan in the Walsall area where he met with the occupants of a Peugeot. West Midlands Police stopped the Peugeot and arrested Mohammed Yousaf and Ansar Iqbal who had three kilos of heroin. Having confirmed Hogan’s role as a courier, Staffordshire Police mounted an operation to arrest him. On Saturday 22 July 2006 he was seen receiving a holdall from Shaied Iqbal in the Newtown area of Birmingham. Staffordshire Police stopped and arrested Hogan and found that the holdall contained 10 kilos of heroin. Shaied Iqbal was later arrested for his role in the transaction. The investigation team also focused on the Stoke-on-Trent end of the business controlled by Gazanfer Hussain, of Lightwood Road, Normacott.
Shezad Rehman, of Meir Road, Stoke-on-Trent, who was working for Gazanfer Hussain, was seen to meet the occupant of a Vauxhall Corsa in Bengry Road, Stoke-on-Trent. Following this meeting, Rehman was stopped and arrested by Staffordshire Police who seized one kilo of heroin and several ounces of cocaine. Bilal Moghal was later arrested after being identified as the person who handed the heroin to Rehman.
Further enquiries by Greater Manchester Police and Staffordshire Police identified Mahmood Hussain of Buckingham Street, Rochdale, as a major player in the syndicate and had subsequently recruited Carl Singleton as a courier to replace Hogan. On Thursday 1 November 2006, an operation was undertaken between the two forces which led to Singleton being stopped near Tamworth with 20 kilos of heroin in his vehicle. At the same time Greater Manchester Police arrested Mahmood Hussain in Rochdale for his part in the conspiracy. The final arrest of the gang took place on Monday 4 December. Gazanfer Hussain was arrested in Stoke-on-Trent after a meticulous investigation had confirmed him as a major player in the syndicate’s supply network.
All ten were charged with conspiracy to supply Class A drugs. All but two of the gang pleaded guilty. The other two were found guilty following a trial at Stoke-on-Trent Crown Court.
Superintendent Bernie O’Reilly, from Stoke-on-Trent division, said: “Operation Nemesis is sending a very clear message to drugs dealers: don’t even think of trying it in Staffordshire. Members of the public can be reassured that we are listening closely to their concerns and actively doing something about them.
“Our comprehensive investigation and excellent work with other police forces exposed a drugs gang involved in large-scale supply, and we stopped large amounts of the drug reaching the streets of Stoke-on-Trent, Manchester, Birmingham and Bedford.
“As well as significant prison sentences, dealers also risk losing their homes and vehicles. We are nationally recognised for using the Proceeds of Crime Act to deprive criminals of assets they’ve acquired through crime, and we’ll be making confiscation orders as part of this investigation.”
Supt O’Reilly appealed to members of the public to continue contacting the force with information about drug dealing.
Detective Inspector John Ogdon, from Greater Manchester Police's drugs unit, said: "This is an excellent result for all of the forces involved. Drugs contribute to all manner of other criminal offences and removing the people responsible for supplying them is essential if we are going to tackle this.
"The fact that so many forces worked together on this investigation has meant we have been able to take prolific drug dealers off the streets all over the UK.
"We are delighted to have been part of this operation and hope it acts as a warning to anyone else involved in drug related crime. This behaviour will not be tolerated and we will do everything possible to make sure you are held to account for your crimes."

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Sean Walker is being charged with trafficking crack cocaine over 200 grams, possession with intent to distribute Class “B” substance offense


Sean Walker, 40, of 45 Medford Street was placed under arrest after police, armed with search warrants, conducted a search of Walker and his home. The search yielded several thousand dollars as well as crack cocaine, cocaine, heroin, and marijuana.
Police also seized a loaded .25 semi-automatic handgun, a plastic bag containing several .38 rounds, a camouflage body armor “flack jacket” type vest, $7,889, an 8 gram bag of a substance believed to be heroin, 350 grams of a substance police believed was crack cocaine, fifteen bags of what is believed to be marijuana, several plastic bags thought to contain cocaine, drug packaging, a digital scale with white powder residue, communications devices, and personal papers.Walker is being charged with trafficking crack cocaine over 200 grams, possession with intent to distribute Class “B” substance offense, possession with intent to distribute Class “A” heroin, possession with intent to distribute Class “D” marijuana, school zone violation, unlawful possession of firearm, and unlawful possession of ammunition.Detectives and uniformed officers from the Medford Police Drug Control Unit including DCU Sgt. David Montana, Det. Joseph Donahue, and Det. Kevin Braxton, Drug Unit detectives from the Cambridge Police Department, and the Everett Police Department K-9 Unit assisted in the raid.

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Do Hyung Lee, Francis Lee; Shaode Cao, and Alice Yang, have all pleaded not guilty to charges of conspiring with Hong Viet Luong

Shoade Cao, 21, of Sunnybank, Do Hyung Lee, 27, of Eight Mile Plains, Francis Vui Jan Lee, 25, of Stafford Heights, and Alice Yun Hsuan Yang, 22, pleaded not guilty in the Brisbane Supreme Court to conspiring to import narcotics between August and December 2004.
The court heard the crew used a similar modus operandi and some of the same people who were involved in the Bali Nine.Commonwealth prosecutor Stephen Hall, who revealed intimate details of the group's organisational structure and planning, said that Cao, Yang and Lee were couriers and allegedly recruited by Do Hyung Lee, or "Korean Danny", for two trips.He said Lee allegedly helped organise another earlier expedition involving two men he had recruited from a Brisbane karaoke club, promising that they would earn $10,000 if they successfully returned to Australia with drugs.That trip was abandoned when the two mules backed out. Sydney man Khanh Thanh Ly, jailed last December for conspiring to import heroin, yesterday told how he became involved in the heroin trade through former school friend Myuran Sukumaran, who is now on death row after his arrest as one of the Bali Nine.Ly helped organise drug mules in Australia and drove them around Sydney after the successful October 2004 operation.Mr Hall said that although Ly's last trip in December 2004 proved unsuccessful the four were still co-conspirators as they had travelled to Bali and had agreed to import the drugs.Mr Hall said the ringleaders told them to buy baggy clothes to conceal their body shape.Convicted drug smuggler Khanh Thanh Ly told the Queensland Supreme Court that one of the gang's ringleaders, Hong Viet Luong, had contacted him after the Bali arrests and told him he was "getting out'' of Australia.Ly, who was sentenced to seven years' jail in December for conspiring to import drugs as part of the syndicate, is giving evidence against four other accused drug smugglers.
Do Hyung Lee, 27; Francis Lee, 25; Shaode Cao, 21; and Alice Yang, 22, have all pleaded not guilty to charges of conspiring with Hong Viet Luong and Bali Nine ringleaders Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew Chan and others to import heroin into Australia. Cross-examination of Ly will continue this afternoon. Yesterday the court heard the syndicate that hired the so-called Bali Nine drug smugglers allegedly organised at least three drug-running trips to the Indonesian island before the nine were arrested. Commonwealth prosecutor Stephen Hall told the jury that three trips to Bali involving drug-running conspiracies were made in 2004.
Mr Hall said it would be alleged the first trip might or might not have been successful, the second resulted in large quantities being brought back to Australia, while the third was aborted because the heroin supply fell through. He said Danny Lee, known as "Korean Danny" was a recruiter in the drugs operation while the other three were couriers. Mr Hall said Danny Lee frequented JJ's Karaoke Lounge in Brisbane's Fortitude Valley entertainment district, where he met two young Brisbane men, Bozidar Ristic and Farhud Gujari, in August 2004. He told them they could make some "quick cash" if they brought something back from overseas. The two men agreed to the venture and Danny Lee later introduced them to Sukumaran, who told them the job involved travelling to Bali and flying back with "stuff" strapped to their bodies. Sukumaran told them not to worry as it had been done before and no one had been caught. Mr Ristic and Mr Gujari flew to Bali in October 2004 with Sukumaran and Khanh Thanh Ly, a Sydney man who is now serving a seven-year sentence for conspiring with Sukumaran and others to import heroin. The court heard Ly had agreed to testify against the accused in return for a reduced sentence. Mr Hall told the jury they would hear two versions of what happened on the first trip. He said Ly would testify that he saw Mr Ristic and Mr Gujari being strapped with drugs in Bali. However, the two Brisbane men would give evidence that they got cold feet as they were in Bali at the same time as Schapelle Corby was arrested for smuggling marijuana and there were many police on the island for the anniversary of the first Bali bombing. The two would testify that the trip organisers allowed them to go home without any drugs.

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Colby Weymouth arrested on charges of aggravated cultivating of marijuana and possession of heroin

arrested Colby Weymouth, 20, on charges of aggravated cultivating of marijuana and possession of heroin, both Class C felonies.
On Friday evening, state troopers and an agent from the Maine Drug Enforcement Agency went to an Industry Road home to conduct a probation check on someone living with Weymouth at 50 Industry Road, Casavant said. When they arrived, they detected an odor of green marijuana.
A search warrant was applied for and carried out with the assistance of Franklin County sheriff's officers where 48 marijuana plants were being grown. They also found a loaded rifle and a small amount of heroin, the trooper said.
The street value of the heroin is about $300 and if all the marijuana plants grew to maturation, the street value would be about $72,000, Casavant said. Weymouth was released on $1,000 cash bail.

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Robert Santana Jr was charged with possession of marijuana, distribution of heroin, possession of heroin with intent to distribute

Arrested Robert Santana Jr., 24, who had been watched. When Santana left his house at noontime, police stopped him, seizing $1,270 cash and three cell phones. Santana gave officers a false name, calling himself Luis Feliciano, police said.
A search of Santana's apartment turned up 13.2 grams of heroin, three scales, a grinder, utility bills in the name of Luis Feliciano, drug packaging materials and $69 cash. Santana was charged with possession of marijuana, distribution of heroin, possession of heroin with intent to distribute, false name to a police officer and possession of a false Registry of Motor Vehicles document.
Three people, who detectives of the street narcotics enforcement unit said they saw hanging around on the corner of Tower Hill Street and Oregon Avenue waiting for a drug dealer while the detectives were waiting for a warrant to search Santana's home, also were arrested.They were: Nicole Eaton 24, 63 Washington St., Groveland, on a charge of knowingly being present where heroin is kept; Cesar Colon, 29, 34 Berkeley St., Lawrence, on charges of possession of heroin and cocaine, both with intent to distribute, and possession of marijuana; and Thomas Knight, 26, 31 Low St., Newbury, on a charge of possession of heroin.

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David Baez arrested for attempting to sell heroin to an undercover police officer

David Baez, 39, of 48 Saratoga St., Apt. 3, Lawrence, was in court Wednesday to plead innocent to a charge of distribution of heroin in a case involving the Haverhill Police Narcotics Unit, assisted by state police."This has been an example of a series of arrests we've been making where we have been targeting heroin dealers out of Lawrence," Arahovites said.After Baez's release shortly before noon Wednesday, undercover police had a hunch that he might be operating again — and they were right.
Police arrested Baez for attempting to sell heroin to an undercover police officer. In addition, they arrested his driver, seized drugs, money and a 1995 Nissan Maxima.
Baez was charged with distribution of heroin and a drug violation in a school zone. Jose Medina, 36, of 70 Union St., apartment 1, Methuen, was arrested on similar charges.
"On the second deal, we guessed it may be him. When we grabbed him, we were as surprised as he was," Arahovites said. "In my career, I've seen people come and go from the courthouse. They'll drive from the courthouse, leave and get arrested again."

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Trang Bich Hong,Lam Mong Chinh arrested for heroin smuggling in Vietnam

Vietnam arrested three Australian women after authorities found heroin in the hotel room of two of them and in a packet hidden on the body of the third as she tried to board a plane home, state-controlled media reported Friday (13 June).Early Thursday (12 June), police arrested Trang Bich Hong, 28, and Lam Mong Chinh, 25, after finding heroin in their hotel room, Tien Phong (Pioneer) newspaper said.
Late Wednesday (11 June) they detained a woman, who was unidentified, at the airport in southern Ho Chi Minh City after authorities found 250 grams (0.5 pound) of heroin hidden in one of her body cavities.The newspaper said the three, all of Vietnamese origin, were being monitored by Australian police for several months for their suspected role in trafficking heroin from Vietnam.Police were not available for comment Friday and officials at the Australian Consulate in Ho Chi Minh City would not comment.
Last week, police in Ho Chi Minh City arrested another Australian woman of Vietnamese origin after she collapsed with heroin in her stomach.
Vietnam has some of the world's harshest drug laws. Possession of 600 grams (1.32 pounds) of heroin or more is punishable by death.
About a dozen Vietnamese-Australians have been brought to court in Vietnam for heroin trafficking in recent years.
At least four have had their death sentences commuted because of lobbying by the Australian government, which banned the death penalty in 1973. Vietnam has not executed any Australians for drug offenses. (AP)

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Van Quyen Ken Tang charged with possessing and importing commercial quantities of methamphetamine, cocaine and ecstasy

Van Quyen Ken Tang, 41, of Vancouver, appeared in court Thursday charged with possessing and importing commercial quantities of methamphetamine, cocaine and ecstasy. Australian police pegged the value of the haul at $78 million.Australian newspapers report that neither Tang nor three others applied for bail when they appeared in a Melbourne Magistrate's Court. They will be held in custody until their next appearance on Sept. 4.Australian Federal Police and Customs officers had been watching the container and swooped when four men began to unload it, Assistant Commissioner Tim Morris told the Melbourne Herald Sun."It's currently the subject of ongoing investigations, both here in Australia but certainly with our international counterparts in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police," he said.
"Obviously we have a lot of questions, and investigations are now taking place in Canada to look at the other end of the syndicate."Also charged are three Australians -- Son Anh Pham, 46, Tien Trinh, 26, and Thuan T. Le, 26.

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Spiros Katos is charged with intent to pervert the course of justice, conspiracy to pervert the course of justice and accessory after the fact to coca

Spiros Katos, 50, is charged with intent to pervert the course of justice, conspiracy to pervert the course of justice and accessory after the fact to cocaine importation.He is also charged unlawfully assisting Mokbel to flee the jurisdiction while on bail.Katos was remanded in custody and ordered to face court on September 20 for a committal mention. He did not apply for bail.He was charged last night following an interview with Purana taskforce detectives at the St Kilda Road police complex, after which he faced an out-of-sessions hearing at St Kilda Road.Mokbel absconded while on trial on drug charges in Melbourne in March 2006 and was arrested in a cafe in Athens on June 5, 2007.The alleged plot to smuggle Mokbel out of Australia involved a luxury yacht, illicit money transfers and the use of a rural hideaway, according to police.He was recaptured in suburban Athens in June last year and extradited to Melbourne on May 17 following a lengthy legal battle.Five people were charged earlier with allegedly assisting the escape.
Yvonne Warfe, 34, of Burnside, has been charged with perverting the course of justice, conspiracy to pervert the course of justice and impeding the prosecution of a person.She was bailed to reappear in the Melbourne Magistrates' Court on September 25 for a committal mention hearing.Bassillios Byron Pantazis, 63, and Angela Nissirios, 46, appeared in the same court on charges including perverting the course of justice by assisting Mokbel to flee, and dealing in property known to be the proceeds of crime.Both were remanded in custody to reappear in September.
Two brothers, aged 39 and 43, were charged with perverting the course of justice, conspiracy to pervert and being accessories after the fact.They are already in custody on an unrelated matter and will appear before a court at a later date.
Police said in an affidavit presented to the Victorian Supreme Court that Mokbel and his alleged accomplices spent as much as $1 million on an elaborate escape plan, including the purchase of a $350,000, 17-metre yacht and its refit for a sea voyage to Greece.Mokbel's partner, Danielle McGuire, flew into Melbourne from Greece early today.

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Andrea Henry,Wayne Walshaw jailed for 12 months at the hearing in Montego Bay.

Andrea Henry, 39, of Ettington Avenue, Park End in Middlesbrough was jailed for six months and her partner Wayne Walshaw, 32, of Saltburn in Cleveland was jailed for 12 months at the hearing in Montego Bay.Charges against Henry's 17-year-old daughter, Toni Bellamy, were dropped and the teenager will be deported to the UK, a spokesman for HM Revenue and Customs said.The trio were arrested at Sangster International Airport in Montego Bay on Sunday on suspicion of swallowing packages of cocaine,

the spokesman said.They had been due to board a flight to Manchester.
The court also handed down fines of 350,000 Jamaican dollars (£2,488) to Walshaw and 250,000 Jamaican dollars (£1,777) to Henry.Both face an extra six months in prison if they fail to pay.

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Man believed responsible for twelve armed robberies over the last two years that netted around a quarter of a million euros, was arrested in Huelva

Saturday 14 June 2008

Man believed responsible for twelve armed robberies over the last two years that netted around a quarter of a million euros, was arrested in Huelva last Friday. The 67 year old recommenced his activities in April 2006 after escaping from Villabona jail in Asturias, where he was serving time for 11 similar offences. After a lengthy investigation, the suspect was tracked down to a car dealership on the La Paz industrial estate where he had just bought a car using a false identity. A search of the man's home in El Portil (Huelva) yielded a wealth of incriminating evidence including a 32 calibre Taurus handgun, various fake identity documents, a fake Local Police badge, and pepper spray.

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ANTI-Russian mafia operation was carried out simultaneously in several places in Spain

ANTI-Russian mafia operation was carried out simultaneously in several places in Spain, including Marbella, Nerja, Malaga, Torrox, Palma de Majorca, Javea, El Campello, Valencia and Madrid.
Spanish authorities said Friday they had broken up a massive Russian criminal network operating in the south of the country, arresting 18 people.
The Tambovskaya-Malyshevskay gang is the "largest criminal organisation of Russian origin in the world" and has been "totally dismantled", police said in a statement.
It said 400 officers took part in the crackdown in southern Spain, from where "they planned their criminal activities in Russia, in several countries of the European Union and in the United States.""They controled the criminal activities of lower-ranked leaders", which included murders, weapons and drug trafficking, racketeering and influence peddling.The gang also carried out money laundering through financial institutions in Switzerland, Cyprus and Latvia, and a network of companies," it said.Eighteen people were arrested Friday, including leaders of the network, and the number is expected to grow, a judicial source said.A police source said foreign intelligence services also participated.It was under the supervision of Judge Baltasar Garzon and anti-corruption prosecutors.Garzon is expected to travel to Palma de Majorca, in the Balearic islands, on Saturday to oversee search operations there.Spanish authorities have already carried out several operations against Russian criminal gangs, notably on the Costa del Sol, where they are suspected of carrying out money laundering activities.Operation Avispa (Wasp) in June 2005 led to the arrests of about 30 people from the former Soviet Union, including 22 leaders of criminal gangs, most of them from Georgia.The interior minister described that operation as "the largest crackdown on organised crime in Europe."

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Monzer Al Kassar Marbella property siezed and all funds contained in three separate bank accounts

Indictment seeks the forfeiture of an estate located in Marbella, Spain, and all funds contained in three separate bank accounts. The forfeitures represent the alleged proceeds obtained from the charged offenses.



Michael J. Garcia, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, and Michele M. Leonhart, the Acting Administrator of the United States Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), announced that international arms dealer Monzer Al Kassar, a/k/a Abu Munawar, a/k/a El Taous, arrived in New York today after being extradited from Spain on federal terrorism charges. Al Kassar was extradited to New York for his participation in a conspiracy to sell millions of dollars worth of weapons to the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (the FARC) -- a designated foreign terrorist organization -- to be used to kill Americans in Colombia. Al Kassar’s co-defendants, Tareq Mousa Al Ghazi and Luis Felipe Moreno Godoy, were both previously extradited to New York from Romania to face the same terrorism charges. According to the superseding Indictment filed in Manhattan federal court:Since the early 1970s, Al Kassar has been a source of weapons and military equipment for armed factions engaged in violent conflicts around the world. Some of these factions have included known terrorist organizations, such as the Palestinian Liberation Front (PLF), the goals of which included attacking United States interests and United States nationals.To carry out his weapons-trafficking business, Al Kassar developed an international network of criminal associates, including co-defendants Al Ghazi and Moreno Godoy, as well as front companies and bank accounts in various countries, including the United Kingdom, Spain, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Poland, Bulgaria, and Romania. Additionally, Al Kassar has engaged in money-laundering transactions in bank accounts throughout the world to disguise the illicit nature of his criminal proceeds.Between February 2006 and May 2007, Al Kassar agreed to sell to the FARC millions of dollars worth of weapons, including thousands of machine guns, millions of rounds of ammunition, rocket-propelled grenade launchers (RPGs), and surface-to-air missile systems (SAMs). During a series of recorded telephone calls, e-mails, and in-person meetings, Al Kassar agreed to sell the weapons to two confidential sources working with the DEA (the CSs), who represented that they were acquiring these weapons for the FARC, with the specific understanding that the weapons were to be used to attack United States helicopters in Colombia. During their consensually-recorded meetings, Al Kassar provided the CSs with, among other things: (1) a schematic of the vessel to be used to transport the weapons; (2) specifications for the SAMs he agreed to sell to the FARC; and (3) bank accounts in Spain and Lebanon that were ultimately used to receive and conceal more than $400,000 sent from DEA undercover accounts that the CSs represented were FARC drug proceeds for the weapons deal. During his meetings with the CSs, Al Kassar reviewed Nicaraguan end-user certificates that he accepted despite knowing that the arms were destined for the FARC in Colombia. Al Kassar also promised to provide the FARC with ton-quantities of C-4 explosives, as well as expert trainers from Lebanon to teach the FARC how to effectively use C-4 and improvised explosive devices (commonly referred to as IEDs). In addition, Al Kassar offered to send a thousand men to fight with the FARC against United States military officers in Colombia.
The Indictment charges Al Kassar with four separate terrorism offenses:
Count One: Conspiracy to kill United States nationals, in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 2332(b);
Count Two: Conspiracy to kill United States officers or employees, in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Sections 1114 and 1117;
Count Three: Conspiracy to acquire and use anti-aircraft missiles, in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 2332g; and
Count Four: Conspiracy to provide material support or resources to a designated foreign terrorist organization, in violation of Title 18,
United States Code, Section 2339B.
In addition, Al Kassar is charged in Count Five with money laundering, in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 1956.
The superseding Indictment seeks the forfeiture of an estate located in Marbella, Spain, and all funds contained in three separate bank accounts. The forfeitures represent the alleged proceeds obtained from the charged offenses.
Al Kassar is expected to appear later this afternoon in Magistrate court in Manhattan federal court.If convicted of Counts One through Three, Al Kassar faces a maximum sentence of any term of years or life imprisonment, as well as a mandatory minimum sentence of 25 years’ imprisonment on Count Three. As part of the extradition process, however, the United States has provided assurances to the government of Spain that it will not seek a life sentence for Al Kassar, but instead will ask for a prison term of years. If convicted of Count Four, Al Kassar faces a maximum sentence of 15 years' imprisonment. Finally, if convicted of Count Five, Al Kassar faces a maximum sentence of 20 years' imprisonment.
The international law enforcement operation that culminated with today’s extradition was the result of cooperation between the DEA, the Spanish National Police, and the Romanian Border Police.Mr. Garcia praised the investigative efforts of the DEA, the Spanish National Police, and the Romanian Border Police. Mr. Garcia also thanked the United States Department of Justice’s Office of International Affairs and the U.S. State Department."Monzer Al Kassar intended to provide millions of dollars worth of lethal weapons to a foreign terrorist organization to be used to kill Americans," said U.S. Attorney Michael J. Garcia. "As a result of extraordinary cooperation with our international law enforcement partners, Al Kassar will now face justice for his crimes in a United States courtroom.""The arrest, extradition and pending criminal prosecution of Monzer Al Kassar before a U.S. Court of justice are a testament to DEA's global alliances and unique investigative skills," said DEA Acting Administrator Michele M. Leonhart. "Al Kassar's days of arming and funding global terrorists are over. Spanish authorities are to be commended for their diligence and perseverance to ensure Al Kassar's extradition to the United States."
Assistant United States Attorneys Boyd M. Johnson III, Leslie C. Brown, and Brendan R. McGuire are in charge of the prosecutions.The charges contained in the Indictment are merely accusations and the defendants are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.

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Nicola Black from Galway city was arrested in the Republic of Suriname

Thursday 12 June 2008

23-year old Nicola Black from Galway city was arrested in the Republic of Suriname two months ago. Two packages of cocaine had allegedly been strapped to Nicola Black's thighs when she was arrested by police in the South American Republic of Suriname over two months ago.She was boarding a plane to Amsterdam at the time.
Nicola's been held in prison ever since and her mother Maureen has had no direct contact with her. Her mother lives at 83 Drom Chaoin on Bishop O'Donnell Road in the city

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Middlesbrough woman, her partner and a 17-yerar-old girl have been arrested in Jamaica suspected of attempting to smuggle drugs.

Middlesbrough woman, her partner and a 17-yerar-old girl have been arrested in Jamaica suspected of attempting to smuggle drugs.The three were arrested at the Sangster international airport in Montego Bay on June 8th by the Jamaican authorities.Police claim the two women were caught attempting to smuggle cocaine internally and all three are suspected of swallowing packages of cocaine before boarding a flight back to Manchester.The trio were arrested as part of Operation Airbridge, a UK Border Agency initiative working in partnership with the Jamaican authorities, aimed at catching drug smugglers using the island as a gateway to the UK and Europe.Tony Walker, from the UK Border Agency, said: "The use of such young people in smuggling drugs demonstrates the ruthless nature of those criminal gangs involved in the illegal narcotics trade and the misery they cause. "The dedication of UK and Jamaican drug detection officers has prevented deadly class A drugs from entering the UK. "Operation Airbridge powerfully demonstrates the importance of working closely with other global partners such as Jamaica. This collaboration is helping to protect both countries from the violence and corruption that always accompanies the trade in illegal drugs."

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Park Lane Safe Deposit Ltd raided Milton Woolf,Jacqueline Swann,Leslie Sieff released on police bail

Park Lane Safe Deposit Ltd raided. The raid that closed it down — and two others in Hampstead and Edgware owned by the same people — had been planned for eight months with 300 officers, sniffer dogs and enough firepower to start a small war. The Metropolitan police's assistant commissioner John Yates said it was an "unprecedented operation". Each of the 7,000 boxes would be treated as a potential crime scene. Suspected offences involved ran the gamut of organised crime: drugs, human trafficking, prostitution, fraud, firearms and money laundering. Many of the boxes may have been rented with false identities. Forty-eight hours after the police went in, they revealed some of their findings: £14m in cash, a firearm, counterfeit currency, passports, chequebooks and credit cards, a substantial amount of high value
jewellery and four paintings — three landscapes and still lives in the 17th century Dutch style and a 20th century Russian portrait. At the Hampstead centre, an Edwardian redbrick mansion block on Finchley Road, two police trucks were filled with crates yesterday. Police believe the total value will be in tens of millions. It doesn't take an inspector Poirot to work out that safe deposit centres might
be an ideal place to hide the proceeds of crime. Traditionally no questions
have been asked and ID was not always required. It has even been possible to rent a walk-in room for larger items — the odd Gainsborough, perhaps, or suitcases of swag. There was no regulatory framework until December last year when the 2007 money laundering regulations brought safe deposit businesses under supervision of the Financial Services Authority. Like banks, owners would have to "know their customer" and report any suspicious activity. The 10 safe deposit companies in London — and the two in Manchester and Birmingham — are required to register with the FSA by June 15. At the time of the raids a search of the register showed no results for the parent company of the three vaults, Safe Deposit Centres Ltd. The FSA said an application could be pending. Detectives have stressed that their main targets are criminals who may have used the centres for proceeds of crime. But they also arrested three directors of the safe deposit firm on suspicion of money laundering. By Thursday morning Milton Woolf, 52, Jacqueline Swann, 44, and Leslie Sieff, 60, were released on police bail, to return early in September. Company records show that the business was set up as Hampstead Safe Deposit Vaults in 1983
by Sieff, an accountant from Port Elizabeth in South Africa who became a British citizen. With his wife Jill he also runs the Hampstead School of English in the same mansion block as the vaults. Sieff was joined in the business by Milton Woolf, 52, another South African expatriate. Although hundreds of innocent box owners have been calling the special police centre to claim their belongings, others may be trying to cover their tracks. After the prolific Italian robber Valerio Viccei raided the Knightsbridge safe
deposit centre in 1987, around 30 of more than 120 owners never came forward.
"I'm sure they have all got a story to tell," said the detective in charge of the case. The raids of 2008 will undoubtedly reveal many more.

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Geovani Nunez , Jorge Hernandez both 13-year veterans of the Miami Police Department, were paid a combined $39,500 by a man

Sunday 8 June 2008

Officer Geovani Nunez and Detective Jorge Hernandez, both 13-year veterans of the Miami Police Department, were paid a combined $39,500 by a man they thought was involved in numerous illegal businesses, prosecutors said. That man, however, was secretly an FBI informant and all of their conversations were taped.U.S. Attorney R. Alexander Acosta said the case was particularly disheartening in a year when several South Florida police officers have died in the line of duty."It is sad that a handful of individuals choose to repay their colleagues' sacrifice through criminal conduct," Acosta said.Nunez and Hernandez were released on bail after appearing briefly in court Friday. Their lawyers said they would fight the charges, which carry potential life sentences.Nunez's attorney, Michael Catalano, said the FBI sting means that all of the allegedly illegal conduct was staged and not real."They are charged with committing crimes that did not exist," he said.It's was not immediately clear if Hernandez had an attorney.Court documents show that Nunez got involved with the informant in March 2007 after losing a part-time job at a Miami nightclub. Eventually he and Hernandez allegedly helped protect shipments -- sometimes using their police cars to escort trucks -- of what they thought were stolen televisions and computers and at least 12 kilograms of cocaine.Police Chief John Timoney said the two officers would be fired and that he hoped their alleged actions wouldn't hurt morale at the department."These two, as far as I'm concerned, are aberrations," Timoney said.The case is similar to a recent FBI sting that eventually involved charges against five officers of the Hollywood Police Department. Those five all pleaded guilty and four received lengthy prison sentences.

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Alfred Porro arrested after it was discovered that cocaine had gone missing from the exhibits

Alfred Porro, 42 years of age, of Governor's Street.The arrest took place after it was discovered that cocaine had gone missing from the exhibits storeroom at New Mole House police headquarters. He was on police bail.Subsequenly, it was reported that cannabis had gone missing from the Irish Town sub-station.Porro has also been charged with theft of a rucksack, a portable play station and games.Police say that following the discovery of the missing cocaine, investigations led detectives to carry out further checksof drugs stored at both police HQ and Irish Town station. Fifty kilos of cannabis resin were found missing, of which 15 kilos have been recovered.Porro retired early from the RGP and was later employed as a civilian storeman. A police statement says he was yesterday released from police bail and charged. "He is currently interdicted," said a spokesman. Porro is appearing in court this morning.

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Dannie Conners chief of Kendleton’s fire department was arrested after an undercover drug bust


The chief of Kendleton’s fire department was arrested after an undercover drug bust, KPRC Local 2 reported Friday.The Fort Bend County Narcotics Task Force had been investigating 43-year-old Dannie Conners because of reports that he was selling crack cocaine. During a raid of Conners’ home, deputies said they found crack cocaine, marijuana, weighing scales and packaging materials.Conners has been charged with possession of a controlled substance and possession of marijuana. He was booked into the Fort Bend County Jail.

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Matthew Roberts, arranged drug deliveries of more than £1m to his home town of Maesteg, was handed down a 17-year sentence.

Matthew Roberts, arranged drug deliveries of more than £1m to his home town of Maesteg, was handed down a 17-year sentence.As he jailed the group to a total of 82 years, Judge Christopher Llewellyn-Jones QC told Roberts, 36, and his nine co-conspirators that they were helping to spread a “cancer in society”.He said: “Almost daily in this court I listen to cases involving people whose lives have been destroyed by the use of Class A drugs and it is the same story in other courts.“Between June 2006 and February 2007 you conspired to bring substantial quantities of cocaine with a value of up to £1.2m from Liverpool.“In addition there was £48,000-worth of cannabis and an amount of amphetamine which the Crown has been unable to calculate.“In my view drugs are cancer in our society.”He said Roberts had been at the centre of the conspiracy and his wife Diann Lee, 42, who lived with him in a luxury self-build home had been willing to share the lifestyle drug dealing brought, although she believed only cannabis was involved.Her husband had tried to avoid detection by using different people and different vehicles to carry out his deliveries of drugs and large amounts of cash and by constantly changing the mobile phone numbers used.He also set up a tree surgery business “as a front”.“But in an extremely thorough investigation the police were able to stay ahead of you”, the judge said.The regional task force set up Operation Sofitel in 2006 and kept surveillance for months on Roberts and his contacts before moving in as 7kg of cocaine, worth £840,000, changed hands in the car park of B&Q Bridgend. The drugs were enough to supply at least 7,000 people with a wrap of cocaine.When his gang was eventually rounded up and arrested they found he had been dealing with so much cash he had had to buy a money-counting machine.He had also travelled to London to buy a scanner to check his car for bugs but had failed to find the listening device police had planted.Judge Llewellyn-Jones commended the five officers – DC Sarah Murphy, DC Chris Mayo, DC Kevin Gardner, DC Chris Macdonald, and Acting Detective Sergeant Neil Roper – involved in the case for their painstaking work.He added: “They carried out an excellent investigation which has brought to justice people involved in a considerable conspiracy. I commend each of them for their hard work and the prosecuting team for the way the case was presented.”Detective Chief Inspector Debbie Cooper, head of the Regional Task Force, Tarian, said: “These sentences send a message to drug dealers that Operation Tarian will deal with organised crime groups and it’s our full intention to protect communities from the harm and misery that these people intend to cause for their own profit.“The amount of cocaine seized on January 24, 2007 – which these defendants were intending to sell across South Wales – was enough to supply at least 7,000 people with a wrap of cocaine.“But thanks to the dedicated and painstaking investigative work of Tarian staff, which included up to seven months surveillance, these drugs never made it onto the streets

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Two Spanish tourists who have been detained on charges of making homosexual advances at two taxi drivers in Gambia

Two Spanish tourists who have been detained on charges of making homosexual advances at two taxi drivers in Gambia face up to 14 years in prison for violating the principles of Islam, the gay organisation FAGC said Tuesday in Barcelona.The Spaniards were being held at a police station in the coastal resort of Kotu. They were arrested Friday after the taxi drivers reported them to police.Gambian President Yahya Gammeh has threatened to "cut off the head" of any homosexual caught in the touristic West African country.The Spaniards were receiving visits from the Spanish consul to Gambia, who gave them his "full support," sources of the foreign ministry said in Madrid.

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Spanish police have arrested 16 people suspected of being part of a gang that stole hundreds of tons copper for sale in Spain

Spanish police have arrested 16 people, most of them Romanians, suspected of being part of a gang that stole hundreds of tons copper for sale in Spain and abroad, the interior ministry has said.It said the theft of copper rolls from a solar park in the southern region of Albacete led police to a warehouse where the gang had hidden around 1.6 tonnes of copper as well as machines for making fake identity cards.
The ministry said in March that police had detained 77 Romanians suspected of being part of a gang that stole copper to ship to China and Germany.Surging demand on the global market for copper, used in phone lines, power cables, radiators and air conditioners, is driving thefts of the material around the world.

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Spanish resident convicted of drug smuggling

Two Nigerians have been convicted and sentenced to 21 years’ imprisonment in hard labour by an Accra Regional Tribunal presided over by Justice Frank Manu for possessing narcotic drugs.Mondistus Nidimakor had 11years jail term for each count of attempting to export and possessing 73 pellets of cocaine while Gabriel Alaoma received 10 years for each count of importing and possessing 4475.388g of heroine, a narcotic drug.
However, the sentences are to run concurrently. The convicts had initially pleaded not guilty to the charges but later changed their pleas to guilty.
The court ordered that properties including money taken from Nidimakor should be handed over to him and the exhibits should be destroyed.
Concerning Alaoma, the court observed that he had been on remand for the past four years therefore his sentence should take effect from the day he was arrested.
Also, the properties seized from the accused should be given back to him and the exhibits destroyed.
Prosecuting, Yvonne Atakora Obuobisa, a State Attorney, said Nidimakor, a resident of Spain, arrived at the Kotoka International Airport (KIA) on January 16, 2006 to board a KLM flight to Amsterdam, Holland and that while going through departure formalities, he was arrested on suspicion of carrying narcotic drugs.
She revealed that the accused was taken to the 37 Military Hospital for X-ray examination and it revealed that he had foreign materials in his system.
As a result of that, he was put under observation till he expelled 73 pellets of a material suspected to be narcotic drug. The substance was confirmed to be cocaine with 959.462grams as net weight.Alaoma on the other hand arrived at the KIA on March 12, 2004 from Karachi, Pakistan enroute to Cote d’Ivoire.However, his movement at the transit lounge aroused the suspicion of the officers of the NACOB and so was picked for a search.She disclosed that when accused’s briefcase was thoroughly searched, the officers found four large parcels of powdery substance concealed in a false compartment and suspecting it to be a narcotic substance, the officials sent it to the Ghana Standards Board (GBS) for examination.The parcels were duly examined by the Forensic Department of GBS and their report indicated that the exhibit was heroin, a narcotic drug substance with an estimated weight of 4475-388gram.

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