Crime: Life Not Always Straight-and-Narrow
- December 20th, 2007
- Posted by EUEditor
Four suspected gangsters are arrested in Germany and Italy over a multiple shooting; a murderer gaoled in Poland after “spilling the beans” about his crime, in a book; and police go looking for crooks in the football clubs.
DUISBURG SHOOTINGS – ARRESTS
Police in Germany and Italy this week (18.12.07) arrested four suspects in the case of the gangland shooting at Duisburg last August.
Two men were caught in Southern Italy and two others not far from the German city where the crime took place.
All have been accused of murder, trading in weapons and membership of a criminal organisation.
Six men were killed in the shooting at a pizzeria.
Police said it was part of a conflict between two family groups within the ‘Ndrangheta, the Calabrian “mafia” which has extended its operations well beyond its Italian base.
A fifth man believed to have instigated the shootings is still at large, believed hiding in Calabria.
MURDER HE WROTE
In Poland a writer, Krystian Bala, 33, has gone to gaol for 25 years for the torture and murder of another man – after putting the details of his crime in a work of fiction.
Last year police had long-ago closed the case on an unsolved murder committed in 2000, where the body of Dariusz Janiszewski, an advertising executive was found in the Oder River, at Wroclaw – bound and choked with a noose.
Then an anonymous informant told them about a book published by Bala, called Amok, which included the story of a murder of a woman, done just like the death of Janiszewski – containing details only the actual killer would know of.
Checks on Bala revealed he had been adventure traveling in Asia at the time somebody in that region was posting messages on the Internet about the “perfect crime”.
As for a motive; it turned out Janiszewski had started a relationship with the killer’s former wife.
EUROPOL SETS UP FOR ANOTHER GOAL
After its success breaking up an international pedophiles ring, together with Australian police (See EUAusrtralia, Operation Koala; Child Pornography Arrests, 6.11.07), Europol has turned its attention to corruption and fraud on the sacred turf of European Football.
The Dutch-based EU police agency says it has been working with the football authority, UEFA, on the problem of match fixing.
It has issued a statement confirming its interest in the multi-billion-Euro industry: “The phenomenon of game fixing in organised sports is one of the areas that Europol has on the radar as a crime on the increase.”
Reference:
Ian Traynor, “Polish author jailed over killing he used as polt”, Guardian Unlimited, 6.9.07. http://books.guardian.co.uk/… , (20.12.07).
Deutsche Welle, Four Arrested for Mafia Killings in Germany, 18.12.07. http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,3010603,00.html?maca=en-tagesschau_englisch-335-rdf-mp, (20.12.07)
Europol, “UEFA contact to Europol regarding suspicions of betting fraud involving match fixing”, The Hague, 3.12.07. http://www.europol.europa.eu/…, (20.12.07)