Journalism can be a very dangerous occupation sometimes.

Luz Marina Paz was shot dead by gunmen on motorbikes just outside her home in Honduran capital of Tegucigalpa.

The 38-year-old journalist and her driver were hit by bullets from armed men on two motorbikes as she was about to leave for work. According to police, Ms Paz died instantly at the scene.

Ms Paz, who is one of the best-known outspoken journalists, hosted the famous morning programme, Three In The News which broadcasts every morning on the Honduran News Channel. In the programme, Ms Paz usually discussed topics on politics and narcotics trafficking.

In 2009, Ms Paz was very critical of the coup in which former Honduran President Manuel Zelaya was deposed at gunpoint.

Prior to her death, Ms Paz had received numerous death threats from organized criminals to whom she vowed never to pay extortion.

Reports indicate that the Honduran capital is rapidly becoming one of the world’s worst homicide areas due to massive corruption and heavy drug-trafficking.

According to human rights advocates, at least 23 journalists have been killed in Honduras since 2003 – mostly for stepping on the toes of drug traffickers and criminals.

Reports from the United States indicate that about half of the cocaine consumed in the United States is offloaded along the coasts and forests of Honduras.

FILTER BY DATE

Filtering Results…

Total Sales Overview

Hi Martin,

I’m so sorry for the delay.

We will send you a payment to your PayPal payment next Monday.

There was a slight error that prevented your payment from going out this week which I will get fixed right away.

Best wishes,
Lindsay

In Reply To:
Hello,

Your FAQ says that payment will be automatic every monday when i reach the requested amount, please remit to my paypal which address is HYPERLINK “mailto:HYPERLINK “http://us.mc1107.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=wonblaise@yahoo.com“wonblaise@yahoo.com“HYPERLINK “http://us.mc1107.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=wonblaise@yahoo.com“wonblaise@yahoo.com!

best regards,
martin monroe

Account Overview

FILTER BY DATE
View Data From:             Jan  Feb  Mar  Apr  May  Jun  Jul  Aug  Sep  Oct  Nov  Dec  01  02  03  04  05  06  07  08  09  10  11  12  13  14  15  16  17  18  19  20  21  22  23  24  25  26  27  28  29  30  31  1998  1999  2000  2001  2002  2003  2004  2005  2006  2007  2008  2009  2010  2011  2012  2013      TO       Jan  Feb  Mar  Apr  May  Jun  Jul  Aug  Sep  Oct  Nov  Dec  01  02  03  04  05  06  07  08  09  10  11  12  13  14  15  16  17  18  19  20  21  22  23  24  25  26  27  28  29  30  31  1998  1999  2000  2001  2002  2003  2004  2005  2006  2007  2008  2009  2010  2011  2012  2013     

Filtering… Filtering Results…

Total Sales Overview

ACCOUNT BALANCE     ($13.76)     view transactions   
TOTAL REVENUE

RE:RE:payment

Wednesday, July 27, 2011 4:03 PM

From:

“CD Baby”

Add sender to Contacts

To:

wonblaise@yahoo.com

Hi Martin,

I’m sorry for the confusion.

Your current account balance (amount owed) is $0.84.

We won’t be sending you a payment until you reach $10.00.

Let me know if you have any further questions about this.

Best wishes,
Lindsay

In Reply To:
Hi Linsey,

I was just wondering about that payment, it’s Monday and I don’t see it in my Paypal account. As a struggling musician every little bit helps!

thanks,
Martin

— On Wed, 7/20/11, CD Baby <cdbaby@cdbaby.com> wrote:

From: CD Baby <cdbaby@cdbaby.com>
Subject: RE:payment
To: wonblaise@yahoo.com
Date: Wednesday, July 20, 2011, 1:11 PM

Account balance

Friday, July 29, 2011 9:33 AM

From:

“CD Baby”

Add sender to Contacts

To:

wonblaise@yahoo.com

Hi Martin,

I’m so sorry for the confusion and frustration caused by the problem with your account balance.

There was an erroneous deduction of $14.59 that occurred on January 5, 2011.

That brought your account balance to a negetive amount ($-14.59).

Now that we’ve added that amount back to your account, your balance is now correct at $0.84.

In other words, since you were last paid (on 12/5/2010) you have earned $0.84 for your music sales.

If you go through your accounting transactions and add up all your music earnings since 12/5/10, you will see the amount of $0.84 is correct.

I understand this might be confusing so please let me know if you have any questions about it.

Best wishes,
Lindsay K.

On the other hand some types of organised crime have been developed more recently due to changes in technology such as credit card fraud. Organised crime is generally regarded as highly detrimental economic, political, and social impacts upon modern societies. Organised crime as will be evaluated has consequences that no national government at the beginning of the 21st century could ignore, and the majority of national governments would attempt to reduce or minimise so as to prevent economic, political, and social impacts. As well as considering the economic, political, and social impacts of organised crime further consideration will be given to assessing the threat that the phenomenon of organised crime represents to national governments and societies in the 21st century.

There is several economic impacts that organised crime could have upon modern societies and their national governments. Perhaps the first economic impact of organised crime is that it could and indeed does adversely affect the actual income of national governments due to the phenomenon of tax evasion and avoiding the payment of duty on certain products. High value products such as alcoholic drinks, tabacco and cigarettes, as well as petrol or other fuels. Of course tax evasion is nothing new as a form of crime. Although given the amount of tax revenue which modern national governments could potentially or in many cases actually lose through the organised avoidance of tax. National governments consider lose of tax revenue as a serious economic impact of organised crime. Tax evasion takes various forms, some could be carried out by individuals, whilst organised crime carrying out tax evasion will have a more serious impact. Governments tend to put taxes on products such as alcohol, drinks, tobacco and cigarettes or fuel that are potentially harmful health-wise or cause environmental pollution. Taxes and duties are an invaluable source of revenue and are often used to fund healthcare services and transport infrastructure. Ordinary citizens might not believe that buying products without paying duties on those items is a serious crime, or that it is a form of organised crime that has a serious economic impact. However, that belief is not founded upon fact as declining tax and duty revenues can have a major impact on the economic wellbeing of national governments. In the past national governments such as Italy and Russia have found it very difficult to function effectively due to the inability to collect taxes and duties due to organised crime. Even in countries such as Britain that traditionally have low rates of tax evasion and an effective tax gathering administration have felt the economic impact of organised crime. The British government has noticed a sharp increase in the number of people that have evaded paying duties on alcoholic drinks and tobacco products in recent years. The Exchequer has been to quantify how much tax evasion and fraud is reducing its revenue, an estimated £7 billion in 2002-03 for example.1

To some extent the British government expected some reduction in the revenue from duties due to changes in the amount of duty paid items that people are allowed to import into Britain as part of the European Union single market. Organised crime gangs have taken advantage of the increase in duty paid personal allowances to import large quantities of drinks and cigarettes to sell on illegally. Besides people bringing back duty paid products to sell on, organised crime gangs have smuggled into Britain without paying duties. To prevent the loss of revenue from evasion of duties the British government has introduced various measures. For instance, alcoholic drinks and cigarettes are marked to denote that duties have been paid in Britain. Custom officers have also stopped and searched people that they believed were carrying amounts of products which exceeded personal levels of duty paid goods. Efforts to reduce the evasion of duties was hampered when the government lost a court case relating to the confiscation of goods from people that had been stopped and who had more than the persona allowance of those goods.2

Another economic impact of organised crime is the loss of profits form private companies caused by the sale of counterfeit goods and products. The sale of counterfeit goods breaches copyright laws and fraudulently take money from consumers that believe they are purchasing genuine products. Selling counterfeit clothing, music, and films has been lucrative for many organised crime gangs, money that they put towards funding other forms of criminal activity. The selling of counterfeit goods is another form of crime that not only denies profits to the makers of the genuine articles; it denies national governments the revenue from sale taxes such as value added tax (VAT) in EU member states. The United States government has been one of the keenest governments when it comes to clamping down on the sale of counterfeit goods. For instance, the United States government encourages American based companies to protect their copyright positions internally and abroad. The United States government regards counterfeiting as being as damaging to international trade as high trade tariffs or armed conflict.3 In the United States the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the IRS take responsibility for the reduction of organised gangs in producing counterfeit goods and will also persuade individuals and businesses to take legal action abroad to uphold their interests.4

Meanwhile, in Britain the Police are committed to reducing the level of counterfeit goods that are sold, as are customs and Trading Standards Offices. The production, distribution, and sale of counterfeit goods are done on a global basis with little regard to national borders, copyright laws, and paying taxes. There is a more sinister side to the sale of counterfeit goods than just allowing people to buy cheap copies of the latest blockbuster film or hit album. The organised crime gangs that produce and distribute counterfeit goods are also linked with making of illicit pornographic or violent films and magazines, which are banned by the vast majority of British governments. The production of such material has the social impact that people and even children could be harmed in the making of these films and magazines. Organised crime gangs will primarily produce, distribute, and sell illicit material solely for profit making without any regard for the economic, political and social impacts of their actions. The Home Office estimates that such actively has an annual cost of £9 billion.5 The techniques that organised crime gangs use to produce, distribute, and sell counterfeit and illicit goods have been used by terrorist groups to publicise their objectives and in order to recruit new members. For instance, in Britain the Police have confiscated videos, DVDs, and tapes of extreme Islamic groups as part of their anti-terrorist operations.6

Another area of organised crime that has wide- ranging economic, political and social impacts are the production, trafficking, and sale of illegal drugs. Organised gangs have a long history of producing, trafficking and selling prohibited substances. For instance, the Chinese triads have been linked with the opium trade for centuries, whilst the prohibition of alcohol in the inter-war the United States inadvertently allowed the Mafia to spread their operations. In the United States, the Mafia is the organisation that dominates the organised crime scene, which is strongly connected with the illegal drug trade.7 For the Mafia to be able to distribute illegal drugs it has to obtain supplies of these drugs from the countries in which they are grown. Thus the Mafia will trade with other organised crime gangs in Asia to obtain heroin, as well as buying supplies of cocaine from organised crime syndicates in Latin American countries, such as Colombia and Peru. The United States government alongside the FBI and the Drugs Enforcement Agency (DEA) who have been tasked with reducing the illegal drug trade has found it very difficult to do so. When the law enforcement agencies fail to confiscate any significant amounts of drugs then the cost of such drugs on the street is lower and thus could be afforded by more drug addicts and tempt more people to try illegal substances. However, on the occasions in which the FBI, the DEA and the Police have seized substantial quantities of illegal drugs it has caused a rise in the cost of those drugs that makes the economic, political and social impacts worse rather than better. Such are the profits which can be made from the illegal drugs trade that organised crime gangs fight each other to maintain or increase their share of the profits.8

On the occasions in which the United States government and its law enforcement agencies have succeeded in imprisoning organised crime members and closed down illegal drug selling networks, new suppliers have quickly emerged to take their place. The United States government has also attempted to tackle the illegal drug trade by taking action in the countries in which those illegal drugs are grown and produced. This strategy has involved gaining the assistance of other governments like those of Columbia and Peru in destroying the drug crops before the organised crime gangs have the opportunity to harvest those drugs.9 In extreme circumstances the United States government and its law enforcement agencies have taken unilateral action to destroy drug crops. An alternative approach used by the United States government has been to pay foreign farmers compensation to stop growing drug crops that gave them a much higher level of income. In Colombia, Communist rebels in the FARC (Foro Nacional por Colombia) actively co-operated with drugs cartels to export cocaine to the United States.10

Efforts to reduce the illegal drug trade have failed to stop increasing numbers of people taking drugs, leading to the social impact of people committing crimes to pay for their drug habit. Drug addicts are more likely to commit crimes such as mugging and robbery, and may resort to prostitution to pay for drugs. The United States is certainly not alone in finding that the organised crime liked with the drugs trade has the social impact of causing an upsurge in unorganised crime to fund people’s addictions.11

Britain has had similar experiences to the United States when it comes to the economic, political and social impacts of the illegal drug trade. British governments have tried various means of reducing the use of illegal drugs. For instance, using drugs awareness campaigns to stop people trying to take drugs in the first place, through to rehabilitation programmes and tougher prison sentences for drugs traffickers and dealers. British Police forces have found it very difficult to get to grips with the problems that the illegal drug trade brings with it.

A turning point for the growth of the illegal drugs trade cam in the early 1980s when the demoralising effects of recession coincided with an influx of cheap heroin from Afghanistan.12 At present the British government estimates that there are 280,000 drug users who commit 50% of all crime.13

The use of illegal drugs had been steadily rising since the late 1960s, yet increased drastically from the early 1980s, with proportional increases in other crimes such as theft and prostitution to fund drug habits. Besides the drastic rise in crime figures and the prison population there were social impacts of the illegal drugs trade, such as drugs taking and prostitution being responsible for spreading the HIV/AIDS virus.

 To a large extent that latter impact was lessened by the introduction of needle exchanges and safe sex advice to prostitutes. Britain has witnessed more debates about decriminalising or prescribing illegal drugs on the National Health Service to take control of the drugs trade away from organised crime gangs. However, the decriminalisation of illegal drugs would be unlikely to occur as British governments and a majority of the general public would find such a move politically unacceptable. The only step towards decriminalising illegal drugs in Britain was the reclassification of cannabis from being a class A to being a class C drug. Illegal drugs and the strong almost unbreakable link to organised crime gangs looks set to continue for the foreseeable future, despite the creation of a dedicated organised crime agency to tackle the problem. Unless the British government, the Police and the other enforcement agencies are unable to stop the profitability of the illegal drug trade they are likely to remain fighting a losing battle.14

Not only has the illegal drug trade in Britain got links to organised crime gangs it also has strong links with terrorist organisations in Northern Ireland such as the Irish Republican Army and the Ulster Volunteer Force.15 Overall the government estimates that the use of Class A drugs cost £13 billion annually.16

Another area of activity undertaken by organised crime gangs that has economic, political and social impacts is the smuggling of people into other countries. Organised crime gangs have found that the smuggling of people is a very profitable enterprise to undertake. For the United States the experience of organised crime gangs smuggling people into the country to evade immigration controls was not a particularly new occurrence, as people have consistently tried to illegally enter the United States from Mexico for many decades. For other parts of the world the experience of people smuggling is a more recent event caused by some of the most significant political developments at the end of the 20th century. Such events included the collapse of the former Soviet Union, the wars in the former Yugoslavia and Somalia, which caused a great deal of chaos, poverty and violence.17 Organised crime gangs were quick to offer people the chance to get smuggled in to countries where they would be safe. Britain was one of the most popular destinations for people that wished to leave their own countries.18

Amongst the economic, political and social impacts of organised crime gangs transporting people into Britain was a dramatic increase in the number of asylum seekers attempted to stay permanently in Britain. For the organised crime gangs the smuggling of people across borders is a means to make a great deal of money without paying much attention towards the safety of the people that are transported long distances in sometimes very dangerous conditions. Some organised crime gangs simply transported people from one country to another for large sums of money, whilst other organised crime gangs forced their passengers to work for them once they arrived in their destination countries.19 The organised crime gangs certainly managed to get large numbers of asylum seekers into Britain, many of whom went on to apply for social security benefits and would cause a serious backlog in the dealing of immigration applications made to the Home Office. The slowness of the Home Office to deal with asylum seekers has proved unpopular with the general public in Britain and has caused the New Labour government considerable political embarrassment even if the Conservatives have not been able to turn that to their electoral advantages.20 An official estimate of the cost of the organised crime linked with immigration into Britain is £3 billion every year.21

The British government found that dealing with illegal immigration has had a costly economic, political, and social impact on Britain. For instance, the Home Office has had to recruit more staff to deal with the backlog of asylum seekers and illegal immigrants, whilst their presence in Britain has increased social security expenditure and placed a strain upon housing and other social services. The Home Office has also discovered that members of foreign organised crime gangs took advantage of the chaos and delays within the immigration system to gain illegal access to Britain to fraudulently claim social security benefits and to link up with other organised crime gangs. Improving the administrative performance of the immigration sections within the Home Office would probably be the best way to counter organised crime gangs smuggling people into Britain.22

It is highly likely that organised crime gangs will continue to have a prominent role in the migration patterns that will develop throughout the 21st century, especially when the poverty and political instability in regions such as Sub-Saharan Africa will drive people to emigrate away from their countries in desperation. People smuggling as a form of organised crime is more likely to increase rather than to decrease in the next few decades as conditions in the world’s poorest countries continue to decline even further.23

Other economic, political, and social impacts of organised crime include more violent societies. More violent societies are a consequence of cultural, social, and economic changes that organised crime gangs have helped to create and have also to a large extent taken advantage of. In Western societies such changes and tendencies towards violence were first noticeable in the United States during the late 1960s and the early 1970s, mainly caused by the increase in the use and trading of the illegal drugs trade. The growth in the illegal drug trade was a major cause the increasing levels of violent and organised crime within the United States and then other parts of the Western world. Just as the United States plays a prominent role in legal trades it has played a major part within the global development of organised crime. For instance, the United States is the country that has the greatest consumer demand for legal products so it not surprising that it is the country that consumes the greatest amounts of illegal products. In economic terms, organised crime gangs will have similar decision-making rationales as multinational corporations; they will operate in the locations, which seem to offer the greatest prospects for making a profit.24

Over the long term the policies adopted by American governments to counter the increase in the illegal drug trade will continue to fail, just as they seem in most other countries. The phenomenon most closely linked with the illegal drug trade is the seemingly ever increasing levels of crime especially violent crime that can grip entire neighbourhoods and districts. The spread of the illegal drug trade also helps to increase the fear of crime in Britain as it does elsewhere. Drug and crime prevention measures only ever seem to have a limited scope for success when it comes to slowing down the spread of organised crime.25

Therefore, organised crime can be regarded as having had profound economic, political, and social impacts upon the societies of the two countries that were examined, Britain and the United States. In many ways the United States has faced the problem of organised crime longer than Britain has due to the virtually never- ending presence of the Mafia within the United States. Organised crime gangs have penetrated quite deeply into the economies and the societies of these two countries. Organised crime gangs make substantial profits in the United States and Britain through the production, distribution, and selling of counterfeit and illicit goods which the respective national governments have often attempted to restrict or confiscate whenever possible.

The sale of counterfeit and illicit goods causes financial loses to companies and individuals. Such goods can also spread unlawful information, images, or beliefs. The sales of such products also costs the British and American governments revenue from sales taxes. Organised crime gangs may contend that they are only selling what people want to buy for less than the retail price in shops yet that is denying the sinister purposes for which funds from pirated goods are put towards. Both the British and American governments regard tax evasion as an element of organised crime that has undesirable economic, political, and social impacts within their respective countries. The largest area for concern when it comes to the economic, political, and social impacts of organised crime relates to the illegal drug trade.

Bibliography

Evans G & Newnham J, (1998) The Penguin Dictionary of International Relations, Penguin, London

Ferguson N, (2007) The War of the World, Penguin, London and New York

Franklin J A and Morris R J, International jurisdiction and enforcement of Judgments in the era of global networks: Irrelevance of, goals for, and comments on the Current proposals, Chicago-Kent Law Review (vol. 77, 2002)

Hobsbawm, E (1994) Age of Extremes, the Short Twentieth Century 1914-1991, Michael Joseph, London

Home Office, (2004) One Step Ahead – A 21st Century Strategy to Defeat Organised Crime, Crown Copyright

Judt T, (2007) Post-war – A History of Europe since 1945, Pimlico, London and New York

Molano A (1988) ‘Violencia y colonizacion’ Revista Foro: Fundacion Foro Nacional por Colombia, 6 June 1988

Moran M, (2005) Politic and Governance in the UK, Palgrave, Basingstoke

1 Home Office, 2004 p. 8

2 Jones et al, 2004 p. 626

3 Brown with Ainsley, 2005 p. 123

4 Franklin J A and Morris R J, , Chicago-Kent Law Review (vol. 77, 2002) p. 1215

5 Home Office, 2004 p. 8

6 Home Office, 2004 p. 10

7 Hobsbawm, 1994 p. 333

8 Home Office, 2004 p. 8

9 Hobsbawm, 1994 p. 366

10 Molano, 1988 pp 25-37, quoted from Hobsbawm, 1994 p. 366

11 Home Office, 2004 p. 2

12 Evans & Newnham, 1998 p. 9

13 Home Office, 2004 p. 2

14 Jones et al 2004 p. 626

15 Home Office, 2004 p. 10

16 Home Office, 2004 p. 8

17 Ferguson, 2007 p. 642

18 Judt, 2007 p. 740

19 Judt, 2007 p. 642

20 Seldon & Kavanagh, 2005 p. 331

21 Home Office, 2004 p. 9

22 Moran, 2005 p. 198

23 Ferguson, 2007 p. 642

24 Hobsbawm, 1994 p. 366

25 Jones et al, 2004 p. 622

On December 30, 1918, Al Capone married Mae Josephine Coughlin, an Irish woman, who had given birth to their child earlier that month and the boy was named Albert Francis Capone. A couple of years later, Al Capone along with his family left New York for Chicago. Specialists estimate (Kobler, 2003, p.224) that he moved to Chicago with his family because of the invitation of Torrio, a criminal whom Al Capone was acquainted with. Torrio acquired the crime empire which inherited from another criminal James Colosimo murdered presumably by Frankie Yale. In such a way, Al Capone joined the organized crime, the family, where he started from the low positions but progress rapidly. By this time, i.e. by the early 1920s, Al Capone was suspected of two murders but he was not tried and avoided punishment.

However, he was dissatisfied with his current position and looked for a better position to provide for his family. As he arrived to Chicago, he became Torrio’s right-hand man and worked various administrative jobs in the Four Deuces speakeasy and brothel. By 1921, Al Capone was the full manager of the facility (Pasley, 2004, p.186). After the death of his father in 1920, the entire Capone family moved to Chicago where he purchased a new house at 7244 South Prairie Avenue on the city’s South Side (Kobler, 2003, p.311). This house served as Capone’s first headquarters.

In fact, the 1920s were the golden age of Capone’s criminal empire. It was the epoch of Prohibition when the illegal alcohol trade brought fabulous profits and allowed Capone became a wealthy and prosperous person, though officially he remained a furniture dealer. By the way, Al Capone did not have any accounting records in his own name. Nevertheless, he led a posh lifestyle, worn expensive suits, he became a true gourmet and actually joined the upper class, though, in actuality he was a criminal.

It is worth mentioning the fact that his criminal empire faced significant difficulties in 1923 when the local authorities headed by the mayor, W.E. Dever attempted to expel Al Capone and other criminals out of the city limits. As a result, Al Capone criminal empire had to move its headquarter to Cicero, Illinois, where Al Capone had reached a tremendous success. In 1924, Al Capone took over of Cicero town government. In spite of the opposition of local gangsters Myles and William O’Donnel that resulted in the bloodthirsty war, Al Capone managed to establish its control over the city, though the gangster war led to 200 deaths. Remarkably, Capone’s mayoral candidate announced that he would run Capone out of the town, but Capone met with his puppet-mayor and personally knocked him down the down hall steps (Pasley, 2004, p.218). 

The triumphant victory of Capone in the mayoral campaign was overshadowed by the tragedy which occurred to his family. His brother Frank was shot dead by the police. Al Capone was shocked by this tragedy and he ordered the closure of all the speakeasies in Cicerop for a day as a mark of respect to his dead brother (Pasley, 2004, p.221).

In the mid-1920s, Al Capone started to grow in power in Chicago, especially when he inherited Torrio’s criminal empire as the latter retired after the assignation attempt in 1925 organized by the North Side gang. In such a way, Al Capone became the head of the former Torrio-Capone alliance. At the same time, the retirement of Torrio allowed Al Capone to return and strengthen his positions in Chicago. But the growth of his empire was accompanied by numerous conflicts with other gangs and Al Capone even survived several assassination attempts organized by his rivals in Chicago. “Bugs” Moran was the major criminal rival of Al Capone in Chicago. At the same time, Moran amply used force and murders to grow in power in Chicago and Al Capone perfectly realized the threat from the part of this opponent. In order to “get rid of” this rival, the St. Valentine Day’s massacre was organized by the Capone’s mob. As a result, seven victims were practically cut in two by the machine gun fire, though Moran survived but got serious injuries and carried to the hospital. However, it was a serious defeat and Moran’s gang could not have recovered after such a massacre.

At first glance, it was a successful operation conducted by Capone’s gang, but, in actuality, St Valentine Day’s massacre became a turning point in the history of Capone’s criminal empire. In fact, the massacre had changed the public opinion dramatically. Before the massacre many people sympathized Al Capone for his open contempt in relation to the Prohibition and efforts of the government to ban the sales of alcohol. Before, he was perceived by the public as a brave bootlegger, a “businessman giving the people what they wanted” (Kobler, 2003, p.263). After the massacre, he was perceived as a kind of butcher, a man who ordered to kill other people.

As the public dissatisfaction grew stronger, the authorities also started their campaign against Al Capone. The President Herbert Hoover ordered to have a closer look at Capone’s activities. As a result, the FBI and other law enforcement agencies started to investigate Capone’s activities in details. However, they did not have a chance to arrest and sentence Al Capone for his illegal activities. Unexpectedly, the investigators discovered in a desk drawer in one of Capone’s facilities what was clearly a crudely coded set of accounts. Due to this discovery, Al Capone was pursued for his failure to pay tax. Eventually he was arrested and accused of tax evasion. As a result, in 1932, he was sentenced to eleven years in a federal prison and one year in the county jail and he also had to pay fines and court costs totaling $80,000 (Kobler, 2003, p.348). In fact, this was the end of Al Capone’s criminal career.

However, he did not serve his full term and was released from prison in 1939, but he could not resume his life of the boss of a powerful criminal crime since he was seriously ill and suffered from progressing syphilis which he contracted at his youth. On January 21, 1947 he had an apoplectic stroke. Even though he regained consciousness, he contracted pneumonia on January 24, suffered a cardiac arrest next day and died.

Thus, taking into account all above mentioned, it is possible to conclude that Al Capone was one of the most notorious criminals of the 20th century. He managed to create a powerful criminal empire which challenged the formal authorities and which was so influential that could even win the mayoral campaign. Nevertheless, his empire was based on murders, racketeering, bootlegging and other illegal activities. His power was based on terror which became the major tool with the help of which he managed to establish the control over Chicago’s underworld. However, his successes in the criminal world and his open neglect of the law led him to the downfall which was followed by imprisonment after which he would have never recovered. Today, Al Capone is a symbol of the criminal world.

As a rule, criminals that committed the most terrible crimes became familiar to the public because their crimes shocked people and attracted the attention of media and entire society. In this respect, Al Capone may be enlisted into the cohort of the most notorious criminals of the 20th century. However, unlike many other criminals, Al Capone was a very controversial person because, in spite of all his crimes, there were many people who really admired him and perceived him as a positive person. Nevertheless, such a view of Al Capone was apparently erroneous because it is hardly possible to find one more criminal who was responsible for so many crimes. He was one of the first criminals who had managed to establish a real criminal empire with the help of which he could terrorize civilians and he actually challenged the official authorities since his power grew stronger to the extent that he could even attempt to take control of the mayoralty in Cicero and Chicago. In a way, he was a genius, though he was a criminal genius, who, in spite of all his efforts, was sent to prison that was a just punishment for his crimes. Such an ending of his criminal career was very symbolic because it proved that American authorities did control the situation in the country and they debunked the myth about almighty criminals. In such a situation, it is very important to study the life and work of Al Capone since it helps to better understand the criminal world, its principles and weak points as well as causes of crimes and the formation of organized crime. This knowledge can help consistently contemporary law enforcement agencies to cope with crime, decrease the crime rates and prevent the formation of organized crime on the state or even federal level.

Alphonse Capone was a son of immigrants from Italy, Gabriele and Teresina Capone. He was born on January 17, 1899 (Kobler, 2003, p.13). Capone family had nine children and basically could be referred to as a low-income family since the father of Al Capone, Gabriele worked as a barber in Brooklyn. However, originally, they arrived to Canada from Italy and it is only later they moved to the US in search of a better life for them and their children. Nevertheless, while working as a barber and having nine children, Gabriele Capone and his wife, Teresina Capone could not afford the high standards of life. As a result, their children lived in a poverty stricken-environment and they did not receive a lot of attention from the part of their parents who were mainly concerned on earning money to feed their children. As the parents were focused on the surviving of the family, children, including Al Capone, did not have enough of parental care that could be one of the reasons for the development of criminal inclinations in Al Capone.

It is worth mentioning the fact that his criminal inclinations were revealed at quite an early age. To put it more precisely, at the age of 14 he was expelled from the school after punching a public school teacher (Pasley, 2004, p.48). Al Capone was on his 6th grade only, but after such an “accident” he could not remain in school. He dropped out of school never to return and, in such a way, his academic education was over. Obviously, Al Capone got poor education and it is possible to estimate that streets were his main school, while the public school was a place where Al Capone had little to learn or, to put it more precisely, where he failed to learn anything.

At the same time, such a background played probably the determinant role in his future career of the criminal and later one of the most outstanding bosses of the criminal world. Obviously, Al Capone paid a little attention to his education and his family background and social environment influenced his views on education substantially. He did not have well-educated parents or relatives. All his friends and peers were representatives of low-income families which paid little attention to education and for which work was prior to learning. Moreover, children started to work at the early age because they had to help their parents to earn money. Therefore, the survival was the key word which defined the life in Brooklyn where Al Capone spent his childhood.

It proves beyond a doubt that poor education contributed consistently to the formation of Al Capone as a criminal because he failed to learn basics values and his personality was shaped not under the impact of basic humanistic ideals he could learn at school but under the impact of his neighborhood and his friends. At this point, it is important to underline the negative impact of the social environment on the formation of the personality of Al Capone. Like many other boys in the neighborhood he learned the rules of the streets quickly and these rules had little in common with legal norms and law. The crime rates in Brooklyn were extremely high at the epoch and the crime was not perceived by Al Capone and his peers as well as people living in the neighborhood as something abnormal, as a violation of the law, offense of rights and liberties of other people. In stark contrast, the crime was perceived as a norm and it was probably the main rule Al Capone had learned by his teens, while the law was quite an abstract and practically unknown concept, which Al Capone, in all probability, was not fully aware of.

On witnessing permanent crimes and offenses in his neighborhood, Al Capone acquired negative models of behavior which he attempted to follow himself. In this respect, his violence against the teacher in the public school was probably the first open manifestation of his disobedience and neglect to the existing laws. At the same, this violence reveals quite negative psychological features which were characteristics of Al Capone. What is meant here is the fact that the aggression against an adult in the public school was an unacceptable and unthinkable aggression, which overwhelmed Al Capone to such an extent that he could not control himself. Consequently, he could not fully control his actions, while aggression often influenced his actions and behavior.

At the same time, it is possible to enlarge the interpretation of Al Capone’s aggression against the teacher of the public school. In fact, it is possible to view this aggression as a challenge to the authorities since the teacher had a formal power and Al Capone could not offend him either physically or verbally. Nevertheless, he ignored the formal authority of the teacher and punched him that means that he demonstrated publicly his negligence of the official rules and norms. Such a behavior is apparently anti-social in its essence and reveals a number of psychological problems of Al Capone, such as inability to control his feelings and emotions, high level of aggression, and poor socialization.

In such a context, it is possible to speak about certain innate traits of character of Al Capone which contributed to the formation of his criminal inclinations, but it is impossible to ignore the negative impact of his social environment which could produced even more significant impact than his heritage (Pasley, 2004, p.61). On the other hand, it is necessary to take into consideration the conditions of life of Al Capone which also forced him to violate existing laws and legal norms. The life in poverty and need naturally evoked a strong feeling of social injustice that could probably ruin the belief of Al Capone in justice in the American society at large. Being disenchanted in the system of justice and suffering from social inequality, Al Capone was ready to use all possible means to improve his life, change it totally and succeed.

The way he chose was not extraordinary in his social environment. At first, he was expelled from the school he attempted to find some job and he worked at different places in Brooklyn, including the candy store. However, soon he joined the local gangs which comprised of adolescents and young people who lived in the same neighborhood. These gangs continued the education of Al Capone but this education was quite different from the one at school. He joined such gangs as The Junior Forty Thieves and later the Five Points Juniors (Kobler, 2003, p.191). Later he met a racketeer Frankie Yale, who became his mentor and who employed Al Capone as a bouncer. It is about this age, Al Capone got scars on his left cheek when he inadvertently insulted a woman while working the door at a Brooklyn night club, provoking the fight with her brother Frank Gallucio, who was later employed by Al Capone as his bodyguard. After this fight and injury he got the nickname “Scarface” (Pasley, 2004, p.124). Later he misrepresented his scars as the war wounds. This fact is also noteworthy because it reveals an interesting side of Al Capone’s psychology. He apparently tended to be a hero, but in his social environment he could gain the fame and public respect only as a criminal. At any rate, it was the easiest way to gain the respect in the streets and the readiness of Al Capone to meet this goal indicates to his vanity and ambitions.

A day after the earthquake, the Inagawa-kai (the third largest organized crime group in Japan which was founded in 1948) sent 25 trucks filled with four tons of disposable diapers, instant ramen noodles, batteries, flashlight, drinks and daily necessities to the Tohoku region.
A member of the Sumiyoshi-kai, the second largest group of criminals also offers protection to foreigners.
Yamaguchi-gumi, Japan’s largest crime group under the leadership of Tadashi Irie, also opened offices nationwide to the public and send a truck filled with supplies, but quietly.

Between midnight and early morning March 12 March 13, Inagawa-kai members are here to send 50 tons of supplies to the City Hall Hitachinaka in Ibaraki area.

Supplies including cups ramen noodles, bean sprouts, disposable diapers, tea and drinking water. Travelling from the city takes 12 hours. Members of the Inagawa-kai in Kanagawa also sent 70 trucks into the area of ​​Ibaraki and Fukushima to deliver supplies in areas of high levels of radiation.

Overall, the Inagawa-kai supplies over 100 tons of supplies to the Tohoku region. They are exposed to the radiation without any protection or take potassium iodide pills.
Members of the Yamaguchi-gumi in which the author found, said: “Please do not say anything more about what we do.”

For those who do not recognize the yakuza, it may be surprising to hear their philanthropy, but this is not the first time they showed the spirit of humanity.

In 1995 after the Kobe earthquake, Yamaguchi-gumi’s most active channel supply to the affected area.

They recognize that the supply of money paid to the results of extorting people in the area but no one can deny that they deserve when people need help.

Might confuse the yakuza, who also organized criminal groups, to get revenue from illegal activities such as collecting protection money, intimidation, blackmail and fraud, has the nature of a civic nature.

However, in Japan since the war they had always played an important role in ensuring security.

People stand in line at the supermarket, are calm and disciplined, waiting for authorities to resolve the situation and not stolen or given grabs his head, help each other and share food, mentions the publication cited.

Police patrol the streets, in shelters and Japanese are expected to stabilize the situation peacefully, and members of criminal organizations in Japan – yakuza – they shared more than 40 tons of food to victims, emphasizes Slate Magazine.

Moreover, the three criminal organizations – Yamaguchi-gumi, Sumiyoshi-kai and Inagawa-kai – patrol streets to ensure order. One of the group opened offices in Tokyo for the Japanese who were left homeless and foreigners who could not leave the country. ”In times of crisis, there are no differences between the Yakuza and citizens or foreigners. We are all humans and we must help each other,” said one of the Sumiyoshi-kai leaders on the phone Alderstein Jake, a writer, quoted by Slate Magazine.

Image via Wikipedia

Giuseppe Maria Barbara was born in Sicily in 1905. He immigrated to the United States in 1921 when he was only 16 years old and soon joined a Buffalo, New York crime family as a “hit-man.”  Joseph “Joe the Barber” Barbara pronounced (bar- BEAR-uh) had been arrested on numerous occasions for several murders which occurred in the 1930s and yet he always escaped conviction. He was also arrested for a 1933 murder of a rival bootlegger, whom it is alleged was lured to Barbara’s house for a meeting. During  the false pretense of a meeting “Joe the Barber” strangled his competitor. Having accumulated much wealth, this gangster moved into our area in 1944 and purchased 58 acres of land where he built a $250,000 estate.

While residing on his estate in Apalachin, New York pronounced (APP-a-LAKE-in) Mr. Barbara received his only conviction of an offense in 1946. His crime centered around the purchase of 300,000 pounds of sugar with the intent to manufacture bootleg alcohol. Another interesting note of the times is a matter of record,. For you see,  the Endicott Chief of Police (Endicott is a neighboring town) was listed as a reference on Joe’s application for a New York handgun permit. Soon afterward, Joe the Barber bought the local Canada Dry bottling plant and shortly thereafter, he controlled the entire beer and soft drink market within the Binghamton, New York region.

The Mafia was active in our area and in several spots around New York and Pennsylvania. I remember as a young man, my father and I were driving past a nightclub known to be frequented by want to be mobsters, when my dad looked at me and said, “Son, see that bar over there? Do you notice the cars in the parking lot?” “Yes dad,” I answered. “Well look again,” he assertively said. “There are nothing but Cadillacs and Lincoln Continentals, but notice that not one of those cars are new!” He went on to say, “That’s because these guys carry all of their cash in the right pocket of their pants. Please son, don’t ever act like that.” My dad’s words stung me with the reality of the differences between living right and living in the shadows of deception.

On May 10, 1924 President Calvin Coolidge appointed J. Edgar Hoover as Director of the Bureau of Investigation. Hoover, who graduated from George Washington University with a Law Degree, immediately went to work on improving the professionalism of his Department. He fired agents who weren’t performing satisfactorily, removed seniority as a guideline for promotion, required new agents to be in the 25 – 35 year old age group and made it mandatory that all new hires held either a degree in accounting or law. On March 25, 1935 the Bureau of Investigation was renamed the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Mr. Hoover remained as Director of the FBI until May 2, 1972. Although the F.B.I. Director long denied the existence of Cosa Nostra in the United States, those views changed after the Apalachin Meeting of November 14, 1957. 

There was turmoil within the crime families of the Mafiosa, especially with Vito Genovese, Carlo Gambino and Gaetano Lucchese. After Salvatore “Charlie Lucky” Luciano went to prison in 1936, Vito Genovese began making his grab for more power within the Family. He wanted the old bosses of Bonanno, Maggadino, Profaci, Gagliano and Mangano out. In his effort to take over control of “The Commission”, between 1951 to 1957 Genovese and his associates had been instrumental in the assassinations of five (5) New York crime bosses. A full blown war was about to break out within the La Cosa Nostra and it was therefore, necessary to hold a meeting.

The Apalachin Conference was held on November 14, 1957 at the estate of “Joe the Barber” who had now become the Mafiosa boss of Northeastern Pennsylvania. The meeting would address issues surrounding gambling, casinos and narcotics. It was a star studded turnout with over 100 mobsters coming in from Italy, Canada and the United States. No pun intended, but the “big guns” were in town on this important date in history and they showed up in their fancy cars and top of the line clothing. The group of odd characters that had descended in our small area, stood out like a snowstorm in July. Seeing so many luxury automobiles, along with many out of state license plates, the local and state law enforcement agencies became suspicious and surrounded the Barbara estate. Many mobsters escaped the ensuing police raid, as they fled into the woods and made a mad dash to their cars. However, 58 Cosa Nostra bosses would not be so lucky as they were summarily arrested and indicted, including Carlo Gambino, Vito Genovese and Joseph Bonanno.

The Apalachin Conference not only put my community on the map, but it also made it known to the world and in particular J. Edgar Hoover, that the Mafia really did exist. Mr. Hoover who was unwilling to devote money and resources regarding organized crime, soon created the “Top Hoodlum Program” and aggressively went after crime bosses throughout the United States.

The La Cosa Nostra truly was discovered in my backyard and that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

WRITTEN BY: DENNIS L. PAGE

OTHER ARTICLES WRITTEN BY DENNIS L. PAGE INCLUDE:

http://newsflavor.com/world/the-murder-of-jenni-lyn-watson

http://newsflavor.com/opinions/the-gangland-murder-of-a-20-month-old-rashaad-walker-jr

http://newsflavor.com/politics/the-koch-brothers-and-their-influence-on-american-politicians

Moreover, China has weaknesses that keep them secret.

China’s new prosperity produces a rapid expansion of gambling, not to mention an increasing number of drug users.

Although India was known as “Mama’s opium” in al-XVIII century, almost the entire amount of opium produced in India was exported to foreign markets.

China began to import opium-century since the eighteenth century. Until 1850, when a population of 450 million, making China the country with most drug users.

This was extremely convenient for the West.

Western governments and commercial firms have discovered China’s appetite for opium and began to export in huge quantities by the cantons.

China exports to the West at that time huge amounts of silk and tea.

By 1830, China’s export surplus turned into a growing deficit.

Alarmed that drug addiction is installed throughout the country, especially among the ruling class, the imperial court in Beijing has tried to ban the consumption of opium and to restrict trade with the West which, in turn, responded with naval forces.

So the war started “opium”, which was led mostly by Britain, to keep the open Chinese ports.

When China entered the world market and living standards have risen rapidly, drug use began to rise alarmingly.

Susan autraliana Trevaskes researcher who published a book about Chinese crime prevention, estimates that 40% of the heroin produced in Afghanistan and Pakistan and a similar percentage of Laos and Burma is exported to China.

Drug attract widespread organized crime and corruption.

Under the economic impact of the consumption of opium, the Chinese government corruption has worsened, leading eventually to the peasant revolt followed by government attempts to suppress them by burning villages.

Imperial authorities have created the strategic villages and forced peasants to live there.

Since 1980, the Chinese government led campaign called “Strike Hard” to remove organized crime and corruption.

In the last years of the twentieth century, a large number of “criminals” were executed.

Trevaskes researcher says the number of people were executed between 2500 to 15,000 per year and the total so far reached 250,000 as “criminals” were executed.

Such campaigns to remove organized crime have been proved to be unsuccessful and were abandoned when it turned out that further led to the spread of corruption in all levels of public administration.

China learned that prosperity comes with a price.

China’s ruling Communist authorities today have a much stronger power than the imperial bureaucracy in the nineteenth century. However, experience has shown that repression simply does not work.

Meanwhile, China’s population enjoys an income from growing larger, but a significant part of it is wasted on drugs.