Pirate-Style Attack On Trinidad High Seas

 

 A day of fun at sea turned out to be an evening of terror when six men, in pirate-style, attacked a boat carrying 20 passengers, killing one and injuring seven others.

The Trinidad Express reported that 42-year-old Assim Ali, a carpenter from Cunupia, was killed by a gunshot wound.

Three others remained in serious condition at the hospital and another received minor injuries.

According to the newspaper, the gunmen had targeted six persons that were part of a group of 20, who went on the trip and were on their way back near Five Islands when the 25-foot pirogue was “rammed” on the port side by another boat. The occupants thought it was an accident, but the speedboat that hit the pirogue began to circle the vessel and two of the six men who had guns started to open fire on the group.

The first shot struck the boat’s engine and followed by a barrage of bullets sending the occupants to dive for cover.

Source: Caribbean Net News

Woman ‘Killed As She Tried To Leave Ku Klux Klan Initiation’

A woman invited to a rural Louisiana campsite for a Ku Klux Klan initiation ritual was shot and killed after she asked to be taken back to town, the sheriff of a New Orleans suburb said yesterday.

Eight people were arrested after authorities found the woman’s body hidden under some brush, on the side of a road several miles from the remote campsite where the initiation was planned. 

Investigators found weapons, several flags and six Klan robes at the campsite, St. Tammany Parish Sheriff Jack Strain said in a news release.

 Strain said the woman, whose identity was not released, was recruited over the internet to participate in the ritual and then return to her home state of Oklahoma to find other members for the white supremacist group.

 But Strain said the group’s leader, Raymond “Chuck” Foster, 44, shot and killed the woman on Sunday after a fight broke out when she tried to leave. Foster was charged with second-degree murder.

 Captain George Bonnett, a spokesman for the sheriff’s department, said he didn’t know what the initiation involved.

 ”We haven’t completely sorted out if they finished the initiation,” he said. “I assume that they had started it, but I don’t know if they were finished.”

Source: The Independent

Global Economic Crisis Not Hurting Mafia

   The Italian Mafia, the country’s organized crime network and biggest enterprise, has not been affected by the global economic crisis, a report by an Italian business association said on Tuesday.

The Mafia has a turnover of 130 billion euros (US$163 billion) — surpassing any other Italian enterprise this year — and a profit approaching 70 billion euros, said the report by Confesercenti, a group of 270,000 businesses specializing in the tourism and service sectors.

An official from the group said the Mafia could use the current weakness in other businesses to boost its position.

The main revenue sources for the Mafia are drug trafficking (59 billion euros), racketeering (9 billion euros) and usury (12.6 billion euros). These are followed by arms trafficking, contraband and prostitution.

Source: Tapei Times

Elderly Men Sentenced For Human Trafficking

Despite pleas from defence lawyers for a non-custodial sentence, two elderly men were yesterday each sentenced to 12 months’ imprisonment for conspiracy to trafficking in persons involving a 14-year-old girl.

The men were the first persons to be charged in Jamaica with trafficking in persons. They pleaded guilty on Monday in the Home Circuit Court to the lesser offence of conspiracy to trafficking in persons.

Lisa Palmer, acting senior deputy director of public prosecutions, in outlining the facts of the case, said in May 2006, Graham and Stephens made plans to get the girl involved in prostitution.

The men approached an investigator from New Zealand who was in the island to conduct research into sexual exploitation and trafficking of women and children.

They told the man that they could get a young girl for him to have sexual intercourse with, but he would have to pay them US$400.

The money was paid to the men and the investigator reported the matter to the police. A sting operation was set up and on May 24, 2006, when the men turned up with the girl in the New Kingston area, the police swooped down and arrested and charged them.

They were found with the US$400 in their possession.

Source: Jamaica Gleaner