It's Gangster All Over the World

From the Times of India. Click here for more Gangster sh*t that Morty and Moishe Recommend...

LUCKNOW: A dreaded gangster wanted by Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh police was shot dead in an encounter with the special task force (STF) in Gorakhpur on Saturday evening.

The Gujarat police was on the lookout for the gangster - identified as Pushpraj Singh Yadav - in connection with the murder of two police constables and a case of robbery in which a diamond merchant was robbed of 400 carrots of precious stones.

Additional director general of police (ADGP) Law and Order, Crime and STF Brij Lal, talking to TOI, said that regular inputs were being received by STF about the movement of a dreaded gangster in Eastern UP for quite sometime now. After sustained surveillance, a team of STF deputed to arrest the gangster, managed to locate him in Gorakhpur.

“On Saturday evening, the STF team headed by deputy Superintendent of police (DySP) STF Vikas Anand and Inspector Avinash Misra, received a tip-off that the gangster was to meet an associate near the Circuit House in Gorakhpur.

The STF team tracked him with an associate but the gangster resisted the police move to arrest him and instead opened fire. In the retaliatory firing, he was shot dead, his associate however managed to escape,” Brij Lal said.

Police thereafter recovered a sophisticated prohibited bore revolver from his possession. He was subsequently identified as Pushpraj Singh Yadav who carried a cash reward of Rs 10,000 on his head, the ADG STF said adding: “There were reports that the Gujarat government had announced a reward of Rs 1.5 lakh on his head but this was yet to be confirmed.”

You have heard of Jewish Gangsters, what do you know about Jewish Pirates?

From Boing Boing

A forthcoming, untitled book by historian Ed Kritzler argues that many of the "Spanish" pirates of the Caribbean were in fact Ladino-speaking Sephardic Jews who took to the seas to flee/avenge the Inquisition.

While some Jews, like Samuel Pallache, took up piracy in part to help make a better life for expelled Spanish Jews, Kritzler said others were motivated by revenge for the Inquisition.

One such pirate was Moses Cohen Henriques, who helped plan one of history's largest heists against Spain. In 1628, Henriques set sail with Dutch West India Co. Admiral Piet Hein, whose own hatred of Spain was fueled by four years spent as a galley slave aboard a Spanish ship. Henriques and Hein boarded Spanish ships off Cuba and seized shipments of New World gold and silver worth in today's dollars about the same as Disney's total box office for "Dead Man's Chest."

Henriques set up his own pirate island off the coast of Brazil afterward, and even though his role in the raid was disclosed during the Spanish Inquisition, he was never caught, Kritzler told The Journal.

Local Corruption, National Corruption - Same S%#t, Different Day

From The Philadelphia Inquirer. Read the whole article.

The fight over land behind PHA suit
S. Phila. properties are at the nexus of a tangle that has drawn in a Bush cabinet member.

By Jennifer Lin and Mark Fazlollah

Inquirer Staff Writers
On June 19, 2006, Mayor John F. Street called a summit for two powerful players in Philadelphia real estate.

On one side was Kenny Gamble, the millionaire R&B maestro whose local nonprofit - Universal Community Homes - was a developer in the Martin Luther King Plaza public housing project in South Philadelphia.

On the other was Carl R. Greene, the head of the Philadelphia Housing Authority, who was in charge of the redevelopment.

The men were at war over four parcels of land.

Greene refused to give the land to Universal. He said Universal hadn't done any work to earn it. And if Gamble didn't like it, he could get a lawyer to negotiate buying the land.

After Street had left and the meeting had ended, Greene said, Gamble leaned toward him and said, "I don't need lawyers."

"I have friends."

Gamble's contact with one of those friends - Housing and Urban Development Secretary Alphonso Jackson - is now the focus of a federal lawsuit, as well as an investigation by the inspector general for the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

PHA alleges that Jackson tried to pressure the authority to turn over to Universal - at no cost - land worth $7 million. And that when the housing authority refused, HUD retaliated.

Last year, HUD declared PHA in default of its agreement to redevelop the Martin Luther King project. Separately, it stripped the authority of any autonomy in spending $300 million in federal funds.

Greene said that would result in fewer new affordable housing units, as many as 240 layoffs, and fewer services for residents....

Free Bobby the Jew!!

An update to Moishe's post here. Apparently Bobby the Jew is not even Jewish. But Morty and Moishe have got his back anyway. From the NY Post.

February 10, 2008 -- According to mob expert John Carillo, most gangsters don't know one another's last name. "It's a group of people that know each other basically by nicknames or first names." Among the funniest are:

Thomas Cacciopoli: "Tommy Sneakers." He "likes sneakers," Michael "Mikey Scars" DiLeonardo testified at the trial of Gambino boss Peter Gotti.

Joseph Corozzo: "Jo-Jo," "Miserable." It's about that attitude, Jo-Jo.

Robert Epifania: "Bobby the Jew." He's not Jewish. But he "looks like a Jew," his cohorts told investigators.

Domenico Cefalu: "Italian Dom," "Dom from 18th Avenue," "The Greaseball." "Greaseball" is the pejorative the elder John Gotti used for Sicilians; 18th Avenue is in his neck of the woods, Bensonhurst, Brooklyn.

Nicholas Corozzo: "The Doctor," "The Little Guy," "Seymour," "Grandpa," "Grandfather," "Little Nick." This 5-foot-6 mobster goes by "Grandpa" when with close friends.

Vincent Decongilio: "Vinny Hot." His father was "Freddy Hot" - plus he's into gambling.

Leonard DiMaria: "Uncle," "Lenny," "L," "Fatso," "The Conductor." Self-named, he once signed a get-well note to a Newsday reporter "Uncle Lenny." He's short, squat, with a broad nose.

Anthony Licata: "Anthony Firehawk," "Anthony Nighthawk," "Cheeks." Firehawk and Nighthawk are names of trucking companies.

John D'Amico: "Jackie Nose." "He had his nose fixed. He had a big, distorted nose at one time," DiLeonardo said at the Gotti trial. D'Amico was said to have been upset with prosecutors for using the nickname.

Compiled by Murray Weiss, Brad Hamilton, Stefanie Cohen and Cathy Burke

More Gangster News, For Fans of The Wire

From the Philadelphia Inquirer. Click here for more gangster tales that Morty and Moishe recommend...

Kingpin: 'I broke the code'
On the stand four days, Camden drug lord Raymond Morales ratted on major players. He did good business, he said. His regret: Testifying.

By Troy Graham
Inquirer Staff Writer
In the last 15 years, perhaps no one has contributed more to the misery of drugs and violence on Camden's streets than Raymond Morales.

A former cocaine wholesale and retail kingpin, Morales secretly pleaded guilty in federal court in 2005 and helped investigators dismantle his organization and target his old customers.

For four days, Morales recently sat on the witness stand for the first time, testifying against three men with whom he did business, and giving a remarkably frank and chilling description of his long reign at the top of the drug world.
...
Morales' business ties to some of Camden's most notorious crime figures stretch back to the early 1990s, when he said he used the menacing Sons of Malcolm X street gang as muscle. Gang members eagerly provided their help so they could have more access to his wholesale cocaine, he said.

The Sons controlled vast swaths of the North Camden drug trade for more than a decade and were best known for the 1992 "test night" shootings, in which gang members had to show their loyalty by killing random civilians. A former member, convicted as a juvenile in one of the test night shootings, is scheduled to testify this week.

Years later, a competitor tried to contract a hit on Morales with Leonard "Pooh" Paulk. Paulk, described as another of the city's largest wholesalers, warned Morales instead.

Paulk is the stepfather of Camden basketball legend Dajuan Wagner, who played three years for the NBA's Cleveland Cavaliers. Paulk was given a life sentence on drug conspiracy charges in federal court in 2005.

Morales's testimony also was remarkable for the way he described his business, dealing with many of the same issues as legitimate executives and applying many of the same economic theories.

For one, he offered a money-back guarantee on the quality of his drugs. And he griped from the stand about expenses cutting into his profit - though his expenses included paying bail bondsmen and lawyers and the toll of stick-up artists.

The wild card, of course, was the violence. Morales once had a drug dealer killed for representing his own, inferior cocaine as having come from Morales' supply.

"Nothing's normal in the drug trade," he said. "Every day's different."

Morales was wildly successful. Investigators said his business grew so large and was able to buy so much cocaine at once, that he drove out his competitors - a strategy not unlike Wal-Mart's.

At his height, Morales said, he was moving 70 kilos a month from his connection with a group of "Arizona Mexicans."
...
His drug-corner "manager," Dennis Rodriguez, testified in this same trial that they pioneered the sale of $5 bags of crack rather than the corner standard $10 bags. Addicts, he said, often showed up with $8 or $9 and haggled.

The $5 bags were a sensation.

"We were selling more coke than ever. Customers were coming out of everywhere," Rodriguez testified. "We were number one."
...

Now this is straight up gangster - nyc street brawl - watch

Yo holmes want to join a gang (an online gang)?

(CBS 5) Young people who visit social networking sites to download music and pictures glorifying criminal street gangs can unwittingly set themselves up to be recruited by those gangs, according to law enforcement officials and youth counselors.

San Mateo Police Chief Susan Manheimer, who speaks for the San Mateo County gang task force, said gang leaders are aware that kids like to socialize on sites such as MySpace and YouTube.

"We're seeing our gangs and the resurgence of some of the gang members coming back from prison looking more and more to those middle schoolers and the younger kids to recruit them," said Manheimer.

Manheimer said kids get into discussions in the comments sections of web sites, and engage in everything from vicious threats to what seems to be innocuous chit-chat.

"The type of profiling they're doing of themselves makes them prey to predators and also at odds with and challenging other gangs," said Manheimer. "So, we'll see something start on the Internet, and actually turn into an assault or a gang fight that actually results out of Internet profiling."

I Hope Ace Keeps Morty and Moishe's Names Out of This Mishegas

Continuing the gang theme.

Phila. rap mogul may testify tomorrow

By George Anastasia

INQUIRER STAFF WRITER
Rap music mogul and suspected drug kingpin Alton "Ace Capone" Coles is expected to take the witness stand in his own defense tomorrow, if, as expected, federal prosecutors conclude their case today in his ongoing cocaine trafficking trial.

Coles, 34, is accused of using Take Down Records, a rap and hip-hop record company he founded in 2002, as a front for a multi-million dollar, Southwest Philadelphia-based cocaine and crack distribution network.

In an interview from prison prior to the start of the trial, Coles denied those allegations.

If he takes the stand, he will be pressed to explain a high-flying lifestyle that prosecutors and witnesses described during the trial -- a lifestyle that included fancy cars, a lavish home, lots of cash and few legitimate sources of income.

Coles court-appointed lawyer, Christopher Warren, said after Wednesday's court session that he expected his client to testify. In opening argument and through his cross-examination of witnesses, Warren has argued that Coles cash came from promoting rap music videos and concerts and from hosting a weekly party at a Spring Garden Street club.

Prosecutors allege that during a seven-year period beginning in 1998, the Coles drug organization distributed a ton of cocaine and a half ton of crack in the Philadelphia market. The operation generated at least $25 million, authorities said.

Major Mob Bust in NYC - they got "Bobby The Jew"

From Smoking Gun

FEBRUARY 7--Dozens of reputed Gambino crime family members and associates were named today in a racketeering indictment charging the New York-based Mafia family with most of the felonies covered in the United States Code (murder, narcotics distribution, robbery, extortion, loansharking, securities fraud, labor schemes, etc.). But we're going to focus on the 83 wiseguy nicknames listed in the 169-page indictment, which was filed in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn. As seen on the following pages, the charged hoodlums include "The Greaseball," "Bobby the Jew," "Tommy Sneakers," and "Mike the Electrician." Some arrestees, like Gambino captain Leonard DiMaria, even have multiple nicknames. DiMaria, the indictment notes, is known alternately as "L," "Lenny," "The Conductor," "Nike," "Uncle," and "Fatso." Until his death in June 2002, John Gotti, pictured at right, headed the Gambino family, which, next to the Genovese crew, is the country's second most powerful Mafia group. (4 pages)

Update!

File this under, it's gangster out there on the streets of Florida

Arrested for singing profane lyrics within earshot of children

FEBRUARY 5--A 19-year-old man was arrested Sunday night for singing the lyrics to a profane rap song as he walked on a Florida street. Christopher Holder was nabbed after a woman complained to police that her two children (ages five and 14) heard Holder repeatedly reciting the words "mother fucker," according to a Hernando County Sheriff's Office report, a copy of which you'll find here. When questioned by deputies, Holder "immediately began arguing that he did nothing wrong," and explained that he was merely covering a song by Louisiana rapper Lil' Boosie, whose most recent album, "Bad Azz," includes cuts like "My Nigga" and "Fuck You." But Holder, pictured in the below mug shot, added that he "agreed that he did not believe children needed to hear language such as that being hollered down the road." Holder was charged with disorderly conduct, a misdemeanor.

Continuing on the drug theme - Colombian drug lord killed

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) -- Venezuelan authorities confirm a man slain in the Andean city of Merida is Wilber Varela, one of Colombia's most-wanted drug lords, Venezuela's top counter-drug official said Friday.

Fingerprints of the man who was found shot to death Wednesday matched those of Varela, said Col. Nestor Reverol, head of the National Anti-Drug Agency.

Varela, alias "Jabon," or "Soap," was Colombia's most notorious drug trafficker on the run.

The underworld is awash with tales of his brutality that made him a household name in Colombia.

Colombia's police chief, Gen. Oscar Naranjo, reminded reporters that Varela, a former police officer himself, had entered the drug underworld as a hired killer.

"Wilber Varela in the last few years was truly the main leader of Colombian drug-trafficking organizations," he said Friday in Bogota.

Danny DeVito Demonstrates a Strong Pimp Hand

From the funniest show on TV, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia.

Keeping with Today's Drug War Focus

It's a real think piece, and not short, so here's a taste.

How America Lost the War on Drugs
After Thirty-Five Years and $500 Billion, Drugs Are as Cheap and Plentiful as Ever: An Anatomy of a Failure.

Ben Wallace-Wells

Posted Nov 27, 2007 12:56 PM
...
Even by conservative estimates, the War on Drugs now costs the United States $50 billion each year and has overcrowded prisons to the breaking point - all with little discernible impact on the drug trade. A report by the Government Accountability Office released at the end of September estimated that ninety percent of the cocaine moving into the United States now arrives through Mexico, up from sixty-six percent in 2000. Even Walters acknowledges that for all of the efforts the Bush administration has devoted to overseas drug enforcement, the price of cocaine has dropped while its purity has risen. More than forty percent of Americans support legalizing marijuana, yet the government continues to target pot smokers. In October, the administration announced it was planning a new military offensive, dubbed Plan Mexico, with a price tag of $1.4 billion. Things look so bleak that Walters was recently moved to describe a momentary upward blip in drug prices as "historic progress."

There are a handful of battles in the War on Drugs that have actually been won, times when fresh thinking prevailed over politics - but they are not the kind of victories that the Bush administration is eager to trumpet. In the summer of 2003, the police department in High Point, North Carolina, held its annual command-staff retreat in a small conference center themed to look like the log cabins of the pioneers who settled the region. One topic dominated the conversation: an increase in violent crime that was concentrated in three drug-dealing neighborhoods in the city. "The place we were at was that all the traditional enforcement was making no difference," says the department's deputy chief, Marty Sumner. "We agreed we weren't going to be able to eliminate drug use. We weren't even going to try to go after drug use. We wanted to change the marketing of the drug."
...

Inspiration for Morty's dollhouse