Dozens of mafia suspects held in international sting

Yahoo – AFP, Danny KEMP, December 5, 2018

Italian media said key organised crime family members were targeted in the
raids, such as this one in Cologne (AFP Photo/Christoph Reichwein)

The Hague (AFP) - Police arrested dozens of suspected mobsters in Europe and South America on Wednesday in a huge international swoop targeting Italy's notorious 'Ndrangheta mafia clan, officials said.

Nearly 90 people including high-ranking members of the powerful organised crime syndicate accused of drug trafficking and money laundering were arrested in coordinated raids in six countries, EU justice agency Eurojust said.

The "unprecedented" crackdown on the group based in Calabria, southern Italy, came just a day after Italian police arrested the new boss of the separate Sicilian mafia.

Hundreds of police took part in Wednesday's operation, seizing four tonnes of cocaine, 120 kilos of ecstasy and two million euros (dollars) in cash across Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg and Suriname.

"Today, we send a clear message to organised crime groups across Europe," Filippo Spiezia, vice president of the EU's judicial agency Eurojust, told reporters in The Hague.

"They are not the only ones able to operate across borders; so are Europe's judiciary and law enforcement communities."

He said the "unprecedented and extraordinary result", the fruit of a two-year operation, targeted "dangerous members of the 'Ndrangheta family deeply involved in drug trafficking and money laundering".

Italian restaurants

The 'Ndrangheta -- which derives its meaning from the Greek word for heroism -- is made up of numerous village and family-based clans in Calabria, the rural, mountainous and under-developed "toe" of Italy's boot.

Before Wednesday's Europe-wide raid, Italian police arrested the new boss 

of the Sicilian Mafia, Settimino Mineo (AFP Photo/Alessandro FUCARINI)

Despite intense police attention and frequent arrests, the organisation has continued to extend its reach.

It has surpassed Sicily's Cosa Nostra and the Naples-based Camorra in influence thanks to control of the cocaine trade and is the sole mafia organisation to operate on all continents, according to anti-mafia prosecutors.

Officials hailed Wednesday's operation -- dubbed "Operation Pollina" -- as a serious blow to the group.

In total 41 people were arrested in Italy, 21 in Germany, 14 in Belgium, five in the Netherlands and two in Luxembourg, with operations still underway, Eurojust said.

Italian police said the sweep targeted the 'Ndrangheta and its "projections across South America".

Italian anti-mafia prosecutor Federico Cafiero De Raho said the operations would affect the 'Ndrangheta's drug trafficking operations around the world, including Colombia, Ecuador and Brazil.

But he warned that it was "just a first step", saying the arrests were "nothing for the 'Ndrangheta, there are thousands of people who should be arrested and billions that should be seized".

In Germany, Wednesday's operation focused on restaurants, offices and apartments, mainly in the states of North Rhine-Westphalia and Bavaria region.

Dutch prosecutors said the investigation began after they noticed money laundering at two Italian restaurants in the southern Netherlands that showed criminal links with Germany and Calabria, home of the 'Ndrangheta.

Italian media said key organised crime family members were targeted in the

raids, such as this one in Cologne (AFP Photo/Christoph Reichwein)

Using an often family-based network spread out around Europe, drugs would come into the Dutch port of Rotterdam and the Belgian port of Antwerp before being moved around the continent.

Prosecutor Fred Westerbeke said they had also probed ice cream parlours, adding that together with restaurants "the suspicion is that the mafia organisation is laundering money through these establishments and they are used as a cover for their criminal organisations".

He also confirmed that there had been raids in Suriname, a small South American country that was once a Dutch colony.

Dutch NOS television said the 'Ndrangheta were mainly active in the Netherlands in drug smuggling through the country's huge flower export market.

'Decisive hit'

The Belgian operations were concentrated on the Limburg area, home to many people of Italian descent who moved there after World War II to work in coal mines, Belgian prosecutors said.

The European police agency Europol said it was a "decisive hit against one of the most powerful Italian criminal networks in the world".

European Parliament President Antonio Tajani, who is Italian, sent "congratulations" to the police forces involved, adding: "Europe fights 'Ndrangheta criminal groups".

On Tuesday, Italian police arrested new Cosa Nostra boss Settimino Mineo and dozens of other suspects in Sicily in a major swoop.

Jeweller Mineo, 80, was detained with at least 45 others just before he was due to be appointed official heir to notorious mafia boss Toto Riina, who died in prison last year.

Italian football star Vincenzo Iaquinta to be tried for mafia links

An Italian judge has ordered more than 140 people to stand trial over alleged ties to 'Ndrangheta mafia. The officials suspect ex-Juventus striker and national team member Vincenzo Iaquinta of intending to aid the clan.

Deutsche Welle, 22 December 2015

Iaquinta was indicted for illegal possession of firearms, aggravated by intention to help the Calabrian 'Ndrangheta organization, his lawyer Carlo Taormina said on Monday.

The footballer's father, businessman Giuseppe Iaquinta, faces a more serious charge of mafia association, according to Taormina.

The 36-year old Iaquinta played for several Italian clubs, including the famous Juventus, and was part of Italy's national team which won the World Cup in 2006.

Hoy cumple 36 años el futbolista italiano Vincenzo Iaquinta pic.twitter.com/qL2zw37eUN

— Roy N'Coma (@RodrigoCornell) November 22, 2015

The Italian court ordered the Calabrian-born athlete and more than 140 other people to stand trial for their aiding or joining 'Ndrangheta, Italy's most powerful organized crime network.

A number of the suspects allegedly aided 'Ndrangheta to in their bid to infiltrate the country's north, where the influence of the mafia is traditionally weaker.

The trial is set to start in March 2016.

The Calabrian clan is rumored to control most of Europe's cocaine trade. Their name - 'Ndrangheta - comes from the Greek word for courage or loyalty, and prospective members are required to take an elaborate oath in order to join the organization.

Hundreds arrested in global crackdown on wildlife contraband

Yahoo – AFP, Jan Hennop, 18 June 2015

Workers put ivory items on a sliding belt before being destroyed in Beijing

on May 29, 2015 (AFP Photo/Fred Dufour)

The Hague (AFP) - A global crackdown on wildlife trafficking has netted "huge" amounts of whale bones, rhino horn, ivory and other contraband, leading to hundreds of arrests, European and Asian authorities announced Thursday.

Operation Cobra III saw police in 62 countries swoop on suspected wildlife smugglers between mid-March and May, European police agency Europol said in a statement.

The operation, which was "the biggest ever coordinated international law enforcement operation targeting the illegal trade in endangered species" yielded "huge amounts of wildlife contraband," said Europol, which is based in The Hague.

Carved ivory is shown to the media

 before being destroyed in Beijing on 

May 29, 2015 (AFP Photo/Fred Dufour)

The Association of Southeastern Asian Nations' Wildlife Enforcement Network (ASEAN-WEN), which helped organise the operation, reported "over 600 seizures of assorted wildlife contraband" and at least 300 arrests.

The suspects included eight alleged smuggling kingpins, including a Chinese national involved in Namibia's biggest rhino horn smuggling case and a notorious elephant poacher in India, ASEAN-WEN said.

In Europe alone, police recovered 11,439 dead and live specimens, including 20 kilos (44 pounds) of live leeches in Bulgaria and 10,000 dead seahorses and 400 tortoises in Britain, Europol said.

Seahorses in particular are prized as aquarium animals, ornaments or used in traditional medicine.

Around 20 million seahorses are estimated to be traded every year for traditional Chinese medicine, according to Endangered Species International.

In Spain, police seized 90 kilos of coral and animal horns and heads and a further 25 kilogrammes of coral were netted in Bulgaria.

In India, nearly 11,000 kilos of suspected tigers' bones were found.

Chinese and German police meanwhile confiscated around 800 cactus plants, while 50 kilogrammes of unworked ivory were found in France and 16 whale ribs were discovered in the Netherlands.

Eight suspected kingpins were arrested

 in the operation, including a Chinese 

national involved in Namibia's biggest

 rhino horn smuggling case (AFP

Photo/Tony Karumba)

Massive ivory haul

In Thailand, police in April netted more than four tonnes of ivory hidden in containers originating in the Democratic Republic of Congo and destined for Laos.

Thai police again seized more than three tonnes of ivory a week later in a second haul, this time from Kenya and again destined for Laos.

The 511 pieces of ivory was found in a container "marked as tea leaves transported from Mombasa, Kenya," Thai customs officials said.

The shipping of ivory has been banned since 1989 under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) and the tusks are worth millions of dollars (euros) on the black market.

Elephants and rhinos are mainly poached in Africa and India and their tusks and horn sent to South East Asia.

While tusks are used in a "long tradition of ivory carving", powdered rhino horn is used in traditional Asian medicine.

"Sales generate significant profits for the organised crime groups involved," Europol said.

"Investigations continue in many countries," it added.

Thai customs officers carry confiscated elephant tusks during a press conference at

the Customs Bureau in Bangkok on April 27, 2015 (AFP Photo/Pornchai Kittiwongsakul)

Europol, which supported the operation, said COBRA III was organised by ASEAN-WEN and the Lusaka Agreement Task Force, consisting of seven African countries.

"The trafficking of endangered species remains a problem in the EU and beyond," Europol's director Rob Wainwright said.

"Operation COBRA III once again shows the true global dimension of these crimes," he added.

"We will continue our efforts to fight these cruel crimes, to ensure a safe environment for endangered species in Europe and all over the world."

More than two million migratory birds killed in Cyprus

Yahoo – AFP, 9 Mar 2015

More than two million migratory birds were killed in Cyprus last autumn to feed 

an illicit taste for the delicacy on the Mediterranean island, a conservationist 

group said Monday (AFP Photo/Francois Nascimbeni)

Nicosia (AFP) - More than two million migratory birds were killed in Cyprus last autumn to feed an illicit taste for the delicacy on the Mediterranean island, a conservationist group said Monday.

The survey by Birdlife Cyprus was carried out in the key season between September and October and estimates the number of birds indiscriminately trapped in nets or with limesticks.

The group said its surveillance showed "a dramatic situation of this illegal activity sadly taking place," with the number of mist nets used almost doubling in 2014 from the year before.

It found some 16 kilometres (10 miles) of net supports active during autumn and more than 6,000 limesticks were reported from enforcement agencies and other non-governmental organisations.

Limesticks are twigs covered in a sticky substance that instantly trap birds that alight onto them, leaving them to dangle helplessly.

"With these trapping levels for autumn 2014, BirdLife Cyprus estimated that over two million birds could have been killed across the whole of Cyprus," said Birdlife, the most since it began monitoring the activity 13 years ago.

Such methods are used to catch blackcaps and song thrushes, much sought after delicacies that fetch up to 80 euros ($86) for a dozen at Cypriot restaurants.

The Game and Fauna Service, in charge of the fight against poaching in Cyprus, says the illegal trade is worth about 15 million euros a year.

Birdlife said the figures showed illegal trappings were now "out of control" and that more needed to be done by the authorities in Cyprus, including the British military at bases on the island.

'Out of control'

A clampdown on restaurants was needed to prevent Cyprus revisiting the 1990s when up to 10 million birds were estimated to have been killed.

An estimated 60 species are listed as threatened or in need of protection 

are snared in illegal Cypriot traps (AFP Photo/Menahem Kahana)

Autumn is the peak season for bird trapping with an estimated 3,000-4,000 poachers involved. The numbers for spring are lower because the birds are less plump.

Birdlife Cyprus chief Clairie Papazoglou said poaching was a "serious, persistent and growing problem" in "what has been the worst year with the highest trapping levels since the start of the monitoring programme in 2002".

Tim Stowe of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds called for zero-tolerance by the British military.

"The report highlights the illegal trapping of songbirds on the British military base has escalated and we are urging the Ministry of Defence... to resolve it before this autumn's migration," said Stowe.

A huge crackdown on trappers and restaurants was enforced before Cyprus joined the European Union in 2004, but now conservationists say the government lacks the political will to eradicate the trade.

Birdlife has also called for tougher sentencing available to the courts to be enforced while pinpointing a need to change attitudes towards killing and eating migratory birds.

The law provides for penalties of up to three years in jail and fines as high as 17,000 euros but these are rarely imposed.

During winter, millions of birds take refuge in Cyprus from colder northern climates.

An estimated 60 species are listed as threatened or in need of protection are snared in illegal Cypriot traps.

Over 1,000 arrested in unprecedented swoop: Europol

Yahoo – AFP, Jan Hennop, 24 Sep 2014

A Bulgarian police unit participates in an anti-terror drill in the capital
Sofia on June 15, 2010 (AFP Photo/Dimitar Dilkoff)

The Hague (AFP) - Police have arrested more than 1,000 suspects and rescued at least 30 trafficked children in an unprecedented swoop on organised crime groups across Europe, Europol's chief said on Wednesday.

The continent-wide raids targeted gangs involved in people trafficking, cybercrime, narcotics and illegal gun trafficking, among others.

Carried out by some 20,000 officers between September 15-23, Operation Archimedes "was the single largest coordinated assault an organised crime in Europe," Rob Wainwright told reporters in The Hague.

"The scale of the operation is unprecedented," he added.

Police officers from all 28 European Union members, as well as Australia, Colombia, Norway, the United States, Serbia and Switzerland, carried out 250 operations in some 300 cities, ports and border crossings across Europe.

"We designed an operation specifically to hit criminal infrastructure," Wainwright said at Europol's fortress-like headquarters in The Hague.

"Multiple criminal enterprises, some of them the most serious, have been disrupted right across Europe," he said, adding that the operation targeted "the infrastructure as a whole and not just isolated cases".

Italian police chief Allesandro Pansa said that the Mediterranean and Balkans had been "particular hotspots".

In total, 1,027 arrest were made, including 250 in Spain and 200 in Bulgaria.

Police focused on the growing threat of cybercrime, with criminal networks using the Internet for cross-border crimes, including money laundering.

In one of the raids, 30 Romanian children were saved from child traffickers aiming to use the victims as sex slaves or slave labour, Wainwright said.

In total, 94 trafficking suspects were arrested, with police checking the identity of over 10,000 illegal immigrants.

Law officers seized around 600 kilos (1,320 pounds) of cocaine, 1.3 tonnes of cannabis and 200 kilos of heroin.

They also dismantled a laboratory used for making counterfeit medicine, confiscated 13 luxury cars and seized 1.5 million contraband cigarettes as well as one million euros ($1.3 million) in cash.

Police intercepted over 40 packages of cocaine sent from Colombia to Europe and several couriers carrying the drug.

Searches and arrests were made at four airports and two harbours in Colombia.

"More arrests are expected to follow," said Wainwright, adding that the operation had uncovered leads to be followed up in the "months and years" to come.

It also uncovered new routes used by criminal networks such as human traffickers and identified new criminal trends, he said.

The swoop was coordinated by Europol, whose command centre in The Hague was operating "24/7" Wainwright said.

"The operation sends a very clear message," he said.

"It clearly tells the criminal community... there will be no safe place for them to carry out their activities."

Police seize millions in huge fake Viagra swoop

Yahoo – AFP, 1 Sep 2014

A customs officer shows counterfeit Viagra pills at the Paris Roissy airport,

on February 9, 2009 (AFP Photo/Martin Bureau)

The Hague (AFP) - Police in several European countries on Monday arrested 12 people and seized millions of euros in assets in a swoop on counterfeit Viagra dealers, authorities said.

The operation against fake, prescription-only medicines, "mainly erectile dysfunction pills", involved police in Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Hungary and Britain, European justice organisation Eurojust said in a statement.

"Operations resulted in the seizure of several million pills with an estimated value well in excess of 10 million euros ($13.1 million), a large amount of cash and several vehicles, including luxury models, and the freezing of more than 7.5 million euros in bank accounts and assets," Eurojust said.

The counterfeit drugs were imported into the European Union from China and India and "often contain incorrect dosages and ingredients".

According to the European Alliance for Access to Safe Medicines, 62 percent of drugs bought on the Internet in 2011 were fake.

The Center for Medicine in the Public Interest, a US non-profit medical research group, estimates the traffic in fake medicine generated 55 billion euros globally in 2010, up 90 percent from 2005.

A study conducted by pharmaceutical giant Pfizer in 2010 showed that the European market for fake drugs was worth around 10.5 billion euros.

France crushes huge illegal ivory haul

Google – AFP, Mariette Le Roux and Celine Serrat (AFP), 6 February 2014

French Ecology Minister Philippe Martin (L) and French ecologist Nicolas Hulot pose

 with a defense as three tonnes of illegal ivory are displayed on February 6, 2014 in

front of the Eiffel tower in Paris (AFP, Bertrand Guay)

Paris — France fired the latest volley Thursday in the world's uphill battle against African elephant poaching, crushing three tonnes of illegal ivory in a ceremony at the foot of the Eiffel Tower.

The contraband, with an estimated street value of one million euros ($1.4 million), was fed into a giant crushing machine and ground into tiny fragments to be carted off and incinerated.

It was the first major crushing ceremony of ivory in Europe since a global ivory ban was imposed in 1989.

"With this destruction today... France is sending an unequivocal message to poachers, traffickers and consumers of illicit wildlife products," said French Environment Minister Philippe Martin who attended the event.

"We are resolved to continue the fight against trafficking, and to remove any temptation to recover the seized ivory" for the contraband market.

Africa's elephants are being massacred in droves in a bid to meet surging demand for ivory from the growing economies of Asia, particularly China and Thailand.

Some 22,000 African elephants were killed illegally in 2012, according to a report last year by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), which warned of "local extinctions if the present killing rates continue".

The African elephant population is presently estimated at some 500,000 individuals -- about half the 1980 total.

Environmentalists say destroying confiscated ivory is the only way of ensuring that the contraband is permanently removed from the market.

France destroys stocks of seized ivory (AFP, S. Ramis /

A. Bommenel, abm/jfs)

"There are several cases of seized ivory being 'lost' from stockpiles, ie stolen, then re-entering illegal trade," wildlife crime specialist Wendy Elliott of green group WWF told AFP by email.

French environmental group Robin des Bois, or "Robin Hood", estimates that France has seized some 17 tonnes of the commodity from smugglers.

The ban has since been partially overturned to allow limited legal sales -- a move that many conservationists claim has boosted black-market demand.

Most of France's stash has been held in museums or the storerooms of police and judicial agencies.

The destroyed stockpile consisted of 2.3 tonnes or 698 individual tusks, both unadorned and engraved, as well as 15,357 ivory ornaments including bracelets, necklaces and sculptures.

Call for EU action

Martin said his country was the first in Europe since the 1989 ban to destroy seized ivory in such a public gesture, adding he expected other nations will follow suit.

"We hope that this new approach of systematically destroying seized ivory will be extended to rhino horn and other illegal animal products," said Robin des Bois president Jacky Bonnemains.

"We call upon the rest of the European Union to do the same."

Three tonnes of illegal ivory are displayed on February 6, 2014 in front of

the Eiffel tower in Paris (AFP, Bertrand Guay)

France became the latest country to destroy confiscated ivory after China, which crushed a six-tonne pile in January, and the destruction of a similar stockpile by the United States last November.

The Philippines destroyed five tonnes of tusks in June last year, Gabon destroyed 4.8 tonnes in 2012 and Kenya set fire to a pile of similar weight in 2011. Last month, Hong Kong said it would incinerate 28 tonnes within the next two years.

The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) said such projects should only be undertaken after a full and independent audit of the stock so that none gets "lost" in the process, and finds its way back onto the market.

Environmentalists stress that illicit ivory eradication on its own will not stop the elephant massacre.

Consumers must be made aware of the destruction they were causing, said Stephane Ringuet, an expert with Traffic, a wildlife monitoring group.

"The source of the problem is in Asia, where we are seeing a disproportionate increase in demand for ivory," he told AFP.

Between 1989 and 2011, the biggest hauls of illegal ivory were in China, with more than 33,000 tonnes, according to Traffic, and 17,000 tonnes in Hong Kong.

Related Articles:

UN Security Council declares war on ivory poachers, traffickers

African and Asian states vow to crack down on illegal ivory trade

Chinese ivory smuggler gets record sentence after Kenya trial

Swiss crack case of parrot egg underwear smuggler

Google – AFP, 17 October 2013

File picture for illustration shows young parrots at Seropedica Recovery Center,

 a reserve of the Brazilian Environmental Institute near Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 

on October 17, 2008 (Austral Foto/AFP/File, Renzo Gostoli)

Geneva — Swiss customs authorities said Thursday that they had arrested a bird specialist who smuggled the eggs of protected parrots in his underwear and travelled the globe trading in rare species.

The customs service said in a statement that the man, whom it did not identify, was though to have trafficked over 150 eggs from endangered parrots that are protected by international law, as well as rare pheasant species.

The man, a Swiss citizen who was also a legal bird trader, was busted at Zurich airport in 2010 with 25 eggs hidden in his underwear as he returned from Brazil.

The customs service explained that it was only revealing details of the case now because of the secrecy surrounding the probe.

Investigators managed to establish that thanks to a solid international network of contacts, the man managed to smuggle more than 150 eggs to buyers in Indonesia, Thailand and Mexico.

The total value of the contraband eggs was 65,000 Swiss francs (54,000 euros, $71,000), the customs service said, adding that it had not been possible to establish where they came from.

Investigators said that the man also had an aviary of several hundred birds, including endangered species.

The Swiss veterinary service also seized seven rare parrots from an accomplice, with an estimated value of 8,000 Swiss francs.

The two men face a heavy fine for trafficking in endangered species.

Saudi princes lose battle to keep court documents secret

Allegations against former defence minister and his son emerge in papers obtained by Guardian

The Guardian, Owen Bowcott and Ian Black, Thursday 16 May 2013

Appeal court judges agreed to the release of documents in the dispute between
 the Saudi princes and a Jordanian former business partner. Photograph: Graham
Turner for the Guardian

Two prominent Saudi princes are involved in a London-registered company that supposedly facilitated "money laundering" for Hezbollah in Lebanon and helped smuggle precious stones out of Congo, according to contested allegations in court documents obtained by the Guardian.

The claims emerge from court papers that lawyers for the Saudis have spent a year trying to suppress, including resorting to threats that relations with Britain would be damaged if they were revealed.

Lawyers for the two princes – Prince Mishal bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, a former defence minister, brother of King Abdullah and chairman of the country's influential allegiance council, and his son Prince Abdulaziz bin Mishal bin Al Saud – dismiss the claims as fabrications, "extortion" and "blackmail".

They contend that their former partner, a Jordanian, Faisal Almhairat, "misappropriated" money from accounts, denied them access to company books, shut down the shared business and "interfered with the negotiations" on telecommunications deals. Almhairat, in turn, disputes their claims.

In the context of Middle East politics, the suggestion that two prominent Sunni Muslims from the Saudi royal family have been surreptitiously dealing for profit with Hezbollah, a Shia force supported by Iran, is extremely damaging. Hezbollah is designated by the United States as a terrorist organisation.

The Guardian and Financial Times originally requested to see the court documents – filed as part of a commercial dispute between Almhairat and the Saudis – in spring 2012. On Thursday, the court of appeal finally agreed to the immediate release of the statements of case.

Among other allegations is the claim that at the "instigation" of Prince Abdulaziz, Saudi police issued an arrest warrant for Almhairat and asked Interpol to issue a Red Notice sanctioning the extradition of the Saudis' former business partner to Saudi Arabia.

The case revolves around a catastrophic breakdown in relations between Almhairat and the Saudis. They were business partners in a London registered telecommunications company, FI Call Ltd, whose capital value was £300m.

Fi Call was developing a software application for smartphones that would allow users to make free phone calls. The Saudis' shares were mainly held through Global Torch Ltd, a British Virgin Islands company that the princes are said by Almhairat to control. Almhairat's shares are held by his Seychelles-based firm Apex Global Management.

The dispute, which erupted over allegedly misappropriated money and the sale of $6.7m (£4.3m) worth of shares, has "thrown up a nuclear mushroom cloud" of litigation, according to Mr Justice Morgan, who gave judgment at an early stage in the litigation.

The case raises questions about whether the transparency of British justice can be upheld at a time when the Ministry of Justice is eagerly inviting wealthy, international claimants to resolve their disputes in London's commercial courts.

The legal dispute was initiated by Global Torch but a counter-petition by Almhairat forced the two Saudi princes to become involved in the case. The princes then tried unsuccessfully to extract themselves from the proceedings by claiming "sovereign immunity". Prince Mishal is aged 86 and said to be in frail health.

A further, preliminary hearing is due to take place next week at the Rolls Building in central London where commercial disputes are tried. That argument will focus on an application by the princes that the UK courts do not have jurisdiction to involve them in the counter-claim launched by Apex and Almhairat.

The full trial, if it goes ahead, is due to be heard in January next year. On Thursday three judges in the court of appeal, Lord Justice Kay, Lord Justice Richards and Lord Justice Briggs, lifted a stay on reporting court submissions. They are due to give their reasoning at a later date.

None of the factual issues have yet been resolved by the court. The allegations are fiercely contested on both sides. At one point in a court document, lawyers for Almhairat remark: "Each side maintains that the other is lying about almost everything."

During the appeal court hearing, Guy Vassall-Adams, counsel for the Guardian and Financial Times, said: "Global Torch has chosen to bring proceedings in this jurisdiction. This is an open justice jurisdiction.

"They [the Saudis] have to accept that these damaging allegations will be heard in open court in the usual way. The protection they are entitled to is a judgment delivered in public which will refute unfounded allegations. That's how a legal system works in a democracy under the rule of law."

The case continues.

Related Articles:

‘HSBC report pushes West to rethink alliance with Saudi Arabia’

Saudis arrested after deadly bombing in Tanzania

Saudi prince jailed in Britain for murder flies home

Sunnis and Shiites remain historical rivals

Italy Busts Swiss-Based Gold Smuggling Ring: Police

Jakarta Globe, November 09, 2012

Related articles

• Falling Commodities Gouge Antam Profit
• Gold Advances to 11-Month High as Stimulus Set to Boost Demand
• Summer of Gloom for Crisis-Hit Rome Shops
• Newmont Slump Hurts BRM Profit
• Gold Demand Down to 2-Year Low: Industry Report

Rome. Italian police seized 163 million euros’ ($207 million) worth of assets from a criminal association headquartered in Switzerland on Thursday, as well as a luxury villa used as a safehouse for stashing gold, police said.

Officers carried out 259 raids in houses and cash -for -gold shops across Italy as part of an investigation into 118 people suspected of smuggling gold bars to Switzerland and cash back into Italy.

The gang is accused of money-laundering, recycling cash and stolen jewels through cash -for -gold shops and churning out lingots in foundries.

“The money came illegally into Italy from Switzerland, and was used to buy fraudulently obtained gold and silver, then sent back to Switzerland in the form of lingots,” police officer Alessandro Langella told AFP.

Police seized a villa in Monte San Savino, a town near the city of Arezzo, the gold capital of Italy. Nick -named “Fort Knox”, the villa was used by the criminal gang as a place to stash the cash and lingots.

They also blocked 500 bank accounts, seizing 163 million euros worth of profit earned by the gang in 2012 through the exchange of 4,500 kilograms (9,920 pounds) of gold and 11,000 kilograms of silver.

In August, Italian police announced a 78 percent jump in the amount of gold, silver and cash they had prevented from leaving the country illegally in the first seven months of 2012.

The financial police said it had seized 41 million euros’ worth compared with 23.2 million euros in the same period last year.

Criminal organizations in Italy have been making billions from a boom in the poorly-regulated cash-for-gold sector, which is rife with tax evasion and serves as a quick and easy method of cleaning dirty money.

Out of an estimated 28,000 cash-for-gold stores in Italy, only a few hundred have registered with the Bank of Italy and professional associations say that some 80 percent of the gold sold there ultimately ends up in Switzerland.

Agence France-Presse

Pirate fishermen sell illegal haul to Europeans

Deutsche Welle, 11 October 2012

An investigation by the Environmental Justice Foundation has found that nine out of 10 trawlers caught fishing illegally in Sierra Leone send their catch to Europe. The government is working to fight the problem.

A two-year investigation by the Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF) has found evidence of illegally caught fish entering the European market. The British-based environmental and human rights charity says nine out of 10 trawlers caught fishing illegally in Sierra Leone are actually accredited to export their catch to Europe.

The EJF claims that West Africa has the highest levels of illegal fishing in the world, and says it found evidence of bribery, attacks on local fisherman, the use of banned fishing equipment and trawlers fleeing to neighboring countries to avoid fines. The group is calling for vessels to be blacklisted, and it wants the European Union to strengthen regulations to stop illegal catches from entering Europe. 

The government in Freetown is
struggling to combat illegal fishing

In less than two years, the EJF has received 252 reports from local fisherman of pirate fishing along the coast.

"The problems are many," Siaka Swarary, a local fisherman from the outskirts of the capital, Freetown, told DW. He says the trawlers that operate far out at sea are ruining the livelihoods of the local fisherman.

"We are disturbed by the bigger trawlers. Sometimes we go one, two, three days [without a] catch." Swarary says his brother lost a fisherman at sea last year when a trawler hit his boat at night and didn't stop to help, leaving the man to drown.

"Our wives, our children…everyone is suffering because we are surviving from this fishing. Without fishing we cannot pay school fees for our children or take care of our family," he said.

A blow to the economy

Sierra Leone loses around $30 million (23.4 million euros) every year through illegal fishing. For a country trying to rebuild itself after more than a decade of civil war, it's crushing for the economy.

Soccoh Kabia, the minister of fisheries and marine resources, says the main problem is that trawlers come inside the exclusion zone – an area reserved for local fisherman. 

Many subsistance fishermen are
just barely gettting by

"Many, not all of them, have disregarded that regulation with impunity and have often threatened the lives of fishermen, destroyed their gear, destroyed the environment. The [fish] spawning ground is in that area, so they have definitely affected the development of those areas," he said.

But Kabia, who has been working closely with the EJF and other partners, says things are slowly improving and that they have already collected more than $1 million in fines over the last 18 months. Last year, the West Africa Regional Fisheries Program, supported by the World Bank, began its work to combat illegal fishing.

"Recently, the government of Liberia had a vessel that escaped prosecution there, and they contacted our minister here in Sierra Leone to see if we could assist in arresting this vessel," said Salieu Sankoh, the program's national project coordinator in Sierra Leone. "We were able to arrest [the crew] and send [them] back to Liberia, which to us is a big feather in our cap."

More needs to be done

The EJF says more needs to be done to help West African coastal states reinforce their own security systems, so that more of these arrests can be made. It's calling for the EU to strengthen regulations, as well as the penalties for illegal fishing.

Swarary and his fellow fishermen have noticed fewer trawlers, but he says they still come at night, under the cover of darkness. He says he's doing everything he can to keep his children from following in his footsteps.

"It's a very hard life. I'm suffering so much," he said. "I don't want my children following me. That's why I prefer to suffer myself and put them [through] school, and maybe after school they will get a better job."

Related Articles:

Is the EU taking its over-fishing habits to west African waters?

Seven steps to prevent the collapse of west Africa's fishing grounds

Fishermen return from their night's labours. About 1 million

 people in Senegal depend on the industry for food.

Photograph: Randy Olson/National Geographic/Getty Images

Fishermen from Gaza risk their lives at work