Transnational organized crime

An fugitive wanted in connection with his alleged links to Italy's Camorra organized crime syndicate has been apprehended in northern Greece on a European arrest warrant, the Athens-Macedonian News Agency reported on Friday.

Speaking in April last year, Britain's ambassador to Albania, Duncan Norman, said "60 to 70 per cent" of 726 Albanian inmates at that time in Britain were from these three northern counties.

Deeply impoverished, the region has become a rich recruitment ground for the Albanian crime gangs that now dominate the cocaine market in Britain.

The new report published on Monday in Vienna by the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime identifies places in Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia where organised crime is flourishing.

These gangs, also known as "Mafia Shqiptare", have slowly take over the market in this country "after steadily moving into the country after the fall of communism in Albania in 1990."

Italian police on Tuesday arrested new Mafia boss Settimino Mineo and dozens of other suspects in a major swoop against a resurgent Cosa Nostra.

 Italian police Tuesday captured a Mafia boss who had been on the country's list of most dangerous fugitives, after discovering his luxury hide-out in the Naples hinterland, according to dailystar.com.lb

The Italian, Angelo Filippini, sought by the Milan authorities for 22 years, was arrested in Morocco. When captured, the 72-year-old Filippini possessed a Bulgarian passport with a fake name. But he was recognized because of the cut middle finger on his left hand.

Pope Francis fired the latest salvo in his condemnation of the Italian mafia on Wednesday, telling gangsters that they "carry death in their souls" and cannot claim to be Catholics.

Speaking at his weekly general audience in St Peter's Square, the Pope excoriated mafia criminals in a discourse about "fake Christians" who, he said, claim to be pious but in fact "live a corrupt life".

Some 200 members of one of Italy’s most infamous mafia groups were arrested in an operation in Italy and Germany, police said on Jan. 9.

Istanbul police have detained 16 suspects in a broadened operation against a mafia organization accused of forcing people into prostitution, seizing the assets of the suspected gang members.