Black Market in Dogs Big Business in Germany

Lured by lower prices for pedigree puppies, German dog lovers are turning to Eastern Europe to find their Fido. But often the cut-price pooches come with diseases and behavioral problems, and sometimes die after just a few days. Animal welfare organizations are trying to halt the trade. Anyone taking up that offer, though, will not only be the proud owner of a new pooch, but also a victim of the Eastern European puppy mafia. In Poland, Hungary, Romania and Ukraine, dogs are being produced for the Western European market on a grand scale -- and in pitiful conditions. Fed on trash and crammed into dirty kennels, the bitches must give birth twice a year until they become infertile.

The puppies are taken to market far too early and are often only four weeks old when they leave their mothers. Small wonder, then, that they have weak immune systems and sometimes suffer from behavioral disorders. "The puppy trade has become a business worth millions," says Birgitt Thiesmann of the international animal charity Four Paws, which has nine offices in Europe. For years, animal welfare activists have been watching the black market for imported dogs grow. The Internet has accelerated the trade. There, the dogs are presented as if they were coming from responsible dog breeders.

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Child prostitution marks new low for mafia

The mafia has traditionally maintained respect for women and children, but allegations the Gambino crime family was involved in underage prostitution may mean the last vestiges of mob reverence are gone, authorities said. To some observers, seeing a woman among the defendants in a federal indictment, unsealed Tuesday, was just as shocking as charges the syndicate was peddling teens to customers in New Jersey and three New York boroughs.

Suzanne Porcelli, 43, was the only female among 14 reputed Gambino crime family members and associates indicted on charges including racketeering, murder, sex trafficking of a minor, extortion and drug trafficking. Thirteen defendants, including Porcelli, entered not guilty pleas Tuesday, according to the U.S. attorney's office, and they are expected to appear Wednesday before a federal judge who has been appointed to the case.

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Italy police nab 'paralyzed' Mafia boss on the run

A convicted Mafia boss who got out of jail by faking paralysis and anorexia has been arrested at a restaurant after more than two months on the run, police in Sicily said Tuesday. Officers arrested Carmelo Di Stefano on Monday as he dined at a seaside village near the Sicilian city of Catania, which he had reached at the wheel of a sports car.

Police official Giovanni Signer said when officers asked him why he was not in a wheelchair, Di Stefano answered: "It's a miracle!" Di Stefano was sentenced to 30 years in prison for murder, associating with the Mafia and drug trafficking, police in Catania said in a statement.

He had been allowed to serve the sentence at his wife's home in the northern city of Bologna after being hospitalized twice for anorexia and post-traumatic paraplegia. Di Stefano, 36, escaped house arrest in September. Signer said it was now clear that the boss had faked his condition, using "his willpower" to reach the weight of 84 pounds.

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Will New Laws Help Russia Take Down the Mafia?

Russia's laws have long been weak and unspecific when it comes to combating organized crime, part of the reason that the underworld has thrived in the country in the post-communism years. But the government may finally be getting serious about cracking down on the mafia. In the wake of the embarrassing release of mobsters in September, President Dmitri Medvedev proposed harsh new legislation targeting organized-crime figures, making a rare admission that "the legal code does not have a response to the increasing social dangers of these crimes." Within weeks, the parliament approved the measures by an almost unanimous vote.

Perhaps most significantly, one of the new laws is aimed directly at the powerful heads of Russia's various mafia clans, who rarely get their own hands dirty. Under the statute, leading an underground criminal group is now punishable by life in prison. "As a rule, [the dons] don't directly participate in criminal acts, and so they go unpunished," Oleg Morozov, deputy speaker of Russia's lower house of parliament, wrote last month on his party's website. "The president's legislation gives more precise definitions of what can be called a criminal conspiracy and a criminal organization."

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Italian Organized Crime Group Allegedly Sinks Toxic Waste Ship: The Prequel

In January 2009, Johan Hari filed an opinion report for the Independent newspaper in the UK outlining dumping of toxic products off Somalia. Again the mafia was implicated. He says, in 1991, the government of Somalia collapsed. Its nine million people have been teetering on starvation ever since – and the ugliest forces in the Western world have seen this as a great opportunity to steal the country's food supply and dump our nuclear waste in their seas.

As soon as the government was gone, mysterious European ships started appearing off the coast of Somalia, dumping vast barrels into the ocean. The coastal population began to sicken. At first they suffered strange rashes, nausea and malformed babies. Then, after the 2005 tsunami, hundreds of the dumped and leaking barrels washed up on shore. People began to suffer from radiation sickness, and more than 300 died.

Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, the UN envoy to Somalia, stated: "Somebody is dumping nuclear material here. There is also lead, and heavy metals such as cadmium and mercury – you name it." Much of it can be traced back to European hospitals and factories, who seem to be passing it on to the Italian mafia to "dispose" of cheaply. When I asked Mr Ould-Abdallah what European governments were doing about it, he said with a sigh: "Nothing. There has been no clean-up, no compensation, and no prevention."

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