Andrew Pritchard the ‘fixer’ behind Britain’s largest ever drugs smuggling operation

Customs and Excise in London had labelled Andrew Pritchard the ‘fixer’ behind Britain’s largest ever drugs smuggling operation - half a ton of cocaine, “enough to keep London’s clubland snorting for months”.Held behind bars for 18 months, doing time for a crime he insisted he did not commit, Pritchard was subsequently exonerated. He was allowed to walk away from Her Majesty’s prison with all charges formally dropped against him. And that, he says, was the start of his transformation.Andrew Pritchard signing a copy of his book. (Photos: Joseph Wellington) Pritchard chronicles his experience in the no-holds-barred novel, Urban Smuggler, a book...

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Tuan Ky Quach, 38, was allegedly bound with duct tape in a Windsor motel room in February by three armed men who stole about $200,000 in marijuana.

Tuan Ky Quach, 38, was allegedly bound with duct tape in a Windsor motel room in February by three armed men who stole about $200,000 in marijuana. Another man was pistol-whipped with a 357 Magnum in a case that resulted in seven arrests after police were alerted to people in ski masks lurking outside.Quach was charged with possession of 24 kilograms of marijuana for the purpose of trafficking.Details of that incident came out yesterday when Quach — a small, clean-cut man with glasses — was denied bail on charges related to a Kitchener home-grow operation.Quach was among five suspects arrested at gunpoint Sept. 11 during an alleged drug deal in the parking lot of a Chinese restaurant in suburban Toronto. Police fired five shots in the afternoon takedown when the driver of a car allegedly tried...

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Bosses of the Sumiyoshi-kai crime syndicate formally acknowledged their "employers' liability" for the death of one of three bystanders killed

Bosses of the Sumiyoshi-kai crime syndicate formally acknowledged their "employers' liability" for the death of one of three bystanders killed when members of an affiliate gang shot up a bar in Maebashi in 2003. The admission was part of a settlement reached Friday in a lawsuit filed by the family of one of the victims. According to an attorney for the plaintiffs, Shigeo Nishiguchi and Hareaki Fukuda--Sumiyoshi-kai's top two leaders--agreed to pay 97.5 million yen in compensation to the plaintiffs, promised to prevent similar incidents and expressed regret to the victims' relatives. It is believed to be the first time that gang bosses have formally acknowledged their liability as employers for a crime committed by subordinates. On Jan. 25, 2003, two members of a gang affiliated with Sumiyoshi-kai...

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INSIDE LATIN KINGS

INSIDE LATIN KINGS• Scope: National• Criminal Activity: Narcotics, weapons, extortion, assaults, intimidation, beatings, stabbing, shootings, murder and graffiti.• Propensity for Violence: The Latin Kings’ reputation continues today as evidenced by the violence in correctional facilities in various communities. The Latin Kings are known to beat, stab or shoot members who have not conformed to the gang’s rules of obedience, resulting in serious physical injury up to and including death.Individuals and rival gangs who possess a threat to the Latin Kings have also been targeted for violence.• Finances: The main source of income for the Latin Kings is funds derived from drug trade. Though members are not to use drugs, they may sell and distribute drugs to make money for themselves and the organization.Recently,...

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Stephen Flemmi was a feared gangster and former paratrooper they called ''The Rifleman''

Stephen Flemmi was a feared gangster and former paratrooper they called ''The Rifleman'' around South Boston. The same Stevie who murdered Hussey's daughter.Hussey once knew him well he spit in Flemmi's face when he found out the gangster was sleeping with his wife.Flemmi cold-cocked him but let him live. Decades later, Thomas Hussey's daughter, Deborah Hussey, met a different -- and final -- fate.On Monday, Flemmi was not on trial. His 2004 conviction for strangling Deborah is just one of 10 murder charges that put him in prison for life.Instead, Flemmi was there to testify against former Boston FBI agent John Connolly, 68, who stands accused of being corrupted by Flemmi's gang and leaking vital information that led to the 1982 murder of a gambling executive in South Florida.''He's really...

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Gangster Killer Bloods leader Victor "Little Vic" Lopez, 26, pleaded guilty to aggravated manslaughter in the shooting death of Edwin "Dino"Andino

Gangster Killer Bloods leader Victor "Little Vic" Lopez, 26, pleaded guilty to aggravated manslaughter in the March 25, 2005, shooting death of Edwin "Dino" Andino. Andino, 19, was gunned down at Walnut and Houghton avenues in Trenton. Lopez, a captain in the Gangster Killer Bloods, said he told two co-defendants who were soldiers in the gang to open fire on the corner while he waited in a van. But Lopez, answering questions posed by his lawyer, Bruce Throckmorton, the judge and assistant prosecutor, said he had a personal dispute with people hanging around on that corner, rather than a gang-related vendetta. Asked by Assistant Prosecutor Skylar Weissman what his rank was in the gang, Lopez said that he was a "five star." Lopez will be sentenced in February to 15 years in prison and must serve...

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Rayful Edmond III is now part of the United States Federal Witness Protection Program and his place of incarceration is confidential.

Rayful Edmond III is largely credited with introducing crack cocaine into the Washington, D.C. area. Columbians was alleged to have moved In an indictment involving two of Edmond's associates, it said that they bought between 1000 and 2,000 kilos over a 1 week period at a time. In 1992 from the Trujillo-Blanco brothers, who were associated with the Medellin cartel, and sold the drugs to Washington area wholesalers. He was known to have spent some $457,619 in an exclusive Georgetown store (Linea Pitti, specializing in Italian men's clothing) owned by Charles Wynn who was later convicted on 34 counts of money laundering.Edmond was arrested in...

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Gaetano J. Milano was sentenced in 1991 for executing William "Wild Guy" Grasso

Gaetano J. Milano was sentenced in 1991 for executing William "Wild Guy" Grasso as they sped down Interstate 91 in a van two years earlier. A volatile mobster even by mob standards, Grasso was a fellow soldier in the Providence-based Patriarca crime family and Milano told the judge he believed it was Grasso or him. "It was kill or be killed," Milano said at his sentencing before U.S. District Judge Alan H. Nevas, the same jurist who will reconsider Milano's sentence next month. Fueling that argument, defense lawyers have argued, was the late Boston mobster Angelo "Sonny" Mercurio, revealed in the 1990s to be a "top echelon" FBI informant who the agency shielded from prosecution in the murders of Grasso and others. The FBI's mishandling of mob moles like Mercurio, James "Whitey" Bulger and...

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Christopher Hudson was proud to be a Hells Angel."Don't you know who I am? I'm a Hells Angel."

Christopher Hudson was proud to be a Hells Angel. When he left for Melbourne, he made his bikie connection known at the King Street strip club Spearmint Rhino he used to frequent.They knew him as "Huddo" at the club at which he was a VIP member where a minimum spend of $250 was the deal.The night before the CBD shooting, Hudson had been drinking there before moving on to nearby club Barcode.It was there Hudson took objection to stripper Autumn-Daly Holt giving a man a lap dance.He saw it his duty to intervene, lifting Holt from her chair by her hair and assaulting her.When a bystander objected, Hudson lifted his shirt to reveal his Hells Angels...

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Vito Rizzuto arrest warrant

The Rizzuto organization has formed a "Sixth Family," a Mafia clan based in Montreal that has overshadowed the Mafia's notorious Five Families of New York. Recent allegations of their presence abroad place them as one of the world's most robust criminal cartels. controlling mind behind it all was Vito Rizzuto of Mont-real, Italian authorities allege.Police in Italy issued an arrest warrant for Rizzuto, who is currently in prison in the United States for three gangland slayings. Also wanted are four men in Canada -- including Rizzuto's father, Nicolo, who is similarly in jail in Montreal awaiting trial."We believe that even from jail they are able to control the organization," said Silvia Franze, an investigator with the Direzione Investigativa Antimafia in Rome."We blocked a lot of bank accounts...

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Max Mermelstein took orders directly from cartel bosses Pablo Escobar and Jorge Ochoa.

Mermelstein did more than any other American citizen to help bring the Colombian cocaine trade into this country. Then he turned into a federal witness and did more than any other American to try to bring it down.1978 to 1985, Max Mermelstein helped move 56 tons of cocaine into Florida and sent $300 million in cash back to Medellin, Colombia. He was instrumental in creating the "Cocaine Cowboy" era of South Florida depicted in the Al Pacino film Scarface and in innumerable episodes of Miami Vice.Mermelstein died Friday at age 65 in Lexington, Ky., felled by cancer of the bone, liver and lung. The Post's Jeff Leen, who crossed paths with Mermelstein when he was investigating the cocaine cartel for the Miami Herald in the 1980s, reports on the startling life and death of this drug-importer-turned-informant:Mermelstein...

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Paris DiMarco Moffett,San Francisco gangster and Eddy Rock member arrested in Novato last year has pleaded guilty to federal drug and weapons charges

San Francisco gangster and drug trafficker arrested in Novato last year has pleaded guilty to federal drug and weapons charges, authorities said Tuesday.Paris DiMarco Moffett, 30, admitted possessing 183 grams of crack cocaine, or about 6.5 ounces, at the Hamilton-area apartment he shared with his girlfriend, Delicia Virginia Mitchell, prosecutors said. Moffett also pleaded guilty to possessing a loaded Colt .45-caliber semi-automatic pistol used in his drug trafficking.Mitchell, 36, pleaded guilty to possession with intent to distribute Ecstasy.Authorities said Moffett is a member of the Eddy Rock gang, one of several street gangs accused of terrorizing the Western Addition neighborhood of San Francisco. Last year, the city attorney issued an injunction barring the gangs from "safety zones"...

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Giuseppe Baldinucci, 64, was arrested in New York City after Italian authorities informed Homeland Security that he was wanted in Italy

Citizen of Italy was returned to his homeland and turned over to Italian authorities on Wednesday by officers from the Philadelphia office of detention and removal after completing a 46-month federal prison sentence.The case developed in April of 2005 when Giuseppe Baldinucci, 64, was arrested in New York City after Italian authorities informed Homeland Security that he was wanted in Italy and may have fled to the United States. Fingerprint comparisons confirmed that Baldinucci was the person identified in the Italian warrant and also confirmed he had previously been deported from the U.S.In October of 2005, Baldinucci was convicted in the United States District Court, Eastern District of New York, for the offense of Re-Entry of a Previously Deported Alien in violation of Title 8, United States...

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Obviously, any witness you can eliminate is a good thing. says a veteran defense attorney who once represented mobsters

Robert Simels, 61, was arrested Tuesday on charges of witness tampering and obstruction of justice. He was released on $3.5 million bond.Robert Simels has represented the mobster immortalized in “Goodfellas,” a drug kingpin with ties to hip hop and other notorious clients in his long career.Investigators say a veteran defense attorney who once represented the mobster immortalized in "Goodfellas" has plotted to murder witnesses in another case.Now a criminal complaint filed in federal court in Brooklyn puts Simels in their company: It accuses him of plotting to silence prosecution witnesses against an alleged drug trafficker by, in his words, “eliminating” them.Simels, 61, was arrested Tuesday on charges of witness tampering and obstruction of justice and was released on $3.5 million bond....

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Gotti Jr. misappropriated millions of dollars of the late John Gotti’s illicit stash

Mafia boss John Gotti went to his grave hating his oldest son, Junior, a mob snitch claims in secretly recorded conversations with close confidants of the Dapper Don.Lewis Kasman- known as Gotti’s “adopted son” - trashes John A. (Junior) Gotti on the tapes and says the mob prince was despised by his infamous dad.“He died hating that kid, you know that,” Kasman told reputed Gambino consigliere Joseph (JoJo) Corozzo in an October 2005 conversation.Kasman, 51, is expected to be a key turncoat witness against Junior at his upcoming racketeering and murder trial in Tampa.He taped several conversations with high-ranking Gambino gangsters, transcripts of which were reviewed by the Daily News.The intimate glimpse into Gambino gossip and schemes is made all the more shocking by Kasman’s unique access...

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Rogue FBI agent was responsible for the 1982 slaying of a Boston businessman, the victim's wife testified at the ex-agent's trial

rogue FBI agent was responsible for the 1982 slaying of a Boston businessman, the victim's wife testified at the ex-agent's trial Monday in Miami.Former agent John Connolly, already jailed in Florida on racketeering charges, faced the first day of a murder trial in which he is accused of tipping off gangsters that businessman John Callahan was going to expose a slaying they had committed, The Boston Globe reported. Callahan's widow, Mary Callahan, called Connolly a "Judas" because he allegedly warned the mobsters Callahan was about to go to the FBI to finger them in the slaying of a Tulsa man. John Callahan's bullet-riddled body was found in a parking lot at Miami International Airport, stuffed in the trunk of a Cadillac, the newspaper said. Also to testify against Connolly, 68, is Stephen...

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Dr Attilio Manca was found dead in his flat in the central Italian town of Viterbo, it seemed an open and shut case.

Dr Attilio Manca was found dead in his flat in the central Italian town of Viterbo, it seemed an open and shut case. He appeared to have injected himself with a lethal cocktail of heroin and tranquillisers.But some claimed he was killed to cover the tracks of the then-fugitive mafia boss, and four years on, 10 people have been officially registered as suspects in a murder inquiry, and a police scientific expert has been asked to put names to the fingerprints discovered in Manca's home. The reopening of the inquiry, reported yesterday by the newspaper La Stampa, represents a victory for Manca's parents and their campaign for further investigation of their son's death. "They were - and are - absolutely sure that their son was not a drug addict, and had no reason to commit suicide," their lawyer,...

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Massimo Pisnoli, 48, was found with a gunshot wound to his face and back last month in undergrowth near a railway station after going missing for ten

Massimo Pisnoli, 48, was found with a gunshot wound to his face and back last month in undergrowth near a railway station after going missing for ten days. The two men, aged 40 and 48, were held in dawn raids at addresses in Rome. Police also seized an arsenal of weapons as well as 230grammes of cocaine.They were held after an investigation led by anti-Mafia prosecutor Giancarlo Capaldo, who had also used undercover officers at Pisnoli's funeral to obtain information.A Rome police spokesman said: "Two men aged 40 and 48 have been arrested and are those responsible for the murder. It was a through investigation and concluded quickly."Both men are Italian and during the arrests weapons as well as 230 grammes of cocaine were also seized. Further details will be given at a news conference later."Pisnoli...

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Charlie Abutbul was badly wounded in a hail of bullets inside a Netanya eatery on Monday.

Charlie Abutbul was badly wounded in a hail of bullets inside a Netanya eatery on Monday. The slugs intended for Abutbul also struck three innocent bystanders - proving yet again that local tough guys show no compunction about harming innocent "civilians," dozens of whom have been killed or wounded. The most recent was Marguerita Lautin, shot down on the Bat Yam beach in a botched hit allegedly commissioned by crime family boss Itzik Abergil against his former soldier Rami Amira. Abergil was detained after Lautin's murder, but no firm connection between him and the attempt on Amira's life could be established. The police will simply have to pull out all the stops to take on the mob. Only relatively recently did authorities even acknowledge the existence of six Jewish, and three Arab, organized...

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sex scandals involving teachers have resulted in lawsuits against both school districts in Laurens County.

sex scandals involving teachers have resulted in lawsuits against both school districts in Laurens County. Greenville attorney Karl Allen filed lawsuits on behalf of victims in the Allenna Ward and Wendy Schweikert cases. In February, former teacher Allenna Ward was sentenced to six years in prison after admitting to have sex with five students who attended Bell Street Middle School in Clinton. The victims were all under the age of sixteen. In June of 2007, former teacher Wendy Schweikert was sentenced to ten years for having sex with one of her fifth grade students at E.B. Morse Elementary in Laurens. The lawsuit alleges both Laurens County School Districts 55 and 56 were negligent in hiring quote, “unqualified and dangerous” teachers and failed to train teachers to recognize improper behavior....

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Slawomir Plewa, who was stripped of his duties in the 25th District last month, plotted with 48-year-old Bogdan Mazur to search the woman’s Toyota

Slawomir Plewa, who was stripped of his duties in the 25th District last month, plotted with 48-year-old Bogdan Mazur to search the woman’s Toyota Highlander after Mazur and another uncharged defendant planted a blue steel pistol, 44.5 grams of cocaine and six plastic bags of cannabis in the vehicle’s spare tire, Assistant Cook County State’s Attorney Lynn McCarthy said at the men’s bond hearing today.Mazur had met with Plewa, 30, and other officers to let them know about the drugs before the April 1, 2007, arrest, but Mazur also had phone contact with Plewa, prosecutors said. Mazur had called his wife in front of the officers, told her he had car problems and asked to meet at a parking garage at Belmont and Central so she could pick up their two children. Once she arrived, Plewa stopped her...

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Bradford man has been arrested on suspicion of possession of a firearm.

Bradford man has been arrested on suspicion of possession of a firearm. The 22-year-old Frizinghall man is being held in police custody after the incident in Keighley Road today at about 4pm. A passing motorist reported to a Police Community Support Officer that he had passed a car which contained a group of Asian males, one of whom had been brandishing a handg...

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Omid Tahvili, the convicted drug dealer who escaped from the North Fraser Pretrial Centre in November with the aid of a guard, was killed last week ?

Omid Tahvili, the convicted drug dealer who escaped from the North Fraser Pretrial Centre in November with the aid of a guard, was killed last week after he was shot five times in the head, chest, arm and legs. The tipster said he is storing the body in a fridge and that he would hold onto it until the RCMP offer him a suitable reward. "I can't keep the body around no more longer, because the body stinks right now," the caller told the North Shore News."If they don't make that deal with me, I'm just going to burn the body and get rid of it."He would not reveal how he came to be in possession of the corpse, or any information about who shot Tahvili.Coquitlam RCMP Cpl. Scott Baker confirmed that the tipster had called him twice and offered to return the body in return for a large payment. Police...

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Domenyk Noonan,has been receiving treatment at Durham’s University Hospital for acute pancreatitis.

Domenyk Noonan, 42, is part of the notorious Manchester- based Noonan clan, who openly bragged “they had more guns than police”.The Frankland jail inmate has been receiving treatment at Durham’s University Hospital for acute pancreatitis.At least two police officers brandishing machine guns have been on guard at all times, while dog sections have patrolled the grounds.The families of patients there have been stunned to discover they have been sharing hospital facilities with Noonan, jailed after a gun and five bullets were discovered in his car in Darlington, County Durham.Helping a friend to her chemotherapy appointment, mum-of- three Elizabeth...

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Rene Enriquez,aka Boxer, killed for the gang and also ordered the deaths of men and women in prison and on the streets of Los Angeles

Rene Enriquez could order murders and conjure elaborate drug deals from an 8-by-10 cell in one of the country's highest-security prisons. He was a leader in the Mexican mafia, a violent group based in California prisons that exerts powerful influence on the streets. Then Enriquez defected. Now, he's a government witness living behind bars. Enriquez is serving two 20-to-life sentences for murder. We agreed not to reveal the location where Enriquez is being held. "It's kind of like we're buried. We're subterranean," Enriquez says.Enriquez was transferred here several years ago from state prison after dropping out of the Mexican mafia, a powerful...

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Nicholas "The Knife" has been jailed over a violent brawl during which Hell's Angels defector Christopher Wayne Hudson was shot twice

South Australian bikies have been jailed over a violent brawl during which Hell's Angels defector Christopher Wayne Hudson was shot twice and others stabbed.Senior Finks MC member Shane Scott Bowden, 36, yesterday was sentenced in the Brisbane District Court to six-and-a-half-years' jail by a judge who declared him a serious violent offender. His co-accused, Nicholas "The Knife" John Forbes, 39, received an 18-month sentence for assault occasioning bodily harm whilst armed. Their trial heard Forbes attacked Hudson, a former Finks member, in front of 1800 people at a kickboxing tournament in March, 2006, before Bowden shot Hudson in the face and...

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gambling executive John Callahan's bullet-riddled body was discovered in the trunk of his Cadillac at Miami's airport.

John J. Connolly was hundreds of miles away in 1982 when gambling executive John Callahan's bullet-riddled body was discovered in the trunk of his Cadillac at Miami's airport.The admitted shooter says he never met Connolly, the disgraced ex-FBI man at the heart of the agency's sordid dealings with Boston's Winter Hill Gang.Yet Connolly will stand trial on murder and conspiracy charges this month as if he had pulled the trigger himself, because prosecutors say he secretly gave information that was crucial in setting up the hit. Jury selection is to begin Monday in a trial that figures to rehash some of the ugliest episodes in the Boston FBI's handling of the gang, once led by James "Whitey" Bulger and convicted killer Stephen "The Rifleman" Flemmi.For years, both were top FBI informants on...

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Tribute to a Hells Angels leader, Mark “Papa” Guardado

tribute to a Hells Angels leader, Mark “Papa” Guardado, has been created, mere hours after his death in San Francisco. As a tribute to the Hells Angels leader who was shot, mourners created a make-shift urban al...

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Edgar Vallejo Guarin accused by the U.S. authorities of heading one of the most violent drug trafficking networks in South America has been arrested

Edgar Vallejo-Guarin was arrested at one of the Spanish capital's leading luxury hotels after an operation involving the US Drug Enforcement Agency - DEA - and Spain's National Police and paramilitary Civil Guard. He is accused of heading one of Colombia's biggest and most violent cocaine cartels and alleged to have moved many millions of pounds worth of the drug into the US and to Britain and the rest of western Europe through Spain. Vallejo-Guarin, who will be 48 later this month, has been wanted by a US Federal Court in Florida since 2001 on multiple drug trafficking charges. There was a reward of five million dollars for his capture. His...

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