Germany seizes $594m superyacht 'Dilbar'

Crew is 96, with room for 24 passengers in 12 suites. It has the largest pool ever installed on a yacht, two helicopter pads, a sauna, a beauty salon and a gym.

Russian billionaire Alisher Usmanov’s superyacht, Dilbar, the world’s largest by displacement, was seized by German authorities in Hamburg. It was there being refitted. The EU adopted sanctions on six of Russia’s wealthiest men, including Usmanov, who called the decision 'unfair' and 'defamatory.'

The yacht Amore Vero, owned by Igor Sechin, chief of Russian energy giant Rosneft was seized by France.

The five others sanctioned are Mikhail Fridman, Petr Aven, Alexey Mordashov, Gennady Timchenko and Alexander Ponomarenko. Biden mentioned Russian yachts in a recent speech ... “We are joining with our European allies to find and seize your yachts, your luxury apartments, your private jets.” At least five superyachts owned by Russian billionaires are now anchored or cruising in the Maldives, an Indian Ocean island nation with no extradition treaty with the US. The tracking of Russian yachts is the latest internet thing.

See #YachtWatch on Twitter.

See ----->Russian oligarchs losing yachts, villas in Italy

Favor for NL drug dealer = 30 months in jail

Steven Francis Noseworthy was found not guilty of money laundering while Jonathan Brandon Mahon bought copious time.

Nicklaus Travis, 32, was arrested the day he became involved in a drug trafficking operation. He was a pipefitter with no criminal record until the day in 2018 he agreed to do a favour for a man who was “like a brother” to him, Jonathan Mahon. That favour was to pick up cocaine from a courier and take it to a stash house. Travis was the last and smallest player of Project Broken, an RCMP investigation that began in May 2017. It led to the largest single cop seizure of illicit cash in NL history: more than $840k.

The value of the seizure was $1.4m. 6kg of cocaine; firearms; knives; five vehicles, including a Hummer and a Mercedes Benz; 15 phones; jewelry and designer clothing was seized. Mahon pleaded guilty and received seven years along with Michael Smith. Thomas Brown was sentenced to 44 months. Charlotte Toomey bought 30 months.

Matthew Alexander Navas-Rivas whacked - Update II

Kane Carter, 26, has been charged with second degree murder more than four years after an innocent teenager was killed in a public shooting in Vancouver. Alfred Wong, a high school student, was in the back seat of the family car on Jan. 13, 2018, when he was caught in the crossfire of a gunfight. Wong was killed, as was gangster Kevin Whiteside. Cops said Whiteside was in the area to kill Matthew Navas-Rivas, 28, who was dining out in a restaurant.

Kevin Whiteside, 23

Matthew Alexander Navas-Rivas enjoys a cruise a day before he was killed.

Navas-Rivas admitted to other gangsters in the preceding months that he knew he was in danger of being whacked. Navas-Rivas was targeted, as was his close associate Troy McKinnon who was murdered in Nanaimo. Violence occurred in federal prison, including two stabbings of Wolf Pack assassin Dean Wiwchar. Wiwchar was attacked in Kent Institution by inmates associated with McKinnon and Navas-Rivas. Both men were associated with the Wolf Pack.

Matthew Alexander Navas-Rivas became the city's 12th homicide after being shot just before 8 p.m. Navas-Rivas and a friend were walking their dogs when a person approached and shot him at point blank range. He was taken to hospital but died a short time later. His friend was unharmed. Navas-Rivas was very well known to police and was involved in gang activity. He was arrested on 39 gun charges. In 2013 he was convicted of holding a family at gunpoint. Both he and his co-accused in that case, Derek Stephens, are tied to the Independent Soldiers gang.

See ----->Larry Amero, Dean Wiwchar and Rabih Alkhalil in court

Gambino associate guilty in ‘pants on fire’ torching of Mercedes = 10 years

Tuccio was sentenced to a mandatory 10 years and ordered to pay more than $75,000 in restitution.

Peter Tuccio, 27, pleaded guilty to felony extortion for torching the Mercedes of a Queens businessman who stopped making payoffs to a miffed mob captain. The arson didn’t go quite as planned: co-conspirator Gino Gabrielli set himself on fire. Gabrielli, accompanied by Tuccio, turned up at hospital for treatment of 3rd degree burns.

In December 2015, Tuccio and two others chased a businessman at high rates of speed through the streets of Queens. The unnamed businessman wanted to stop making $400 annual extortion payments to a Gambino crime family captain. That didn't go over well. Tuccio is linked to Mob boss Joseph “Skinny Joey” Merlino.

Two Narco jets land in Belize in 24 hours - update II

Belize cops have located an empty and abandoned Sabreliner jet. The Sabreliner is an American twin engine business jet first built in 1962. The planes can cost less than $200k and can carry 2 tonnes of cocaine. The second plane is a significantly more expensive 1980s Grumman Gulfstream G-III, which was found empty and buried in the mud. It might be worth $900k if it can be moved.

Two illegal landings were registered in Belize within 24 hours. The first aircraft landed in the north while the second landed in southern Belize, in the area of Graham Creek. Cops have not confirmed the landings but have reason to believe that both planes did land. Teams are currently on their way to the locations. It will take them up to 10 hours to get there. Belize is looking for help from the DEA; "It is challenging for us. We are working with our US counterpart, the DEA, to see what we can do to address the challenges that we are currently facing." Belize doesn't have its own radar tracking or interdiction capability, a fact known well by cocaine traffickers.

See ----->Narco planes in Belize

Russian oligarchs losing yachts, villas in Italy

Gennady Timchenko’s €50m yacht, Lena

Italian cops have seized villas and yachts worth at least €140m from four high profile Russians. Yachts belonging to Russia’s richest man, Alexei Mordashov, and Gennady Timchenko were impounded. A villa owned by billionaire Alisher Usmanov on Sardinia, and a villa on Lake Como owned by Vladimir Soloviev have been seized. Mordashov's 65 metre yacht the “Lady M”

Cartels on the hunt for Galil ACE

Mexican criminals have long been associated with foreign weapons like the AK-47 and M16. Today sicarios favour the Galil ACE, an Israeli rifle that is manufactured in Colombia. The Galil ACE is an official weapon for Mexican and Colombian cops. It is not restricted to use by the army, meaning its not automatically illegal to own.

Mob rat 'Frank Capri' pleads guilty in restaurant scam = 5 years

'Frank Capri' (Frank Gioia Jr.) was sentenced to five years in prison according to his plea agreement.

Frank Gioia Jr, was made and a third-generation soldier of the Lucchese crime family. In 1994 he turned rat after striking a deal with feds. He was released in 1999. As part of his deal, Gioia had his life imprisonment sentence reduced to six years. He went into the federal witness protection program and became Frank Capri. He moved to Arizona and became a conman.

Capri used plans to build up to 20 Toby Keith’s I Love This Bar and Grill restaurants to steal millions. Capri took up front fees in exchange for long term leases that weren’t honored.

After the Toby Keith restaurant scam collapsed, Capri orchestrated another - this time using the name of country music act Rascal Flatts. One restaurant opened in Stamford, Connecticut, in Aug 2017. It closed owing $1.2m a year later.

Capri and his companies have been ordered to pay more than $65m. Gioia Jr.'s former associates 'perp walk'

Tawny Costa is the mother of two of Frank Capri's children. She was the moll whose name all the restaurants were registered under.

980kg of cocaine seized by cops disappears in Guinea-Bissau

Seven suspects appeared in court in Bissau in a 980kg cocaine case, almost all of which has disappeared. "Last November, 980 kg were seized by the police, but 975 kg have simply disappeared into thin air. It is presumed that it was elements of the security and defence forces who seized this quantity of cocaine," Domingos Monteiro, the director of the judicial police, told the press a cop was arrested in the case. Guinea-Bissau experienced the 14th coup in its troubled history since independence from Portugal in 1974 Feb 1.

The president emerged unharmed after hours of gunfire that left 11 people dead. He sacked the commander of navy and the army's vice chief of staff.
See ----->Africa’s ‘narco-state' Guinea-Bissau

NC cop sold cocaine while on duty in patrol car

Raleigh cop Keven Rodriguez, 33, was charged with distributing cocaine and possession of a firearm in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime.

If convicted, Rodriguez faces a mandatory minimum of five years behind bars and a maximum sentence of life in prison.

Edmonton HA Alan Peter Knapczyk dies in jail

Alan Peter Knapczyk has died in prison at Matsqui. No details have been released.

Two men affiliated with the Edmonton chapter of the Hells Angels had five years tacked onto their prison sentences for conspiring to traffic cocaine and benefiting a criminal organization in 2017. Alberta’s Court of Appeal increased John Reginald Alcantara and Alan Peter Knapczyk’s sentences to 15 years from 10 years for acting as enforcers for a large Fort McMurray cocaine trafficking operation. In September 2012, both were sentenced to a decade in prison. At the time, Knapczyk was a full patch of the Edmonton Chapter, and Alcantara a prospect.

Jeffrey Mark Caines was handed 14 years as head of a huge drug trafficking ring.

The case stretches back to 2005, when Knapczyk and Alcantara agreed to provide protection for a Fort McMurray cocaine trafficker in exchange for $20k a week. Trafficker Jeffrey Mark Cains called in Knapczyk and Alcantara to intimidate the competition.

Carfentanil kills 24 in Argentina - Update

The cop probe has switched to the ‘Mameluco’ gang of convicted drug trafficker Miguel Ángel 'Mameluco' Villalba, who is serving 27 years in prison. Police carried out 38 raids across Greater Buenos Aires, with at least 17 arrests. The operation was ordered by the Federal Court of San Martin and resulted in a "large quantity of drugs" being seized. Evidence was found in both jail cells of Mameluco and his son Iván.

In an audio recording, Villalba orders an underling to “Get that off the street right now.”

Argentine investigators have identified the drug that adulterated cocaine that killed 24 and sickened 74 on the outskirts of Buenos Aires last week. Carfentanil, an opioid 10,000X stronger than morphine, 100 times stronger than fentanyl was found. Effects in humans start at about 1 microgram. 20 micrograms, a gain of salt, is often fatal.

All of the victims were desperately poor.

The victims bought the adulterated cocaine in Puerta 8, a slum known as a drug dealing hub on the outskirts of Buenos Aires.

Scott Steer - putting the 'P' into Poacher

Gabriola Island resident Scott Stanley Steer has landed in hot water, again. In the latest, the serial poacher led fisheries officers on a high-speed chase on March 2, 2020. The vessel he was driving had no navigational lights visible and he engaged in "evasive manoeuvres, including hairpin turns" and had "near collisions" in the chase to avoid capture. Steer was ultimately arrested after the chase, and was found to have more than 250 illegal crabs. Steer is off for another 6 months in jail and three years probation. He was also handed a lifetime fishing prohibition and a prohibition from being on any fishing vessel.

A forfeiture claim alleges Scott Steer has a 'prolific' history of illegal fishing violations and his assets are derived from crime. The B.C. government wants to seize a Gabriola Island home and more than $1.3m in cash from Steer.

Steer's career of stealing is extensive. Since 2008, there have been 15 different Fisheries and Oceans Canada files on him. He was sentenced to 45 days in jail and ordered to forfeit his crab fishing gear and vessel in 2016. It was his 4th offense. He has poached commercial fisheries, sea cucumbers and crabs for more than a dozen years. In May 2021, Steer was convicted of crab fishing yet again, including contravening his ban for being on a fishing vessel, possessing fishing gear, fishing without a licence, fishing during a closed time and possession of crab caught illegally.