Steve Neavling ticklethewire.com Opening statements begin today in the long-anticipated trial of James “Whitey” Bulger, who is accused of murder, racketeering, extortion, money laundering, gun stockpiling and drug dealing. Before his arrest, Bulger was so notorious that he shared the top spot on the FBI’s most-wanted list with terrorist Osama bin Laden, The New York…
Steve Neavling ticklethewire.com Thirteen female guards are accused in a federal indictment of working with an inmate gang to smuggle drugs and other banned items into a Baltimore jail, the USA Today reports. Four of those women were impregnated by the leader of the gang, the . Inmates and the guards were charged with racketeering,…
Steve Neavling ticklethewire.com The FBI spent more than $500,000 on informants and ignored their crimes to build a racketeering case that has “been on life support” for years, a veteran mob attorney said Monday, the Associated Press reports. During closing arguments for the trial involving La Cosa Nostra under reputed boss Joseph “Uncle Joe” Ligambi,…
Steve Neavling ticklethewire.com A high-ranking mobster in New England was sentenced Wednesday to nine years in prison for his role in shaking down strip clubs for money in return for protection, according to the Department of Justice. U.S. District Court Judge William Smith also ordered Edward “Eddy” Lato, 65, of Providence, R.I., to three years…
Shoshanna Utchenik ticklethewire.com Sometimes being a ‘friend of Israel’ means sharing criminals. Three Israeli mobsters were extradited to the U.S. in January 2011 in the first extradition of its kind under Israel’s racketeering law, which parallels RICO, the U.S. law targeting organized crime. Two of the three pled guilty to a host of drug and…
By Danny Fenster ticklethewire.com Thirty two people were busted– including 13 doctors — in what the head of the Miami FBI described as “the nation’s largest criminal organization involved in the illegal distribution of pain killers.” The bust capped a three-year investigation dubbed “Operation Oxy Alley” that netted the players tens of millions of dollars…
By Allan Lengel ticklethewire.com You say tomato. The lawyers for tomato king Frederick Scott Salyer say something far harsher. Defense lawyer for the former chief executive officer of the now defunct SK Foods, a tomato-product empire, claim in a court filing Tuesday in Sacramento that the FBI illegally used an informant to steal documents for…
By Allan Lengel ticklethewire.com It may be one of the ultimate betrayals in mob history, and certainly there have been no shortage of them. There was of course the very famous one: Gambino Underboss Sammy the Bull” Gravano turning on the top boss John Gotti. But this one, according to the New York Daily News,…
