What do you get when a deconstructionist joins the mafia ?

An offer you can't understand.

Monday, April 30, 2007

Google Mania - Raso-Albanese and Calabrian Land swindles

Calabrian Morgeti
The doctor Liliana FrascĂ , in charge of the CGIL for the comprensorio of Reggio Calabria, has said: “by now from years to Reggio Calabria we make a war with the companies of pulizie or the companies that manage the caterings in the jails or other centers for the respect of the laws and contracts. It has become a wearying war and we do not succeed to make to respect the laws neanche from the contracting out agencies, than a lot often they are Ministries, for which we find ourselves in the event of forehead to greatest difficulties of some companies”.
Also the world of agriculture perceives the symptoms of one aggression from part of the gangs. The presence of mafia elements has been marked in many agricultural and food- markets. Also the land property are object of particular attention from part of the gangs that in existence put one oculata strategy of “mafia expropriation” of some lands. Meant there are the case of the baroness Teresa Cordopatri who has had to fight in order to prevent that to the lands of property of its family from many centuries finissero in the hands of the Mammoliti and the case of mrs. Maria Giuseppina Cordopatri whose lands have been object of the appetites of the Raso-Albanese.
The provincial Federation of Reggio Calabria of the National Confederation of Small Farmers has sended a famous one to the Commission signaling that in the flat one of Tauro Joy and the Locride 'ndrangheta the “protection” has tax to the agriculturists on the cultivations, the harvest and the business patrimony generally. They are often taken place, to the aim to impose the “protection” to riottosi, fires, cuts of the plants, thefts, damagings, ruberie of varied type in the coloniche houses and the campaigns. The regional director of the Confagricoltura, dottor Lacquaniti, has remembered that the insurance agencies do not assure more the reserviors of the oil, the silos and often neanche he blots some to them agricultural. The cultivators come tax to you also in the period of collection of the commodities.
The presence of the mafia families comes perceived talora in the production and the confection of the olive oil. The mafia families have found the way to make to perceive their presence also in the field of the swindles in damage of the AIMA and the European Community.

Thursday, April 26, 2007

La Cosa Nostra in Guelph

During the 1963 US Senate hearings into the American mafia, Joe Valachi named Guelph residents Charles and Frank Cipolla as two made-men of Buffalo's La Cosa Nostra. Charles and Frank were sons of Matteo Cipolla and Rosa Monreale. Wed in Hamilton on January 22 1910, their marriage record lists Matteo’s parents as Calagero Cipolla and Antonia Curta. April 23 1910 Ellis Island records show a Calagero Cipolla, husband of Antonia Curto, traveling from Racalmuto, Sicily to his son Matteo’s home at 280 Terrace St., Buffalo. By the 1911 census, Matteo and Rose lived in Hamilton. Their three sons, Antonio, Charles and Frank all played significant roles in Sicilian mob activities in Ontario. Antonio killed himself blowing a house up in an insurance fraud scheme in 1934 in Port Colborne, although he is buried in Guelph.
In 1969, Charles would die in the Kingston Pen of a brain hemorrhage while serving time for a 1963 sentence for large scale heroin trafficking. Three of Matteo’s children, Charles, Mary and Connie would marry Guelph Ferraros descended from San Giorgiosi.

Saturday, April 21, 2007

Silvestro/Durso

Click on Photo to Enlarge
copyright Archives of Ontario

The Marriage record of Giovanni (John Durso) and Maria Teresa Grazia Silvestro, sister of Rocco Perri allies, Tony and Frank Silvestro, who in turn were cousins of Guelph's Michaelangelo Silvestro - the father of 1970's Guelph mob boss Frank Silvestro.

Maria Silvestro was born in San Giorgio Morgeto, Tony and Frank were born there, Michaelangelo was born there, although his own son Frank was born in Guelph.

An Ellis Island ship manifests notes that Maria and her 17 year old brother and another sister came to Canada with their mother Pasqualina Capra in 1914. Their father, also named Frank was dead, because Pasqualina is listed as being a widow.
They four were on their way to Maria's brother Angelo's home in Sault Saint Marie, which is where Durso marrried Maria the following year.

John Durso's car was pulled from the Welland canal in 1944, the day before his daughter was to be married. His body was never found.

Monday, April 16, 2007

Open Letter to Frank Valeriote (REVISED)

As the new Liberal Party federal candidate for Guelph, and as a descendent of Michaelangelo Valeriote, the first resident of San Giorgio Morgeto to establish himself in Guelph, I am calling on you to continue your family's legendary relationship with the Morgeti. As you know better than I, it was your ancient ancestor, the Roman Senator Valerius, who led the Morgeti out of the ruins of their Grecian captivity in Sicily and returned them to their homeland in Calabria.
The only Valeriote I've met is Puss and I liked him.

(REVISION) In talking to one of your liberal opponents, John Williams who appears to think highly of you, and upon learning that you left your lucrative criminal law practice fifteen years ago because you couldn't take having to tell anymore lies, I'm beginning to develop the feeling that if you have a sense of calling, you might well be the one to lead the Morgeti in Guelph and Ontario and throughout Canada out of the 'ndrangheta, and to help redeem alot of Italian-Canadians trapped in organized crime. Needless to say I have a proposal on how you might do that.

I also think you can redeem the Liberal party in the process. I'm not one of those who think the Liberals are the only party with links to organized crime, the Conservatives have all kinds of right wing gangsters as friends, just like Giuliano Andreotti did, whose Christian Democrats ruled Italy for decades with policies that were only a few degrees closer to the centre than Mussolini's positions, and whose links to crime groups were extensive.

Right wing Eastern European mafiyas are conservative. And of course labour racketeering gangsters have poisoned the NDP well more than once.

You can ignore me of course, I'm just one vote, but here's my suggestion on how to become the third pillar of the Valeriote legend, it's a proposal which you may have seen since it is the last appendix in my book.

CRIME FAMILY LAW

Under contemporary rights and freedoms the police must adhere to strict 'rules of evidence', and rightly so, which means that the police are incapable of stopping gangster capitalists. Equally, Royal Commissions which are created to investigate narrowly defined aspects of criminal activity like the construction industry et al, may shed light into a field of crime but they do little else than cause the darkness to retreat elsewhere, while creating problems for ongoing police investigations. I tend to agree with St. Paul that, "There is no salvation in law." The law cannot save society from the sins of its members, least of all from gangsters. All the law can do is to define right and wrong and create penalties for doing wrong.

A third way is required, one that makes use of generations of police work to support evidential trails that will allow communities to redeem families from criminal societies. My book traces the history of organized crime in Guelph via specific clans because I want to make the case that we need to create a legal definition of a Criminal Family. The designation would enable us to use the more pro-active tools of Family and Civil law, and combine them with the power of the Criminal Court. Public accessibility to court-administered Crime Family databases could be secured in Public and University Libraries, Archives and Museums and be available in hard copy and online. That way consumers would have the ability to know where there money is going to, and citizens could understand the way their communities have been run.

A Criminal Family designation would combine generations of investigations and convictions with the sweeping power of Royal Commissions to shed light on crime activities in not just Guelph or Canada, but in a system that could extend to Italy itself.

Italy has been begging for action from Canada lawmakers, because gangsters so easily hijack our rights and freedoms, and have turned us into a conduit for the global drug trade. We need a way out of the 'revolutionary/gangster' revenge cycle in which drugs are sold to buy guns to fight battles so that political issues can be addressed in places where democracy has little traction, like Afghanistan. Those vendetta cycles not only lead to the corruption of the global democracy movement but they ensure the vitality of gangster capitalism.

A Crime Family designation would allow communities to seize the assets of such families and put the seized properties and monies into two trusts. One trust would be designed to ensure the survival of future generations of the families as they attempt to redeem themselves from their pasts. The other trust would be used to restore the integrity of local economies while preventing opportunities for other criminal groups to step into vacuums left by dismantled crime families. Some of that second Trust's money must also go into drug rehab programs, both for users, and for the farmers in various parts of the world who make their hard-scrabble livings growing coca for cocaine, opium for heroin/morphine, marijuana etc. If you go to www.Libera.it, you can see some of the extraordinary things they are doing in Italy in this regard. (For any non-Italian speakers who want to go there click on the English flag and you will get the site in translation.)

Appeals processes would be available to ensure that innocent households of any given family can defend their innocence. A moratorium on prosecution, based on the confessions of any elder of any given Crime Family would also be made available. It is not condemnation but redemption we're after here, grace not law. Of course there are always the unrepentant who will not only choose to always live by the sword but to die by it, and for them we cannot pretend that grace or law will have much effect.

In recent years Italy has been redeeming itself from its criminal societies by the use of peniti - penitents who, for one reason or another, confess to the various crimes of their clans. Those confessions tend to be made on the basis of personal survival, but just as often, there is an undercurrent of genuine confession involved, rooted as it so often is in the horrific consequences of vendetta, the shedding of the blood of the innocent and guilty alike, often family members.

A Criminal Family designation is not designed to crush crime families; it is designed to free them, not without consequences, but responsibly, whenever possible.

So that's my challenge, but I only have one vote. So you don't have much to lose.

Saturday, April 14, 2007

Hands Over the City

In 1963 Francesco Rosi, an Italian film maker, released Hands Over the City, starring Rod Steiger speaking Italian. It's the story of municipal corruption in the the land development industry in Naples. In 1992, Rosi released Neapolitan Diary, a documentary about going back to Naples and confronting the issues of Camorra control of that city.
These movies make explicit the role between politics and corruption.
The 1992 film was shot just weeks after two Italian judges, Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borselino were murdered by mafioso in Palermo Sicily. The tone of the Diary is angry and defiant: a kind of we're mad as hell and we're not going to take it anymore. It is also part travelogue from the heights of Mount Vesuvius through old Naples, and among the hideous modern Camorra-built suburbs.
It is a superb primer for anyone who wants to understand just how money-laundering, construction, land development and mobs work (for themselves) and don't work (for everyone else.)
Both films and some other features were released on the Criterion Collection as DVD's, get them from your library, get them from your favourite movie rental spot, but get them.

Friday, April 13, 2007

More Fun with Google Translation search "Morgeto 'ndrangheta"

Raid anti `ndrangheta
Reggio Calabria, 12 estorsori in throttles

of Mario Bonino
REGGIO CALABRIA
Twelve arrests, tens of searchs, seizure of thought material “interesting”. Practically it has been sgominato the mafia clan that, second the enquirers, reigned indisturbato from decades. The main result of an immense operation is this the antiMafia completed yesterday from the police, and that it has had like objective the gang Facchineri di Cittanova (Reggio Calabria). The accusations for the persons ended in jail, deductions affiliated to the clan, go from the crimes of mafia association to the racketeering, to the drug traffic. The raid, to which they have taken part beyond centocinquanta policemen of the police headquarters of Reggio Calabria, has made followed the emission of guard provisions to secure in jail emitted from the Jeep Alberto Cisterna, upon request of the district power of attorney the antiMafia. Between it arrests it to you figure also various young people members of the Facchineri family, Giuseppe, of 29 years, Salvatore Facchineri (to he the provision has been notified in jail) of 25 years. They have been locked up in prison also Franco Carere of 22 years, Small Andrea of 24,(PICCOLO TRANSLATES AS SMALL) Luigi Fazari of 23, Girolamo Fazari of 25, Gaetano ZangrĂ  of 23, Donated Avati of 31, Giuseppe 30 Muscatello of and Domenico Naples of 40 years. It is escaped once again to the capture instead Luigi Facchineri, 32 years, chased from sends you of capture from 11 years, “record” that has made it to insert in the directory of the 30 more dangerous fugitives in Italy. Still searched also Andrea Sorbara, 22 years, of Saint George Morgeto (Rc). According to how much emerged from surveyings, one of the “specialties” of the gang was the racketeering to traders put into effect with a system that succeeded terrorizzare the victims. True and macabro a just rituale one. Before the demand for the money, in fact, it came placed the head stumped of a dog dinanzi to the room of the trader. Such violence to succeed to induce to Hush the all the victims. No denunciation, no story to the enquirers. “Nobody of the victims - the quaestor of Reggio Calabria Franco Malvano has said in the course of a press conference - has never introduced denunciation for the endured intimidazioni, to testimony of the climate of established terror”. Beyond to the racketeerings, the enquirers have contested to inquire also the commerce to you of crews, the cultivation of Indiana hemp, thefts and holdups. The Facchineri gang moreover would have been protagonist, in last the twenty years, to Cittanova, of one of cruenti faide of the mafia history. A war of being able, for the predominion on the comprensorio of the common one of Saint George Morgeto, against the adverse faction of the Shave-Albanian-Gullace, RASO-TRANSLATES AS SHAVE AS IN RAZOR) marked from tens of dead men kills to you, ambushes and woundings in true and just a climate from Make. Appreciation for the operation of the police has been expressed to the quaestor Franco Malvano from the president of the Commission the Antimafia Ottaviano Of the Turk.

Wednesday, April 11, 2007

Slightly off Topic ? Wayne Greavette

I went to the Wellington Water Watchers event last night, to help organize a fight against the extraction of billions of litres of irreplaceable water from the local acquifer in rural Puslinch. Every time I think about spring water in Puslinch I think about the 1996 murder of Wayne Greavette.

I'm not saying the stories are related, or that the Morgeti are involved, or that Nestle was involved (It was five years before they bought the Arberfoyle Springs) but both stories are circumstantially linked to the control of a multi-billion dollar water resource.

I urge you to go to the unsolved murder site linked above and think for yourself.
It may have nothing to do with water, but here's a bit of the site contents.

...Wayne and his wife started a small business of their own, in the same field, (the packaging machinery equipment industry ed.) which they ran out of their home in the rural Acton area until June 1996. In June 1996 they moved to a farm, located in Moffat (Puslinch Township), Ontario, just a half hour away from their previous home. From there, they continued to run their business, as well as developing a spring site located next to their property, until the time of Wayne's death in December 1996.

What is known about the murder:

A package addressed to Wayne was delivered to his home via Canada Post. When he opened the package, he was killed by the flashlight bomb contained inside. The package came with a letter, the details of which follow:

The letter was typed with a Smith-Corona typewriter using a daisy wheel font model 10/12 #59543. The daisy wheel used in this typewriter left a distinct anomaly in the letter, a slash after each period.

This anomaly is uncommon, and if you can remember seeing it in any of your correspondence at work or at home, you should contact the police. Please, check out the anomaly carefully.

It was clearly a hit of some kind, for some reason, and he did have enemies, but people have known for a long time how precious water was becoming to the world.

It just makes me think.

Monday, April 9, 2007

Speaking of Legends and Language

This site goes into some detail about linguistic origins and the interconnectedness of various Italian languages.
These are some of the selections that mention the ancient Morgeti to which my title alludes.

I would indeed distinguish between a Western Italic branch, which gave the Latins the Siculi and the Ausones/Opici, and this "Liguro-Sicanian" which I think included in the South the branch of the Oenotri (Morgeti, Sicani, Choni).

Peoples
The Sicani are reported by ancient authors to have been the first inhabitants of Sicily, at least among the historical ethnic groups. Thucydides and Diodorus say that the Sicani came from Iberia. Dionysus, quoting Hellanicus, says the Elymi (but likely he meant Sicani, since Elymi and Sicani merged later) were the first wave of Italian people to settle in Sicily. The second wave was that of the Siculi, which were Ausones escaping from the Iapygi. The same Dionysus says that among the Oenotri there were Siculi (possibly Sicani) and Morgeti.


Since King Morgezio's father was Enotrio, the Oenotri would refer to him, and the land that Morgezio's father conquered from the Ashkenazi, became known as Ausone during the father's reign, and then known as Morgezia in the son's reign. When the Iapygi invaded, the Siculi/Morgeti would have taken refuge near the site of the later Greek city of Morgantia, near Mount Etna in Sicily.

Sunday, April 8, 2007

The Joys of Google Translation

This is what reading Italian is like for a non Italian speaker/reader
it's from a 2005 article on the arrest of Rocco Facchineri

Rocco Facchineri

REGGIO CALABRIA - Rocco Facchineri, 47 years, searched from 1989 and inserted in the list of the 500 more dangerous fugitives of Italy, have been arrested from the Police officers yesterday evening to Saint George Morgeto, in the reggino: it was participating to a banquet for the communion of the son of a its faithful, Francisco Corradino.

Facchineri carried with himself a stick of chestnut tree with one head of Aquila inlaid on the top, symbol of the commando. To the soldiers it has said: “You have been good. Just E' that pays my debit with the justice”.

Facchineri, thought “capobastone” of an operating clan to Cittanova, was fugitive in 1989 during a permission prize while she was in jail for the seizure of the manufacturer perugino Vittorio Garinei, happened in May 1983 to City of Castle. Against of he there is an execution order pain of 12 years and 4 months of confinement emitted from the Attorney General's Office of Perugia.

“The arrest - the provincial commander of the police officers of Reggio Calabria has explained, Antonio Fiano - has been the fruit of certosino a job of control of the territory”. According to the investigators, the fugitive had a prominent role in the within of the gang and maintained contacts with relatives and affiliates to you operating in Umbria and Goes them of Aosta.

In the period of the furtiveness, Facchineri has been married in church and has had four regularly recognized sons. The wedding was celebrated in the 1992 in one church of Saint George Morgeto. The priest asserted not to know that the spouse was searched.

In the February 2003 Facchineri was successful to escape to a raid of the police officers in Aspromonte. Put in guard barking of a dog, the man had thrown itself in a dirupo making to lose the own traces during one snow storm. In I brood, a hut of wood with the sheet roof hidden between the rovi, came found again of all: a pump gun Maverick 12 magnum, one scanner radio syntonized on the frequency of the police enforcements, giubboto a antibullet, but also spaghetti, schedine of the Superenalotto, specialized witnesses of criminal proceedings and legal reviews.

“To have captured Facchineri while he participated to a baptism - the vice president of the Commission has commented parliamentarian the antiMafia, Angela Naples - he demonstrates as the men of 'ndrangheta not only live the furtiveness in it accustom them territory of belongings, but also with the certainty of impunity”. “The fact that the furtiveness of Facchineri is begun during a permission prize - has added - the necessity evidences see again the norm in matter”.

(22 August 2005)

Friday, April 6, 2007

CSIS on Transnational Crime

"UN estimates place the cost of this transnational criminal activity in developed states at two per cent of annual gross national product (GNP). The potential transnational crime-related losses for Canada in 1995 would have been about $14.8 billion, based on a GNP of $742 billion. Figures like this led the 1998 G8 summit in the UK to label transnational criminal activity one of the three major challenges facing the world today."
The Canadian Security Intelligence Service has this to say about transnational crime.

Tuesday, April 3, 2007

RCMP Money laundering Prevention Guide

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police have a book too.

Money Laundering - A Preventive Guide

A Preventive Guide for Small Business & Currency Exchanges in Canada


FINTRAC
The Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada

One of the RCMP's roles within Canada's Initiative to Combat Money Laundering is to inform the public. To most businesses, money laundering is something that happens somewhere else, involving only criminals. The truth is, it can happen anywhere, anytime, and you may not even be aware that you have been involved.

Money laundering is the process whereby criminals conceal illicit funds by converting them into seemingly legitimate income. While the term refers to the monetary proceeds of all criminal activity it is most often associated with the financial activities of drug traffickers who seek to launder large amounts of cash generated from the sale of narcotics.

The RCMP Proceeds of Crime (POC) program's mandate is to identify, assess, restrain and forfeit illicit and/or unreported wealth accumulated through criminal activities. Most of the POC sections work under an integrated model. These Integrated Proceeds of Crime (IPOC) Units bring together the skills, knowledge, and abilities of a diverse group of experts, including RCMP, provincial and municipal police investigators, lawyers from the Department of Justice, forensic accountants, representatives from Canada Revenue Agency, and customs officers from the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA).

It is important for businesses of every kind to be informed about how they can be used to launder money, and how they can help to make it more difficult for criminals to prosper. We recommend you review this booklet to ensure that you are aware of the problem.

Index

* Foreword
* Why criminals want to "launder" money?
* Money Laundering Methods
* What is "wilful blindness"
* Preventive strategies for small and medium businesses
* Record keeping requirements for small and medium businesses
* Impact of money laundering on society
* If you suspect money laundering
* What we need from you
* Partners in identifying the proceeds of crime
* RCMP Proceeds of Crime Units