World
Sicilian mafia bosses complain on wiretaps about lack of quality recruits, reminisce about 'The Godfather'
What happened to never going against the family?
Leaders within the Cosa Nostra, Sicily’s mafia, have reportedly complained that mob recruits aren’t what they used to be, as nearly 150 people associated with the group were arrested this week.
“The level is low, today they arrest someone and if he becomes a turncoat they arrest another… wretched low-level,” former Cosa Nostra boss Giancarlo Romano said in a wiretapped conversation last year before he was killed in a shootout, according to BBC News.
Romano also revealed that he was nostalgic for Francis Ford Coppola’s 1972 classic “The Godfather,” about a fictional mob family in New York.
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Carabinieri officers in Sicily. (Valeria Ferraro/Anadolu via Getty Images)
“If you watch ‘The Godfather,’ the connections he had… he was very influential because of the power that he built at a political level,” Romano told his associate.
He continued, “But us – what can we do? We’re on our knees, guys. We think we do business, but these days it’s others who do it. We used to be number one, now it’s others… we’re just gypsies.”
The mobsters also seem to like actor Robert De Niro, who played Vito Corleone in “The Godfather Part II,” and Spider-Man as other wiretaps revealed them as nicknames for each other, according to The Guardian.
This week Sicilian officers conducted early morning raids, serving 183 arrest warrants on those believed to be associated with the Cosa Nostra for crimes ranging from mafia association to extortion and attempted murder. Of those, 36 were already in custody.
While raids like this week’s have weakened the Cosa Nostra, Italian officials warn they are still a threat.
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“The investigations that led to Tuesday’s arrests demonstrate that Cosa Nostra is alive and present and communicates with completely new communication channels,” Maurizio de Lucia, chief prosecutor of Sicily’s capital of Palermo, said at a press conference, referencing the mafia’s use of encrypted apps to communicate with each other. “It is doing business and trying to rebuild its army.”
Domenico La Padula, with the Italian Carabinieri police, told The New York Times this week that the Cosa Nostra “is far from dead.”
He said they have been able to survive by finding “new energy and new strength,” with new recruits and 21st-century criminal ventures like online gambling.
Palermo, Sicily’s capital. (Frank Bienewald/LightRocket via Getty Images)
The Cosa Nostra has remained “strongly tied to the rules of its founding fathers and its ancient rituals,” the Carabinieri told The Times, adding that their use of encrypted devices has “limited the need for traditional meetings and gatherings to the bare minimum.”
John Dickie, who wrote “Mafia Republic: Italy’s Criminal Curse and Cosa Nostra, A History of the Sicilian Mafia,” told The Telegraph that Italian authorities have become “fantastic” at surveilling the mafia.
“Mafia dons have been caught boasting how good their anti-bugging devices were, at the same time that they were being bugged,” he revealed.
Dickie also agreed that the Cosa Nostra appears to be “in decline.”
“You only have to read the phone taps where the bosses are saying ‘it’s not like it used to be,’” he said. “This is about the fifth time that the bosses have tried to reorganise the cupola since the early 1990s. Every time they have been thwarted. The authorities were on to them.”
He continued, “These arrests mean that Cosa Nostra has another big task to rebuild, and they show that the state is still stronger than the mafia.”
Iranians mourning the country’s supreme leader condemned U.S. strikes that Washington called retaliation for Iran’s attacks on commercial ships in the Strait of Hormuz. At a tightly controlled state funeral in Mashhad — one of Iran’s most conservative cities, where opponents of the government were unlikely to be found in the crowd — mourners voiced defiance and called for revenge.
World
Beloved musicians among victims in deadly Bahamas plane crash; aviation authority grounds flights
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A devastating double-aviation crisis in the Bahamas, including a deadly North Andros plane crash and a separate aircraft fire on Friday, prompted the government to suspend flight operations for a local airline and launch a federal safety probe.
Shortly after 1 p.m. local time Friday, a Cessna 402 aircraft with Bahamian registration departed Lynden Pindling International Airport in Nassau bound for San Andros Airport.
The Aircraft Accident Investigation Authority (AAIA) said the plane “encountered difficulties” and crashed into bushes prior to landing.
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Authorities said 10 people were killed in a Bahamas plane crash on Friday. (Our News Bahamas via AP)
First responders, including the Royal Bahamas Police Force, Airport Authority and emergency medical personnel, rushed to the dense brush where the aircraft went down.
The Bahamas Musicians and Entertainers Union confirmed in a statement Saturday that 10 people died in the crash, including prominent members of the “The Pond Band” and a local DJ, whose artistry the union said “touched so many lives and helped to enrich the cultural fabric of The Bahamas.”
Bahamian Prime Minister Philip Brave Davis said a sole survivor was pulled from the wreckage.
“Ann and I are praying for the families who are now facing unbearable grief,” Davis wrote in a statement on X. “We are also praying for the survivor, whose recovery and care will remain in our thoughts.”
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The identities of those killed in the crash have not yet been released.
While the AAIA’s preliminary reports initially indicated seven people were on board, officials are still establishing the facts of the flight manifest.
Just hours before the fatal crash in North Andros, a Flamingo Air flight en route to Mayaguana was forced to turn back to Nassau after the pilot reported a concern, according to the Ministry of Energy, Utilities and Aviation (MoET).
After the aircraft landed and passengers safely deplaned, the plane caught fire on the runway.
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FILE – The Civil Aviation Authority Bahamas temporarily suspended Flamingo Air’s Air Operator Certificate following two aircraft incidents Friday. (iStock)
Following the two back-to-back safety incidents, the Civil Aviation Authority Bahamas (CAAB) temporarily suspended Flamingo Air’s Air Operator Certificate, according to MoET officials.
“The suspension is a precautionary safety measure and should not be treated as an adverse compliance action against Flamingo Air,” the agency wrote in a statement.
FILE – The plane crashed in North Andros on Friday after taking off from Lynden Pindling International Airport. (Melissa Alcena/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Investigators from the AAIA and inspectors from the CAAB remain at the scene in North Andros as they work to determine what caused the Cessna 402 tragedy.
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Flamingo Air did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Published on •Updated
Moldova’s pro-European President Maia Sandu nominated businessman Vasile Tofan on Saturday as the country’s next prime minister to replace Alexandru Munteanu, who resigned earlier this month over differences with the ruling majority.
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In a video posted to social media, Sandu said Tofan’s primary responsibility, after his candidacy is approved by the country’s parliament, would be to move the country further towards its path of “integration” into the European Union.
He should also “strengthen the resilience of state institutions and society”, and “revive the economy”, added Sandu.
The Moldovan businessman now has two weeks to secure parliamentary backing, a prospect he hopes to achieve after submitting his government programme and his ministerial cabinet nominations.
Tofan had been mentioned as a possible prime minister last year even before the appointment of Munteanu.
Igor Grosu, who heads Sandu’s Action and Solidarity Party (PAS) which won the last parliamentary elections in September, announced on Friday that he had selected him as his candidate to replace the outgoing premier.
He said Tofan shared “the same objectives” as him and PAS, specifying that “EU accession in the years to come, institutional reform and economic growth”, were among the biggest points of agreement.
The nominee for prime minister, who graduated Harvard Business School and turns 44 on Sunday, has a degree in public management from the Netherlands and is a managing partner at Horizon Capital, a private equity firm with assets primarily in Ukraine and Moldova.
He has also chaired the board of directors of Moldova’s Purcari winery, considered the crown jewel of the country’s winemaking sector.
Munteanu, another businessman who like Sandu previously worked at the World Bank, had been chosen to boost the economy and bring it closer to the EU, but turbulence with PAS saw him vacate his post less than a year into holding office.
He resigned on 3 July after less than eight months, stating that he could no longer carry out his mandate “according to (his) principles and (his) convictions”.
The EU last month officially launched a first round of accession negotiations with Ukraine and Moldova. Both countries became official EU candidate countries on 23 June 2022.
Additional sources • AFP
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