EL CHAPO DEATH RUMOURS

Did Public Enemy Number 1 eat hot lead in jungle shootout?

Just after being named as Public Enemy Number One by the city of Chicago, Mexican drug kingpin Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman was reported to have been gunned down in a shoot-out with police in Guatamala. It sounded all too likely. Two days later, however, and doubts started to emerge. Was it really Guzman who ate hot lead? Was Public Enemy Number 1 still at large and on the lam?

Here is the story as it unfolded. Initial reports said El Chapo was el meurto

The Daily Mail reports the doubts. The Inquisitr pitches in here and the Washington Post here

All in all the whole thing made great copy and kept the psychotic drug kingpin in the news

LE DEUXIEME SOUFFLE

Jean-Pierre Melville's 1966 masterpiece

A French crime classic by the director who knew just how long to cook the egg. Tough and gritty and tender, brilliant cinematography,  this reminds me just how much French crime cinema of the 1960s is way up there. Those who have never seen it should watch instantly.

There are many reviews of this movie compiled on Shooting Down Pictures

Here are two torrent versions to consider or just try direct A and B  Here on Hotfile

HEIST OF THE CENTURY

Millions of dollars in diamonds take off at Brussels Airport

Hollywood drools over surefire blockbuster.

The diamond heist at Brussels airport was superb. One of those things that makes you feel all warm and fuzzy when you read about it in the morning paper. Here is the report from the BBC and another one from the Guardian. It took the robbers 11 minutes to make off with 50 million dollars worth of diamonds and to make it worse (or better) the stones  can be recut so they are almost impossible to trace. Of course later the Guardian ran an op-ed piece on how such crimes should not be regarded as glamorous ... but hey, too late! Hands up who doesn't think its the coolest thing? Its nothing to do with bad George Clooney movies either, a well planned heist with no violence to boot will always be something to inspire awe.

It wasn't long however before experts started to point out some uncanny parallels between this heist and one carried out in Antwerp ten years ago (described in the excellent book Flawless by Greg Campbell and Scott Andrew Selby). Here is Scott Andrew Selby's reflection on the two robberies from CNN. More on the strange co-incidences from the Daily Beast.

The seven biggest diamond heists in recent history are outlined in this piece from US News

THE MURDER OF BOBBY FULLER

The Annals of Rock 'n' Roll Crime 

HE FOUGHT THE LAW

The murder of  22-year-old Bobby Fuller was above all else a tragedy for cutting short the life of one of America's most talented musicians. Bobby Fuller had bridged the gap between Buddy Holly and Creedence Clearwater Revival. A natural songwriter and steeped to the eyeballs in Texas rythmn and blues he would almost certainly have carved out a career as a rock heavyweight had he not fallen victim to some bad intentions. Like Eddie Cochran or Buddy Holly he was so young yet had already done so much.

An essay about Bobby's untimely end The Srange Case of Bobby Fuller with some additional replies here. Another account with the same title can be found here on a PDF.
Retrokimmer took some interest in the story and so did the El Paso Times. The reminiscences of Bobby's road manager are an interesting read. Here is the inside word from Findadeath
"I was supposed to marry Bobby Fuller" is a great story but also includes some useful links to more audio video and interview material concerning the BFF

Here is The Bobby Fuller Four with I Fought the Law

And from a live TV show playing Let Her Dance

From Ghost in the Invisible Bikini - Bobby and the Four backing up Nancy Sinatra. One can only wonder if this was the cause of all the trouble. 

more from the movie. Bobby and the band in glorious technicolor

HER MAJESTY'S PLEASURE

HMP Aylesbury

ITV go behind the walls of some of our favourite nicks. Screws, lags, shanks, nonces, what more can you ask for? Find your streaming links here

"EL CHAPO" ES NUMERO UNO

JOAQUIN "EL CHAPO" GUZMAN IS CHICAGO'S PUBLIC ENEMY NUMBER 1

Vicious drug kingpin Joaquín Archivaldo Guzmán Loera lives somewhere in the mountains of western Mexico surrounded by a private army funded by a fortune estimated at over a billion dollars. In Mexico he is already a mythic figure. Now he has rocketed to the top of the criminal elite after being named as Chicago's Public Enemy Number 1, a title that has remained empty since Al Capone in 1930. The decision of the Chicago Crime Commission to make El Chapo numero uno has ensured that his is a trending name on the internet. In reality Guzman has rarely been far from the news since his escape from Federal Prison ten years ago. Since then he has become one of the world's most powerful drug traffickers, an elusive figure based in the remote Sinaloa mountains where he has a robin hood reputation for giving aid to the peasant farmers. Last year Forbes Magazine named him as one of the world's most powerful people. An anti-hero who is fast becoming an icon in popular culture. Only last year rapper Gucci Manne paid tribute to El Chapo. 

 El Chapo remains elusive however. Even photographs believed to be of him are now questioned.

Don't call him Chapo to his face though. It means 'dwarf'. You know what they say "little man big temper". Lets see how long it is before the DEA take him out in a hail of bullets. They have been trying for long enough, and hey, he's undoubtedly working for them anyway. We all know who the real kingpins are. Read more here: Wikipedia  Huffington Post

Some video reportage about Guzman

Here is a BBC documentary about the Mexico drug wars. Crazy place!

GOTTI TRIGGER TAKES A DIVE

Gambino associate John Burke gets life for 1991 gundown 

Is there something in the roids that makes your head grow fat like a watermelon. I think we can rule out size of brain matter. 

John Marzulli in the New York Daily News tells us about the latest Gambino trigger man to pull life after his co-conspirator turns canary. Have you heard this somewhere before? Umerta is as old fashioned as a handle-bar mustache.

Here is his good pal John Alite who turned state's evidence against John Gotti Jnr three years ago. Better hide that neck tat under a good wig in Witness Protection buddy. More from the News here

THE SCUTTLERS

Before the Gooch there were the Bengal Tigers

Historian Andrew Davies reveals that its always been grim up north ... only grimmer. In the 19th century the Scuttlers were just as formidable bangers as the Hudson Dusters, the Whyos or the Dead Rabbits. Surely there's a movie in this? Gangs of New York didn't quite hit the spot.

Read here some history of scuttlers from the BBC including an interview with Andrew Davies who is clearly the man in the know as far as scuttling is concerned since he pops up in the Guardian here

ALL AMERICAN YO YO

Batman lays an egg

I hope this to be an ongoing series. This comes courtesy of The Weekly Vice  a wonderful source for the bizarre side of US crime. Here is the story of Robert Tate Jnr a Florida resident who went troppo and rammed his parents house with an SUV. Ahead of this he had uploaded some strange videos of himself on You Tube. Clearly he's an overgrown teenager who got pissed with mom for not buying more cheerios. Check out his dog Hendrix in the last one, the poor loving mutt drew a bad hand in the game of owners. For Stern fans this guy reminds me of Benjy.

SAN QUENTIN UNLOCKED

Jailhouse blues

Will we ever get bored of seeing life behind prison doors? I don't think so.
For those incarceration obsessives, another doc.

RUSSIAN MAFIA GET RICH FROM WINTER OLYMPICS

Mob rackets taint next year's slalom and luge

After the assassination of top mob boss Aslan Usoyan attaention has been focused on just how much the mafia have infiltrated the forthcoming Winter Olympics 2014 in the Black Sea resort of Sochi. If the Russian mafia needed any more money it has found an easy score
Here is a video about the situation - full report

WHO IS DAVID HEADLEY?

Walter Mitty type on CIA-sponsored spiral into terrorism

Headley (or Daud Gilani) really fascinates me at the moment. He epitomizes a world of murky double-agents, multiple identities, betrayal and most of all the secretive power of the big intelligence agencies. From a small time drug smuggler to a big time terrorist. The story of David Headley is the story of how the world's secret service agencies operate in a world of their own and provide terrorism with a unique momentum. We still do not know where the allegiances of David Headley lay. Were they with the Islamic jihadi groups, with the CIA, with the DEA, with money, with his family. The judge was quite right to be skceptical about whether he had changed, how could anything he declared be fully trusted. This was a man who had lost to his inner chameleon. There is so much written about Headley, particularly in the Indian press. I am reading a book called Headley and I by S. Hussain Zaidi with Rahul Bhatt. Bhatt was a weak character, son of a movie star, who Headly befriended on one of his recce missions ahead of the Bombay atrocities of 26/11.

The whole story of Mumbai 26/11

The filmed confession of the lone surviving gunman has generated its fair share of conspiracy theories, mainly that he appears to be an Indian and even a Hindu. Now he has been executed we will never know and speculation will remain rife. The Kasab Confessions: 

IRISH MICKY WARD

The slugger's slugger

Here he is, a random tribute, the "Irish" hand grenade, one of my favourite fighters of all time. There is not too much to say about Micky Ward. He lost a bunch of times and it has no bearing at all on his legendary status in the fight game. It wasn't really about the titles, it was about having a heart and balls the size of a mammoth, a green mammoth. The best thing is to watch full fights vs Emanuel Augustus, vs Alfonso Sanchez, vs Shea Neary, but most of all the famous trilogy against Arturo "Thunder" Gatti. Here are some highlights from that sublime concerto of slugging in three movements:

for a more interesting back story to Ward's career, his brother Dicky Eklund is one hell of a character too. He ran the streets in Lowell, Mass looking to score after having taken Sugar Ray Leonard the distance in  1978. Watch fantastc HBO documentary "High on Crack Street, Lost Lives in Lowell" then watch the Mark Whalberg biopic "The Fighter"

Got the time. Here is the full HBO doco

WILL WHITEY WALK?

Bulger squirms ... but who will have the last laugh?

Who would bet against Boston mob legend Whitey Bulger pulling off one last coup in his crazy charmed  life? I know he's one bad Irish SoB but I can't help hoping that he has the last laugh

LATEST FROM PHILLY

Massive mob trial reaches messy end

Some great scenes in the Philly court. Mob wives in full flow. "Do you have a mother? Or were you found in the gutter?" Manny Ligambi asks the prosecutor. Her son George Borgesi kept it to the point "Fuckin' punk!" he yelled at the Assistant US Attorney. Read it all here fresh from Philly News and here for a summary of the split verdict in this major mob trial. 

You want the word on the street. Who better than Philly's finest on the mob beat George Anastasia 

Here is some recent news video from Fox Philly

Philadelphia News, Weather and Sports from WTXF FOX 29
Some back story collated on Friends of Ours blog here

Some salacious gossip about Georgie boy from that world wide web

THE ART OF FURIOUS SCAMMING

Mobster’s son pleads guilty to fraud, 39 out of 88 counts

Anthony Boscarino's tremendous efforts to scam as many people in as many ways as possible, mainly through sports betting and casino deception and fake investment plans. The Boscarinos are mafia to the core, father Angelo had an appointment with an icepick in Chicago in 1967 after the bosses thought he was singing to the feds. Son Anthony is mostly about internet scamming so you have to hand it to this guy for being a 21st century crim, and he was also extremely persistent. Read the full story reported in the Arizona Republic here   Read some back story and here from the Chicago Sun Times, a good crime rag, and they picked it up in Vegas too. Here is some internet forum with discussion between people who got scammed, an interesting read.

Look out, it's Charlie Chan

Look out, it's Charlie Chan

The opium was black, the peril was yellow

Charlie and number one son battle opium smugglers in Shanghai. The 9th Chan movie and one of the best from 1935. Warner Oland in the lead.

Grandpa Hassan bites the dust

After a good meal Grandpa Hassan bites the dust

Russian mobster gunned down outside Moscow restaurant, turf war fears

Aslan Usoyan better known as Grandpa Hassan, 75, was shot by a sniper in Moscow as he left his favorite restaurant. His fortune came from control of Sochi site of next year's Winter Olympics and a bottomless pot of rubles in construction work and unions.

Here is the Guardian's article on it: http://gu.com/p/3dh9y

Informed coverage from some specialist websites like Russian Criminal Tattoo blog and a couple of posts from In Moscow's Shadows blog and here

Watch an English news report here

here is one that he survived from two years ago

Joe "the Boss" Massino testifies against Vinny Gorgeous

Joe "the Boss" Massino testifies against Vinny Gorgeous 

He sings like a canary!

This is not very visual but someone has just posted the whole of Joe Massino's April 2011 testimony against Vincent  "Vinny Gorgeous" Basciano. Its in four parts. Long but interesting.
Here is some of the background to the case from the ever dependable George Anastasia

Here is part four of the Massino testimony - go to You Tube to find the other three parts.

And in case you want to know more about the first sitting boss to turn rat! 

Bulgarian mobster Zlatko the Beret eats lead!

Bulgarian mobster Zlatko the Beret eats lead!

Gunned down outside the central courts!

Who tried to whack the Beret outside the central court house in Sofia? As we all know Bulgaria breeds some of Europe's finest gangsters. Zlatomir Ivanov otherwise known as Zlatko The Beret is straight out of central casting. Trained as a wrestler. He used to work for the government special forces (thus the beret). A finer pedigree would be hard to find. He is of course a businessman who owns half of Sofia.The implications of this attempted hit are fairly clear. Mob wars are on the cards. Business as usual in Bulgaria.
Here is some news footage of Ivanov just after being shot four times. He must have crawled into the courthouse.

Read more about the Beret here from Emma Reynolds in the Daily Mail 

Some coverage in the Bulgarian press here and here