Japanese Yakuza boss nabbed in Thailand
Bangkok, 26 October 2009: Thai tourist police on Monday arrested a Japanese man allegedly heading a Japanese organised crime syndicate while he was escaping to a neighbouring country.
Pol Lt-Gen Thangai Prasjaksattru, commissioner of the Central Investigation Bureau (CIB), said 37-year-old Kimio Masa Yoshimoto, head of Yamaguchi, a Japanese crime group, was arrested in downtown Bangkok after Thai authorities coordinated with Japanese police.
Kenya gang leader freed from prison
The leader of a banned Kenyan gang has been freed after charges that he murdered 28 people were dropped.
Maina Njenga was freed on Friday and called on all fellow Mungiki members to renounce membership and become Christians.
Rape used as weapon in DR Congo war
UN, 22 October 2009: The Democratic Republic of Congo is grappling with rampant rape, which has become an every day practice and is used as a weapon of war, the UN has said.
It said almost 5,400 cases of rape against women were reported in the South Kivu province during the first six months of the year.
Death toll in Rio de Janeiro drug violence reaches 25
Rio de Janeiro, 21 October 2009: Twenty-five people have been confirmed dead so far in fierce clashes between drug gangs and police over the weekend in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil’s second largest city.
Local police lately found the body of a man with several bruises and bullet wounds inside a supermarket cart in the Morro dos Macacos shantytown, in northern Rio de Janeiro.
China corruption trial: inside the country’s criminal gangs
Beiging, 17 October 2009: Unlike traditional mafias, such as Italy’s Cosa Nostra or Camorra, Chinese gangs are organised around businesses, rather than families.
“The way the gangs are organised is very particular,” said Wang Li, a law professor at Southwest University in Chongqing. “Most gangs began as small businesses and then accumulated empires.
New tools to help police bust gangs
Wellington, 17 October 2009: Thanks to new crime-busting laws, gangs will soon find New Zealand a much hostile environment in which to do business, police believe.
The combination of the legislation and better tools “will ensure we prevail against organised crime”, acting deputy commissioner operations Steve Shortland said.
Organized crime trials start in SW China
Chongqing, 13 October 2009: Thirty-one people went on trial Monday in two court cases for allegedly running organized crime gangs in southwest China’s Chongqing Municipality.
It is expected to be the first in a series of organized crime trials resulting from investigations into 14 alleged mafia-style gangs, said a spokesman with the municipal public security bureau.
Search for Warren’s missing millions
SOCA – the UK’s Serious Organised Crime Agency – who helped Jersey Police put multi-millionaire drugs baron Curtis Warren back behind bars, say their next aim is to get at his money.
Warren was once listed in the Sunday Times Book of The Rich with a personal fortune of £40 million, although other estimates were even higher. He’s said to own a string of properties around the world, a brothel, and even a football team. But little of his money has ever been confiscated.
Death sentences for Iran protesters
Tehran, 10 October 2009: Three people arrested after Iran’s disputed presidential election have been sentenced to death, the Iranian ISNA news agency said.
Mohammad Reza Ali Zamani was the first person sentenced to death on Saturday, over the unrest triggered by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s June re-election as president.
India: Naxals gun down 18 policemen, one police informer beheaded
GADCHIROLI (Maharashtra), 08 October 2009: Naxals on Thursday struck with impunity killing 18 policemen when they ambushed a police patrol in dense forests in this district ignoring stern warnings by Union Home Minister P Chidambaram asking them to give up violence or face action.
In a rerun of the beheading of a Jharkhand police intelligence officer by the Maoists near Ranchi in a Taliban-type action early this week, a police informer identified as Suresh Alami met a similar fate in Gadchiroli just before the third major naxal strike in this district.