Investigators suspect a major organised crime syndicate in California was behind the alleged shipment of $10 million of ecstasy intercepted in Italy last week, over which Australian Simon Main has been charged. The United States Drug Enforcement Authority and Customs Service are investigating 30-year-old Main's background and that of the other man arrested, Briton Alex Bruell, to see if they are linked to known crime figures. Investigators say Main made several trips in and out of the US this year. They will now try to trace his movements for clues to who else might have been involved in the alleged smuggling operation. [continues 301 words]
THE increasing popularity of British-style pubs is being blamed for Italian youngsters hitting the bottle. According to figures released by the Permanent Observatory on Young People and Alcohol in Rome, 12 per cent of 18 to 25-year-olds now have a "serious drink problem". The trend, described as an alien drinking culture and a "worrying new phenomenon", is being blamed on the increasing availability of alcohol and youngsters' growing desire to get drunk. Roberto Montalto, the director of the National Association Against Alcoholism, called it the "the culture of getting wasted". He said: "Alcohol is a drug and is often the most readily available and affordable. Italian youngsters are treating it like ecstasy." [continues 275 words]
ROME (AP) The founder of Italy's Radical Party was convicted for the second time Tuesday of handing out free hashish. Marco Pannella was ordered to pay a $3,700 fine and given a suspended sentence of two months and 20 days. The case dated to December 1995, when he handed out about 3 grams of hashish to crowds in Rome's central Piazza Navona. Pannella has long crusaded for the legalization of hashish and marijuana, contending it would cripple the Mafia's lucrative drug-dealing business. [continues 87 words]
VATICAN CITY - The head of the Vatican's Swiss Guard unveiled reforms Tuesday, including psychological exams for new recruits, one year after a disgruntled guard shot to death his commander, the commander's wife and then killed himself. The killings, the first in the Vatican in 150 years, prompted the papal security force to review their recruiting procedures and regulations. "There are many scars and open wounds that are silent witnesses of May 4, 1998," said Col. Pius Segmueller, the force's new leader. [continues 176 words]
PRINCE Serge of Yugoslavia, a grandson of the last king of Italy, should stand trial on charges of drug dealing, say Turin prosecutors. The ruling is a fresh blow for Italy's troubled house of Savoy weeks after it was rocked by murder. The 36-year-old son of Princess Maria Pia of Savoy, daughter of King Umberto II, was allegedly caught by detectives last year buying cocaine in Turin, where, despite having an official Monte Carlo residence, he has a home and works as a design consultant. Magistrates say they have photographs to back their claims, together with evidence from witnesses. [continues 258 words]
A summary of the judicial findings confirmed the Vatican's assertion, immediately after the tragedy last May, that Vice-Corporal Cedric Tornay, 23, killed Colonel Alois Estermann, 44, the newly appointed head of the Pope's protection force, and his wife Gladys, 49, in a "fit of madness". It said that Vice-Corporal Tornay was mentally unstable, had felt persecuted by Colonel Estermann, and resented being passed over for a military honour. Muguette Baudat-Tornay, Vice-Corporal Tornay's mother, contested the Vatican's conclusions, insisting that her son had been "framed" as part of a Vatican plot to eliminate the new commander. Nicola Picardi, the Vatican lawyer who led the inquiry,said traces of cannabis were found in Vice-Corporal Tornay's body after the murder. [end]
INVESTIGATORS said yesterday that the worst Mafia-style massacre in Italy in eight years was probably related to a clash for control of drug trafficking in Sicily. They said they feared the shootings in Sicily on Saturday night could signal the start of a new war among crime clans in the south-east of the island after a period of relative peace. Five men in their 20s and 30s were mowed down in a burst of at least 40 bullets by two men who burst into a bar at a petrol station on Saturday night. [continues 363 words]
ROME, Jan 3 (Reuters) - Investigators said on Sunday that the worst Mafia-style massacre in Italy in eight years was probably related to a clash among crime clans for control of drug trafficking in Sicily. They said they feared the shootings in Sicily on Saturday night could signal the start of a new war among crime clans in the southeast of the island after a period of relative peace. Five men in their 20s and 30s were mowed down in a hail of gunfire by two men who burst into a bar of a petrol station on Saturday night. [continues 365 words]
Nestled in Italy's Tuscan hills is a monastery turned hotel where the rich rub shoulders with reforming junkies - and pay for the privilege. Alan Franks retreats himself Considering that I was the only guest, there seemed to be an awful lot of covert activity at the Convento di St Francesco. There were people vanishing like shadows across the cloistered courtyards, and raised voices behind the closed doors of the refectory. One explanation was that the legendary Padre Eligio was here. Present or not, the mere size of this man's reputation is enough to make anyone look lively. [continues 1777 words]
Go ahead, indulge your chocolate fantasies. They may make you fat, they may make you happy, but they won't, apparently, make you high. Scientists in Italy reported today that, contrary to earlier reports, certain substances in chocolate do not appear to mimic the effects of marijuana on the brain. The Italian researchers reported that cocoa contains no more of the suspect substances than such uncelebrated foods as milk or oatmeal. Furthermore, they said, most of the substances -- known as endocannabinoids -- are broken down in the digestive system before they reach the brain. [continues 369 words]
TOBIACH, Italy, Dec 13 (Reuters) - Three women Nordic skiers have failed dope tests carried out during World Cup races in northern Italy, news agency ANSA reported on Sunday. It said the three, two Norwegians and a Ukranian, were found to have higher-than-permitted levels of red blood cells in a test carried out on Saturday morning in Tobiach. They did not compete in Saturday's five-km cross-country event. It said all three women were found to have haematocrit levels of above 16.5, the highest level permitted by the International Ski Federation. [continues 91 words]
MILAN, Italy (AP) - Primo Nebiolo, president of track and field's governing body, wants a uniform anti-drug program that will encompass all sports worldwide. Nebiolo, who touched off a controversy last month when he pointed to tennis, cycling and volleyball as sports that refused to sign an Olympic accord unifying anti-drug programs, said all sports federations should join the effort. Nebiolo made the comments in a letter to Italy's largest sports daily newspaper, Gazzetta dello Sport. "We must work out new measures for blocking this dangerous moral drift," the letter said. [continues 87 words]
'There Are Risks Inherent In Relapse To Heroin Intake Following Abstinence From The Drug' Respiratory suppression after heroin overdose is the most common cause of death among heroin users, but the reasons why some users have a higher risk of death than others are unclear. Morphine, the main active metabolite of heroin, is deposited in the hair of heroin users, and analysis of hair samples can show the history of addiction over several months. Franco Tagliaro and colleagues obtained hair samples from 37 heroin overdose fatalities, 37 active heroin users, 37 former heroin users, and 20 non-users from Verona, Italy. The researchers found that the hair of the overdose-fatality cases contained much less morphine than that of the active heroin users, suggesting virtual abstinence from the drug in the months preceding death. Low heroin tolerance following abstinence may lead to a corresponding decrease in the size of a fatal dose. These findings have implications for the future management of detoxification programmes. [end]
ITALY'S institutions, and especially its police, yesterday gloated over the re-arrest of Pasquale Cuntrera, the Mafia drugs baron whose disappearance in a wheelchair triggered a political storm last week. Cuntrera, 63, was caught with his wife by Italian and local agents near Malaga in Spain, 18 days after vanishing from Italy. He disappeared after walking free on a technicality from Parma prison, days before a supreme court decision to uphold his 21-year sentence. News of his release on May 6 was faxed to Sicilian magistrates, who should have ordered his re-arrest pending the imminent court decision. But for five days the fax sat unseen on someone's desk. When it was finally noticed, Cuntrera, dubbed European's number one drugs boss, had already fled Italy. [continues 159 words]
ROME (AP) -- In a nationwide sweep, Italian police arrested 21 people on charges of money laundering and criminal association, according to a media report Wednesday. No figures were available, but the AGI news agency said a ``huge'' amount of money was involved. It said the money reportedly came from a vast arms and drug trafficking ring involving Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands and Montecarlo, as well as Italy. AGI said the police investigation began in Florence last September. Another 57 people are reportedly under investigation, it said. [end]
NPR's Tom Gjelten profiles Pino Arlacchi, who took charge o the United Nations Drug Control Program in September and says he intends to stop worldwide production of illegal cocaine and opium within 10 years. He wants to begin in Afghanistan, where the Taliban relies on cultivation of coca plants and poppies for much of its revenue. Arlacchi's goal is considered overly ambitious, but he says it can be attained. He earned his crimefighting reputation as director of a special antiMafia task force in Italy. [continues 925 words]
Pannella, founder of the Radical Party and now leader of the Pannella List party, gave away what his aides estimated was $85,000 on Friday as most of the city was deserted for a national holiday. Thousands lined up in the square outside Rome's city hall atop the Capitoline Hill to receive a 50,000lire ($28) note. Last month, Pannella, who's been nicknamed Robin Hood, gave away $110,000 in northern Italy. The giveaways with three more planned for northern Italy in coming weeks are part of his campaign to reform the financing of political parties. Pannella has used stunts before to make his point. Several years ago, he distributed free marijuana at a Roman flea market to get publicity for his campaign to legalize the drug. [end]
By THOMAS H. MAUGH II Los Angeles Times letters@latimes.com In a finding sure to add fuel to the debate over the medical and recreational use of marijuana, two new studies released today strongly suggest pot is a "gateway" drug that leads some people on to abuse of socalled hard drugs, such as cocaine and heroin. One study in Science magazine, produced by a team at the Scripps Research Institute in San Diego, demonstrates that the stress and anxiety associated with withdrawal from longterm use of marijuana produce the same biochemical changes associated with withdrawal from the harder drugs. This is the "negative reinforcement" that causes a person to take more drugs to alleviate the stress. [continues 536 words]
NAPLES, Italy (Reuter) A former CIA agent and 64 other people, including financiers from across Europe, will stand trial as part of an investigation into an international crime ring, Italian state prosecutors said Wednesday. Alfredo Ormanni, chief prosecutor of the southern town of Torre Annunziata, near Naples, said former U.S. Central Intelligence Agency officer Roger d'Onofrio and the others would face charges of money laudering, false accounting and producing fake government bonds, which were distributed throughout Europe. The date for the first hearing was not immediately known. [continues 165 words]
ROME, May 12 (Reuter) Police arrested eight Albanians on Monday on charges of smuggling marijuana with a street value of some $34 million into Italy by boat. Police said they found the drugs when they intercepted at least six boats bringing illegal immigants to Italy on the southeastern coast between the towns of Brindisi and Lecce. Nearly 580 kilos (1,300 lb) of the drug were seized on different vessels. A further 126 Albanian illegal immigrants were detained in the operation and were likely to be sent home. [continues 67 words]
Inside Italy
