Japanese Mafia Responsible for Two Gun Murders in Two Days

Opinione

Japan Daily Press reports the latest incident involving the yukuza in the southern island of Kyushu.

The head of one of Japan’s fishing unions was shot dead on Friday in the southern city of Kitakyushu, Fukuoka Prefecture. This was the second fatal gun-related incident in as many days in a country that is not used to violent crimes that involve firearms.

Joke

An old Italian Mafia Don is dying and he calls his grandson
to his bed!
'Lissin-a me. I wanna for you to taka my chrome plated
38 revolver so you will always remember me.'
'But grandpa, I really don't lika guns. Howzabout
you leava me your Rolex watch instead?'
'Shuddup an lissin. Somma day you gonna runna da
business.....you gonna have a beautifula wife, lotsa money,
a biga home and maybe a couple a bambinos'
'Somma day you gonna comma home and maybe find you wife
inna bed with another man. Whadda you gonna do then.......
pointa to your watch and say 'Times up'?

The Making of The Godfather

Via Jason Kottke's wonderful site, I discovered the article The Godfather Wars, written by Mark Seal for this month's edition of Vanity Fair. It chronicles the real-life struggle which took place behind the scenes between Hollywood and the New York Mob during the making of the famous film.

In many ways, the men who made The Godfather—director Francis Ford Coppola, producer Al Ruddy, Paramount executives Robert Evans and Peter Bart, and Gulf & Western boss Charles Bluhdorn—were as ruthless as the gangsters in Mario Puzo’s blockbuster. After violent disputes over the casting of Marlon Brando and Al Pacino, they tangled with the real-life Mob, which didn’t want the movie made at all. The author recalls how the clash of Hollywood sharks, Mafia kingpins, and cinematic geniuses shaped a Hollywood masterpiece.

Fans of The Godfather movies will love this article. For us any background is anxiously gobbled up, especially a story which contains a glimpse into the family of Al Lettieri who played the unforgettable Virgil "The Turk" Sollozzo. Al died much too young of a heart attack, just a few years after this.

The best part happened after the story was published in Vanity Fair. Described here, entitled Meadow Soprano is on the Line, it's almost too good to be true. Lettieri's niece contacted the magazine and agreed to be interviewed in order to flesh out the story, as it were.

The real Mafia played a significant—if hidden—role in the creation of Francis Ford Coppola’s masterpiece The Godfather, and Mark Seal’s story in the 2009 Hollywood Issue (“The Godfather Wars”) detailed most of it. But one of the most remarkable anecdotes came to light only after the magazine was published, when the daughter of a reputed mobster told V.F. how her family befriended, tutored, and overfed the Corleones.

Here's the video of the author, followed by one of the greatest scenes ever. The Italian which Al Pacino is supposed to have learned in the Lettieri family home in Fort Lee served him well. He sounds exactly like a first-generation Italian American more comfortable with English. Their conversation, by the way, is actually more Sicilian than Italian.

Giuseppe Setola, Camorra Boss, Captured

It's big news in Italy this morning that one of the rising bosses of the Camorra has been captured by the police. The International Herald Tribune has the story in English.

Investigators say the mobster Giuseppe Setola masterminded a terror spree that has bloodied the Caserta area of southern Italy for several months in a power struggle within the Camorra crime syndicate.

With a reputation as a sharpshooting hit-man, Setola, 38, has been convicted of murder and sentenced in absentia to life in prison. He escaped in the spring from house arrest, which was granted so he could recover from a purported eye problem.

Setola "was trying to escape by rooftop, further proof that he sees very well," Carabinieri paramilitary police Col. Carmelo Burgio told Sky TG24 TV.

The Italian police and legal system are known more for their bumbling bureaucracy than for their efficiency. Imagine a convicted murderer faking an eye ailment and getting house arrest out of the deal.

The brutality of Setola's world was dramatically described in the book by Roberto Saviano, which became the film Gomorra. It has received international acclaim as an amazing portrayal of what these Neapolitan gangsters have been getting up to.

What occurred to me, looking at Giuseppe Setola on TV this morning, was how normal he looks. This is not always the case, some of these guys look like the thugs they are, but I saw Setola smiling as the police were escorting him, and not in that lunatic way, but smiling like a regular guy. One quote said that at the moment of his arrest he said to the cops, "All right, you win."

The truth is he and the scores of young men who take orders from him are cold-blooded killers of the first order. How do you think people get like that? Are they born that way? Is it learned in childhood? Is it like James Gandolfini's character said in the great movie, True Romance?

"Now the first time you kill somebody that's the hardest. I don't give a shit if you're funckin' Wyatt Earp or Jack the Ripper..." (his speech starts at 3:40)

Israel's Mob Wars

CNN reports on a fascinating situation in Israel. It seems that while the Israeli police and indeed the world have been focusing on Palestinian terrorism, mafia-like business has been thriving. Head of a powerful underworld family, Yaakov Alperon was killed instantly in a bomb blast, which in spite of the official family statement that those responsible will have to answer to God, will probably be followed by additional violence.




What do you think? Is it surprising that in Tel Aviv there are a number of organized crime families? How does this fit with what Bob S. has pointed out to us a number of times, that armed teachers in Israeli schools are responsible for the fact that they don't have school shootings? I had pictured Israel as an organized and apart from the Palestinian threat, fairly peaceful place, but this mob hit on Alperon makes me wonder. What's your opinion?

FBI Agent on Trial for Murder and Conspiracy

CNN reports on the complicated trial of an FBI Agent mixed up with a Boston hit man who was convicted of killing a gambling czar in Miami in 1982. John Martorano spent just over 12 years in prison after pleading guilty to killing the former World Jai-Alai president John Callahan and admitting to 19 other murders. Now free, the 67-year-old's agreement with prosecutors requires him to testify against John Connolly, former Agent with the FBI.

CBS Springfield has a good description of the intricacies of the case.

A hit man for Boston's notorious Winter Hill Gang pulled the trigger that killed John Callahan, but Connolly was equally responsible, prosecutor Fred Wyshak told a jury. Wyshak is a Boston federal prosecutor working as a special assistant in the Miami trial."He gave sensitive information to gangsters, who used that information to protect themselves. And (they) used that information to kill people. One of those people was John Callahan," Wyshak said of Connolly.

Connolly, 68, faces life in prison if convicted of first-degree murder and murder conspiracy charges.

What occurs to me is that people like this hit man, Martorano, are much more culpable than some of the other characters we've discussed on this blog. Joseph Edward Duncan III, for example and Richard Cooey are men who have committed horrible crimes, for sure, but should be considered to have diminished capacity. The viciousness of their actions alone could be evidence of mental illness, but I'll bet there's a history of childhood abuse in both their cases. Little boys don't grow up to do that stuff otherwise.

The mob hit man, on the other hand, who received a sentence of 12 years, was recruited for the job because he was friends with the target. He "reluctantly" agreed to kill Callahan in Miami. To me that's more frightening and horrible than anything a mentally deranged young man might do.

The FBI Agent, Connolly, who's on trial now, not only fingered people to be murdered, but in so doing betrayed the public trust of his oath of office. That's far worse in my opinion than what the sickest murderers out there get up to.

Even in these cases, I oppose the death penalty. But in an attempt to establish a hierarchy of evil behaviour, I put these characters at the top, and then we can list the others.


What's your opinion?