Police in Cyprus have arrested a man on an Interpol wanted list suspected of belonging to the “Pink Panther” jewel thief gang, blamed for a string of audacious heists worldwide.
Rifat Hadziahmetovic, from Montenegro, was arrested on March 18 as he attempted to depart the east Mediterranean island on a forged Bulgarian passport, Cyprus police said.
A local magistrates’ court on Friday remanded the suspect in custody until March 31, when a hearing will start for his extradition to Spain, police spokesman Christos Andreou said.
“He was initially detained on suspicion of possession of forged documents, but further inquiries revealed he was wanted by Interpol for being a suspected part of the Pink Panther gang,” Andreou said.
He was also identified by a leg tattoo, he told Reuters.
The Pink Panthers are believed to have staged some 120 attacks on luxury stores in around 20 countries, since their first robbery in London’s exclusive Mayfair district in 2003.
They pulled off one of their most spectacular heists last December, when they walked away with up to 85 million euros ($114 million) worth of goods after entering the Harry Winston jewellers in central Paris disguised as women.
Global police agency Interpol said fingerprint checks positively identified Hadziahmetovic, 41, wanted for armed robberies across the world, including in Bahrain, Japan, Spain and the United Arab Emirates.
The Pink Panther nickname refers to the debonair gentleman diamond robber from the 1960s film. Interpol believes the group may have up to 200 members, many with military experience.
Michael Porfirio Mason
AKA The Peoples Champ
AKA GFK, Jr.
AKA The Sly, Slick and the Wicked
AKA The Voodoo Child
The Guide to Getting More out of Life
http://www.thegmanifesto.com
As the first pirate attack of a U.S. ship in 200 years comes to a climax, I’m re-posting an essay I solicited and received several weeks ago from K’naan, a Somali-Canadian singer and activist. A video of a performance by K’naan that I filmed at the All Points West music festival last summer appears below. — Michael Vazquez
Why We Don’t Condemn Our Pirates
by K’naan
Can anyone ever really be for piracy? Outside of sea bandits, and young girls fantasizing of Johnny Depp, would anyone with an honest regard for good human conduct really say that they are in support of Sea Robbery?
Well, in Somalia, the answer is: it’s complicated.
The news media these days has been covering piracy in the Somali coast with such
lop-sided journalism, that it’s lucky they’re not on a ship themselves. It’s true that the constant hijacking of vessels in the Gulf of Aden is a major threat to the vibrant trade route between Asia and Europe. It is also true that for most of the pirates operating in this vast shoreline, money is the primary objective.
But according to so many Somalis, the disruption of Europe’s darling of a trade route, is just Karma biting a perpetrator in the butt. And if you don’t believe in Karma, maybe you believe in recent history. Here is why we Somalis find ourselves slightly shy of condemning our pirates.
Somalia has been without any form of a functioning government since 1991. And although its failures, like many other toddler governments in Africa, sprung from the wells of post-colonial independence, bad governance and development loan sharks, the specific problem of piracy was put in motion in 1992.
After the overthrow of Siyad Barre, our charmless dictator of twenty-some-odd years, two major forces of the Hawiye Clan came to power. At the time, Ali Mahdi, and General Mohamed Farah Aidid, the two leaders of the Hawiye rebels, were largely considered liberators. But the unity of the two men and their respective sub-clans was very short-lived. It’s as if they were dumbstruck at the advent of ousting the dictator, or that they just forgot to discuss who will be the leader of the country once they defeated their common foe.
A disagreement of who will upgrade from militia leader to Mr. President broke up their honeymoon. It’s because of this disagreement that we’ve seen one of the most decomposing wars in Somalia’s history, leading to millions displaced and hundreds of thousands dead.
But war is expensive and militias need food for their families, and Jaad (an amphetamine-based stimulant) to stay awake for the fighting. Therefore, a good clan -based Warlord must look out for his own fighters. Aidid’s men turned to robbing aid trucks carrying food to the starving masses, and re-selling it to continue their war. But Ali Mahdi had his sights set on a larger and more unexploited resource, namely: the Indian Ocean.
K’NAAN – Somalia
Already by this time, local fishermen in the coastline of Somalia have been complaining of illegal vessels coming to Somali waters and stealing all the fish. And since there was no government to report it to, and since the severity of the violence clumsily overshadowed every other problem, the fishermen went completely unheard.
But it was around this same time that a more sinister, a more patronizing practice was being put in motion. A Swiss firm called Achair Parterns, and an Italian waste company called Achair Parterns, made a deal with Ali Mahdi, that they were to dump containers of waste material in Somali waters. These European companies were said to be paying Warlords about $3 a ton, whereas to properly dispose of waste in Europe costs about $1000 a ton.
In 2004, after a tsunami washed ashore several leaking containers, thousand of locals in the Puntland region of Somalia started to complain of severe and previously unreported ailments, such as abdominal bleeding, skin melting off and a lot of immediate cancer-like symptoms. Nick Nuttall, a spokesman for the United Nations Environmental Program, says that the containers had many different kinds of waste, including “Uranium, radioactive waste, lead, Cadmium, Mercury and chemical waste.” But this wasn’t just a passing evil from one or two groups taking advantage of our unprotected waters. The UN envoy for Somalia, Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, says that the practice still continues to this day. It was months after those initial reports that local fishermen mobilized themselves, along with street militias, to go into the waters and deter the Westerners from having a free pass at completely destroying Somalia’s aquatic life. Now years later, the deterring has become less noble, and the ex-fishermen with their militias have begun to develop a taste for ransom at sea. This form of piracy is now a major contributor to the Somali economy, especially in the very region that private toxic waste companies first began to burry our nation’s death trap.
The toxic truth
Now Somalia has upped the world’s pirate attacks by over 21 percent in one year, and while NATO and the EU are both sending forces to the Somali coast to try and slow down the attacks, Blackwater and all kinds of private security firms are intent on cashing in. But while Europeans are well in their right to protect their trade interest in the region, our pirates were the only deterrent we had from an externally imposed environmental disaster. No one can say for sure that some of the ships they are now holding for ransom were not involved in illegal activity in our waters. The truth is, if you ask any Somali, if getting rid of the pirates only means the continuous rape of our coast by unmonitored Western Vessels, and the producing of a new cancerous generation, we would all fly our pirate flags high.
It is time that the world gave the Somali people some assurance that these Western illegal activities will end, if our pirates are to seize their operations. We do not want the EU and NATO serving as a shield for these nuclear waste-dumping hoodlums. It seems to me that this new modern crisis is truly a question of justice, but also a question of whose justice.
As is apparent these days, one man’s pirate is another man’s coast guard.
Michael Porfirio Mason
AKA The Peoples Champ
AKA GFK, Jr.
AKA The Sly, Slick and the Wicked
AKA The Voodoo Child
The Guide to Getting More out of Life
http://www.thegmanifesto.com
Be very wary of Western Media. My best college Professor told our class: “Half of what you read in the Newspaper is a lie”. Too which I said, “Well, then why don’t you read half the paper?”. Which in turn made everyone in the class laugh, including a fly girl that became a San Diego Charger Cheerleader. I swooped her. But that’s neither dope Champagna nor Tony Montana.
Anyways, the point I am trying to make is don’t believe everything our country is telling you about the Somali “Pirates” and how horrible they are.
Following the collapse of the Somali regime in 1991 The “International Community” (Italy, France, Spain, Greece, Russia, Britain, Ukraine, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, India, Yemen, Egypt and many others.) has been illegally poaching and destroying the Somali Marine Resources.
This Illegal, Unregulated and Unlicensed fishing is destroying fish stock, marine life, and the habitats.
Illegal, Unregulated and Unlicensed fishing are using trawlers in even the inshore areas of reserved for artisanal fishing.
These illegally caught fish are “laundered” with legitimately caught fish.
Since Somalia has not had a functioning “Coast Guard”, the rest of the world has taken advantage of the situation as they have vastly over fished their own seas.
Many Somali fisherman have been killed by trawlers and had their fishing nets destroyed over the last 18 years.
In 2005 there were over 800 illegal fishing vessels At One Time in Somali waters.
Over $450 Million in fish annually, have been taken illegally from Somali waters with out paying tax or royalties to the Somali People. And since it is unregulated, they have not paid attention to conservation or the environment.
A bunch of other complicated license scams have been run, which I can’t explain because even I think the shit is confusing.
The Somali’s have complained to the UN at least three times. No one listened.
Shyne – That’s Gangsta
Industrial, Nuclear and Toxic waste have been dumped in Somali waters. The waste has caused deformed babies and killed many people.
Somali fishermen in various regions of the country also complained to the international community about the illegal foreign fishing, stealing the livelihoods of poor fishermen, waste dumping and other ecological disasters, including the indiscriminate use of all prohibited methods of fishing: drift nets, under water explosives, killing all “endangered species” like sea-turtles, orca, sharks, baby whales, etc. as well as destroying reef, biomass and vital fish habitats in the sea.
Now, who are the “Pirates”?
So what do you expect the Somali Fisherman to do?
Lay down?
Imagine what would happen if you fished illegally and dumped waste off the coast of San Diego?
Ill tell you, you would have every San Diego Fisherman and Surfer blowing up your boats.
Try dumping toxic waste on The North Shore. Or try dumping chemical waste on Maroubra Beach and see what The Bra Boys do.
If nuclear waste was dumped on your beach you’d grab a cutlass, too.
And you would stop him in his tracks and show him you are Ruthless.
A couple more points to bring up:
Piracy is the result of one thing: Rebellion to unjust activity.
Sure the Pirates are living it up, smoking hashish, boozing, swooping mad girls, and chowing down stimulants. Who can blame them? I would too. In fact, they sound like some cool cats to roll with.
Now that we killed a few Somali “Pirates”, the Somali people are completely backing the Pirates. So are the Islamic Militants.
The Hornet’s Nest has been stirred.
And we cannot fight another war on another front (See The Art of War).
Remember one thing: What did America do, in the days of George Washington, before we had a Coast Guard?
We used Pirates.
The Somali Pirates: The Most Radical Revolutionaries of our Generation.
Let’s make peace in Somalia. Then we can go over and swoop Fly Somalian Girls.
The Rest is Up to You…
Michael Porfirio Mason
AKA The Peoples Champ
AKA GFK, Jr.
AKA The Sly, Slick and the Wicked
AKA The Voodoo Child
The Guide to Getting More out of Life
http://www.thegmanifesto.com
Somali pirates seized ships from France, Britain, Germany, Taiwan and Yemen, defying world naval powers by prowling further out in the Indian Ocean to target victims.
Ransom-hunting pirates equipped with skiffs, guns and grapnels took five ships in 48 hours, the two latest on Monday targeting a British cargo ship and a Taiwanese fishing vessel.
At least 17 ships and more than 250 hostages are now in pirate hands.
Ice Cube – Wicked
“There were two more hijackings today. There is one Italian-operated British-owned ship and a Taiwanese vessel near the Seychelles,” an official involved in regional piracy monitoring told AFP on condition of anonymity.
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The Seychelles government said it received a distress call saying that a Taiwanese fishing vessel, the MV Winfar 161, and its 29 crew was hijacked in its exclusive economic zone, north of Denis island.
Transport Minister Joel Morgan said military forces had been deployed to intercept the pirates, amid reports that three more Taiwanese ships were trying to escape capture.
The information centre of the European Union’s anti-piracy naval mission Atalanta confirmed the hijacking of the British Panama-flagged Malaspina Castle.
“A 32,000 tonne UK-owned and Italian-operated bulk carrier was hijacked early this morning in the Gulf of Aden … the mixed nationality crew are believed to be safe,” it said.
The maritime administration in Sofia said 16 crew members were Bulgarians.
“We are in the middle of the risk zone for piracy, however nothing to report,” it said.
An earlier post said: “The danger exists, and it has undoubtedly grown in recent months, but the ocean is vast. The pirates must not ruin our dream.”
Hundreds of ransom-hunting Somali pirates have hijacked dozens of ships over the past year, mostly merchant vessels plying one of the world’s busiest maritime trade routes.
They operate from skiffs towed by pirate “mother ships”, which are often hijacked fishing vessels. Last year, their haul included a Ukrainian cargo loaded with combat tanks and a Saudi supertanker.
More than 130 attacks, including close to 50 successful hijackings, were reported in 2008, threatening the vital shipping lane and spurring the international community into joint naval action.
The number of attacks had dipped since the start of the year, owing to an increased international naval presence and unfavourable seas.
But some pirate groups have ventured far into the Indian Ocean, southeast of Somalia, to target ships further out at sea.
Michael Porfirio Mason
AKA The Peoples Champ
AKA GFK, Jr.
AKA The Sly, Slick and the Wicked
AKA The Voodoo Child
The Guide to Getting More out of Life
http://www.thegmanifesto.com
I just finished this article by Matt Taibbi, its long, but worth reading on the real. There are very few writers on the internet that write long articles that are worth reading. Joshua Davis who wrote Leonardo Notarbartolo: The World’s Biggest Diamond Heist Matt Taibbi, and myself.
Here is The Big Takeover:
It’s over — we’re officially, royally fucked. No empire can survive being rendered a permanent laughingstock, which is what happened as of a few weeks ago, when the buffoons who have been running things in this country finally went one step too far. It happened when Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner was forced to admit that he was once again going to have to stuff billions of taxpayer dollars into a dying insurance giant called AIG, itself a profound symbol of our national decline — a corporation that got rich insuring the concrete and steel of American industry in the country’s heyday, only to destroy itself chasing phantom fortunes at the Wall Street card tables, like a dissolute nobleman gambling away the family estate in the waning days of the British Empire.
Clipse – Big Dreams
The latest bailout came as AIG admitted to having just posted the largest quarterly loss in American corporate history — some $61.7 billion. In the final three months of last year, the company lost more than $27 million every hour. That’s $465,000 a minute, a yearly income for a median American household every six seconds, roughly $7,750 a second. And all this happened at the end of eight straight years that America devoted to frantically chasing the shadow of a terrorist threat to no avail, eight years spent stopping every citizen at every airport to search every purse, bag, crotch and briefcase for juice boxes and explosive tubes of toothpaste. Yet in the end, our government had no mechanism for searching the balance sheets of companies that held life-or-death power over our society and was unable to spot holes in the national economy the size of Libya (whose entire GDP last year was smaller than AIG’s 2008 losses).
So it’s time to admit it: We’re fools, protagonists in a kind of gruesome comedy about the marriage of greed and stupidity. And the worst part about it is that we’re still in denial — we still think this is some kind of unfortunate accident, not something that was created by the group of psychopaths on Wall Street whom we allowed to gang-rape the American Dream. When Geithner announced the new $30 billion bailout, the party line was that poor AIG was just a victim of a lot of shitty luck — bad year for business, you know, what with the financial crisis and all. Edward Liddy, the company’s CEO, actually compared it to catching a cold: “The marketplace is a pretty crummy place to be right now,” he said. “When the world catches pneumonia, we get it too.” In a pathetic attempt at name-dropping, he even whined that AIG was being “consumed by the same issues that are driving house prices down and 401K statements down and Warren Buffet’s investment portfolio down.”
I. PATIENT ZERO
The best way to understand the financial crisis is to understand the meltdown at AIG. AIG is what happens when short, bald managers of otherwise boring financial bureaucracies start seeing Brad Pitt in the mirror. This is a company that built a giant fortune across more than a century by betting on safety-conscious policyholders — people who wear seat belts and build houses on high ground — and then blew it all in a year or two by turning their entire balance sheet over to a guy who acted like making huge bets with other people’s money would make his dick bigger.
That guy — the Patient Zero of the global economic meltdown — was one Joseph Cassano, the head of a tiny, 400-person unit within the company called AIG Financial Products, or AIGFP. Cassano, a pudgy, balding Brooklyn College grad with beady eyes and way too much forehead, cut his teeth in the Eighties working for Mike Milken, the granddaddy of modern Wall Street debt alchemists. Milken, who pioneered the creative use of junk bonds, relied on messianic genius and a whole array of insider schemes to evade detection while wreaking financial disaster. Cassano, by contrast, was just a greedy little turd with a knack for selective accounting who ran his scam right out in the open, thanks to Washington’s deregulation of the Wall Street casino. “It’s all about the regulatory environment,” says a government source involved with the AIG bailout. “These guys look for holes in the system, for ways they can do trades without government interference. Whatever is unregulated, all the action is going to pile into that.”
