The Mafia and Organised Crime in General

The Influence of Criminal Organisations in Banking and Finance

The Mafia, and similar criminal organisations in other countries, are moving up-market, in fact as in fiction. The novel Nest of Vipers described how the Mafia could use the banking system. Unfortunately, in real life too, the tentacles of the Mafia and the Yakuza are spreading through the arena of international finance, as the links in this page show.

Mafia News: News of the Mafia from around the world arranged by country. The site includes an archive of past news reports.

Mafia Wiki: The mission of Mafia wiki is simple, to provide the internet with an accurate and updated source of information on The Italian and Italian American Mafia and Individual Mobsters.

Briton hunted as police crack IRA and Mafia fraud scheme: Italian police have broken up a huge money-laundering scheme run by the IRA and the Mafia which has allegedly duped hundreds of holiday home investors across Europe. Daily Telegraph, 6 March 2013.


Mafia is Italy's biggest business: The country's four mafia groups now boast estimated cash reserves of €65bn, collectively making them "Italy's biggest bank", according to a study by Confesercenti, a prominent employers' association. Daily Telegraph, 10 January 2012.

Credit Union, With Mob Ties In Its History, Has Closed: The South End Mutual Benefit Association has been closed by banking regulators. Two decades ago, when the mafia in Connecticut was at its peak and legal casino gambling was just a dream, the mob made the credit union a "piggy bank" of sorts, using it to underwrite a multimillion-dollar, illegal gambling business. The Hartford Courant, April 10 2010.

Green Mafia: An article about claims that there are links between the Mafia and wind power firms in Sicily. Financial Times, 4 May 2009.

Gang of pensioners convicted for running Britain's biggest counterfeiting operation: A gang of pensioners are facing jail for running one of Britain's biggest counterfeit bank notes scams from the suburban home of an 83-year-old man. Daily Telegraph, 3 March 2009.

Vito Rizzuto: An article about the man known as Montreal's Teflon Don, allegedly the leading mafia boss of the Sicilian Mafia in Canada.

Friends of Ours: Montreal Mafia: News about cases involving the Montreal Mafia.

Confessions of the Wolf of Wall Street: Yachts, planes, women, drugs - stockbroker Jordan Belfort had it all and lost it all. An interview with the man who taught the Mafia how to cheat - then wrote a book about it. Daily Telegraph, 25 February 2008.

Mobbed Up on Wall Street: An inside look at the Mafia "brokerages" that thrived in the '90s and the career of one con artist, Louis Pasciuto. Business Week, May 19, 2003.

The Mob Was the City's Watchdog: During the Giuliani cleanup in New York, a Mafia associate watched the money. Village Voice, March 28, 2003.

The "Sopranos" trial: part 2: An article about the testimony of Victor DiChiara, a Securities Broker on Wall Street who was among the 120 people arrested in 2000 in the largest organized crime prosecution in United States history. May 2003.

$50M 'pump-and-dump' scam nets 20 arrests: The FBI arrested 20 men on charges of running a massive pump-and-dump scheme that defrauded thousands of investors out of more than $50 million. USA Today, 9 March 2001

Organized Crime on Wall Street: Testimony by Richard H. Walker, Director, Division of Enforcement U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission, at the Hearing before the Subcommittee on Finance & Hazardous Materials of the Committee on Commerce of the House of Representatives, September 13, 2000.

Fall Out in New York as Mob Steals Millions: The Mafia are alleged to have set up their own bank, the DMN Capital Investment Bank, as an instrument for carrying out various scams. July, 2000.

Feds make biggest securities-fraud bust ever in "Operation Uptick": DMN Capital was "fraud central," Mary Jo White, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, said. "It was truly an investment bank to the crooked and the corrupt." CNN, June 14, 2000.

The Mob Meets the Detectives: How the FBI bugged the suspects in the DMN case. Village Voice, March 26th, 2001.

Feds nab 120 for fraud: The result of a 10-month investigation called Operation Uptick, the largest securities-fraud bust in U.S. history. CNNMoney. June 14, 2000.

Soup, Chickens, Seinfeld & Longhorns: An article about Frank Persico and others on trial in the DMN case. This Week in Gangland, March 29, 2001.

Microcap Fraud: News from the SEC about microcap fraud.

Stock Fraud and Organized Crime: Detailed information about the DMN case and stock market fraud in general.

The Mob on Wall Street: A three-month investigation reveals that organized crime has made shocking inroads into the small-cap stock market. Business Week, December 16, 1996.

Signs point to Mob involvement in Savings and Loan mess: An article examining the possibility that the mafia was involved in the Savings and Loan scandal. Seattle Post-Intelligencer, September 12, 1990.

Italian Mafia turnover '$120bn': The Mafia has turned into one of Italy's biggest business enterprises with a turnover of more than $120bn (£60bn) a year, a new report says. BBC, 22 October 2007.

The fate of Christine Fritsch as an exchange student and medical student in the USA: A website created by the student's mother who claims that her daughter, who was badly injured in an accident and is being prevented from returning to Germany, is a victim of an elite insurance fraud mafia that has the backing of corrupt police and legal officials.

Car crash wrecks $1.5m fraud plan: A scheme by a Swedish businessman Bo Stefan Eriksson to defraud British banks that loaned him money for two sports cars almost worked until he crashed a rare, $1.5 million Ferrari. Eriksson was formerly known by Swedish police as "The Banker", and was the head of a gang known as the Uppsala Mafia. The Scotsman, 25 October 2006.

Mafia insiders infiltrating firms, U.K. cops warn: Employees are still one of the greatest threats to corporate security, as "new-age" mafia gangs infiltrate companies, according to SOCA, the U.K.'s crime-fighting agency. April 25, 2006.

Banks "infiltrated" by mafia gangs: Mafia style gangs are infiltrating UK banks to commit fraud, the chairman of the Financial Services Authority has warned. Accountancy Age, 16 November 2005.

The New Mafia Order: A gang of Sicilian criminals has grown into a transnational empire of crime, and a trading power of phenomenal reach: a Mother Jones investigation by Frank Viviano.

Nathanson Centre for the Study of Organized Crime and Corruption: This centre, based at York University, Toronto, is involved with research, policy development, law reform and education in the field of organized crime and corruption.

Jerry Capeci's Gangland: An extensive source of news from a well-known American journalist and expert on the Mafia and organised crime.

Mobology Interactive: Links to hundreds of public-information sources about organized crime and related matters.

Organized Crime - the Mafia: A site devoted to the activities of the US mafia.

Alleged mafia don hires image consultant: Vito Palazzolo, who served time for laundering the proceeds of an international heroin-trading ring and is on trial in Palermo charged with belonging to the Sicilian Cosa Nostra, has decided to employ a public relations adviser. Guardian, June 30, 2004.

Main trends in the development of South Africa's organised crime: An article by Peter Gastrow of the Institute for Security Studies, published in African Security Review Vol 8 No 6, 1999.

Is Russian mafia financing Icelandic expansion abroad?: An article about rumours that money from the Russian mafia is behind some Icelandic businesses. 17 June 2005.

Russian Organized Crime: A report by CSIS, the Center for Strategic and International Studies. This report is part of the CSIS Transnational Threats Project.

The Red Mafia: a legacy of Communism: A chapter by Annelise Anderson from the book, Economic Transition in Eastern Europe and Russia: Realities of Reform, edited by Edward P. Lazear, Stanford, Calif: The Hoover Institution Press, 1995.

The Russian Mob versus Emanual Zeltser: The renowned US-Russian legal scholar has played a key role in combating financial crimes by the Russian Mafia.

How To Succeed in Business Despite Being Hounded by the FBI, the KGB, The INS ...: The story of Alexandre Konanykhine who claims a contract on his life was arranged by the KGB, which he said had a vendetta against him for exposing how former agents and the mafia used banks to steal money from Russia. The site contains reviews and other information about his book Russian Rebel.

Russian Mafia 'In Fake Bank Sites': The Russian mafia could be behind the latest phoney websites designed to steal money from customers of two main Australian banks. ANZ Banking Group Ltd and Westpac Banking Corp Ltd called in the Australian Federal Police to help shut down the imitation websites sourced to the United States. Finance News AU, July 4, 2003.

The Most Dangerous Mobster in the World: Details of allegations that the Ukrainian businessman Semion Mogilevich is a key figure in the Mafia in the former communist countries.

Mobsters control half of Russia's banks: FBI: Nearly half of Russia's credit and financial institutions are controlled by organised crime interests, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has said in a report submitted to the Senate Intelligence Committee. October 1998.

Mafia Rebirth Dismays UN Conference: The day before a United Nations conference on organised crime opened in Sicily a report leaked from the prosecutor's office in Palermo named 329 politicians, law enforcers and businessmen suspected of colluding with the criminal clans. The Guardian, December 12, 2000.

Murder by Mistake : the Bank of Sark and Gang Warfare: When swindlers from "the Bank of Sark" scammed the New Orleans mafia the results were bloody. The Bank of Sark was one of the most notable scams of the late 1960s.

Italian Police Bust Mafia Online Banking Fraud: The Mafia worked with corrupted employees of Banco di Sicilia to create a computer system resembling the bank's own which would have been programmed to connect to the interbank transfer network after normal office hours, allowing hundreds of billions of lire belonging to Sicily's regional government to be shifted to bank accounts in Italy and abroad. Indian Express, October 4, 2000.

Mafia bank fraud investigation moves to Switzerland: Swiss police are looking into allegations that Sicilian Mafia bosses moved $1bn in EU subsidies through Swiss bank accounts using a fake internal portal linked to the Banco di Silicia.

Mafia Money vanishes into Black Hole of Cyberspace: The Sicilian mafia is convulsing world stock markets by laundering hundreds of millions of pounds undetected through the internet, Italian police have revealed. The Guardian, December 8, 1999.

Indian movie mogul convicted: A leading Bollywood film financier, Bharat Shah, has been found guilty of withholding information from the police on the film industry's links with the underworld. BBC 30 September, 2003.

Married to the Mob: Bollywood's Mafia Underbelly: Following an announcement by the Reserve Bank of India in July 2001, Indian banks will finance films. By long denying recognition to filmmaking as a bona fide industry, the government - and therefore the banks - had forced filmmakers to turn to underworld dons for financing, an arrangement that cost billions of rupees and, far too often, lives.

Criminal Justice Resources: Organized Crime: This compilation of resources, compiled by Michigan Statue University Libraries, focuses on adult gangs, gangsters, the mafia, and international gangs.

Organized Crime and the 21st Century: An article about the Triads and other groups based on a seminar at the Centre for Criminology in the University of Hong Kong.

The Yakuza Recession: It is well known that a bad-debt crisis is primarily responsible for keeping Japan in recession. Now, investigations reveal the astonishing role of organized crime in prolonging that crisis. Velisarios Kattoulas FEER January 17, 2002.

Who got Yakuza into our banking system?: An article on the relationship between the Yakuza and the banks, by Takano Hajime.

Yakuza: Past and Present: by Adam Johnson.

TJapan’s scandals Clean-up time: Ryuichi Koike is said to have extorted payoffs from Japan's largest stock brokerage, and the stain has spread to Dai-Ichi Kangyo Bank. Economist, June 5, 1997.

'Sokaiya' scams hit Japan: Japanese companies ill-equipped to deal with corporate extortionists

Sokaiya scandal: Former Dai-Ichi Kangyo Bank Chairman Tadashi Okuda was a nine-month prison sentence, suspended for five years, for illegally extending loans to a sokaiya, or corporate racketeer. September 12, 1999.

[ Top ]
[ Financial Scandals Home Page ]
[ Financial Thrillers by Linda Davies ]
[ History of Money ]
[ Biography of Glyn Davies ]
[ Other Money links - Past, Present & Future ]
[ Roy Davies' Home Page ]

Roy Davies - last updated 6 March 2013.