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☆ Colombian president suspends ceasefire with criminal group
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-19 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

BOGOTA, March 19 (Reuters) - Colombian President Gustavo Petro on Sunday said he had suspended a ceasefire with the Clan del Golfo, the country's largest criminal organization, because it had attacked police. "I have ordered the armed forces to reactivate all military operations against the Clan del Golfo," Petro said in a tweet. Minutes later, Petro tweeted: "The rifle attack on the police force by the Clan del Golfo breaks the ceasefire.... Days earlier, in a radio interview on March 13, Petro accused the group of destroying a municipal aqueduct in Antioquia province amid roadblocks connected to protests by informal gold miners. Petro said the group had "broken the ceasefire" and there was no possibility of negotiations with the group if they continue attacks.

☆ The outlandish life of Guo Wengui, once one of China’s richest men and Steve Bannon confidant whom the DOJ accuses of a billion-dollar fraud
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-17 | by ( Tom Porter | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +1 min

Chinese businessman Guo Wengui has been arrested on fraud charges. The controversial billionaire, once one of China's richest men, has positioned himself as an activist trying "to expose the leviathan Chinese mafia state." An ally of Steve Bannon and other pro-Trump Republicans, Guo has also variously portrayed himself as a rapper, online influencer, crypto guru and real estate mogul. The enigma around the billionaire deepened this week after US authorities charged the property tycoon with orchestrating a billion-dollar fraud. Much of his background is still shrouded in mystery and Guo's exact purpose and loyalties are the subject of speculation and conspiracy theories.

☆ Atlanta DA Fani Willis loves using a law designed for going after the mob. She may use it to charge Trump.
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-16 | by ( Jacob Shamsian | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +9 min

The law — designed for going after the mob — makes sense for her investigation into Donald Trump, experts say. In her time in the district attorney's office, Willis has aggressively used Georgia's Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization statute. One sprawling 56-count RICO case, against the rapper Young Thug's alleged gang, is in its second month of jury selection ahead of what's expected to be a nine-month trial. But if she were to bring a case, experts believe RICO charges are likely. Rahmani cautioned that a RICO case may make Willis look too aggressive.

☆ A laid-off Meta worker says the company paid her to not work: They were 'hoarding us like Pokémon cards'
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-14 | by ( Grace Kay | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

An ex-Meta worker said she was part of a group that didn't have work to do when hired. Britney Levy told Insider some people were frustrated and felt Meta was stalling their careers. In the video that has since garnered over 870,000 views, Levy said she felt Meta was hiring people so other companies couldn't have them. "They were just kind of like hoarding us like Pokémon cards," she said in the video. "People who were incredibly well qualified and had turned down amazing opportunities said they felt Meta was intentionally stalling their career.

That's the question posed by certain members of the Silicon Valley elite who are attributing layoffs to a boom-time phenomenon: over-hiring and "fake" work. A particular view of 'work'This concept of fake work is rooted, at least partly, in political disagreement. Several of the tech figures pushing these ideas lean Republican, in contrast to the left-leaning tech workers they're lambasting. He and others pushing a grind culture are motivated, as tech employees commenting on the workplace app Blind noted. "I think it's a false narrative to say many people do fake work, especially when companies already deploy workplace monitoring tools."

☆ Billionaire tech CEO says Meta and Google over-hired so much they didn't have enough work for employees: 'They really were doing nothing'
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-13 | by ( Grace Kay | Sindhu Sundar | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

C3.ai's CEO said Google and Meta over-hired employees and didn't have enough work for them to do. Thomas Siebel joked that if you want to work remote "in your pajamas," you should work at Facebook. "If you want to work from home, like four days of work in your pajamas, go to work for Facebook." Siebel is far from the first executive to express concern that tech workers aren't doing enough work. Last year, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella warned that remote work has spurred "productivity paranoia" among managers.

☆ Ditching autism care for software
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-11 | by ( Hallam Bullock | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

He raised $200 million to transform autism care. Now, he's ditching patients to sell healthcare software. Yury Yakubchyk, the cofounder and CEO of Elemy, raised more than $200 million to provide better autism therapy for kids. Instead of delivering care itself, instead of delivering care itself, the company wants to sell software to clinicians running their own businesses. It's all fake work," Rabois said.

That's the question posed by a certain members of the Silicon Valley elite who are attributing layoffs to a boom-time phenomenon: over-hiring and "fake" work. "There's nothing for these people to do — they're really — it's all fake work," he said. A particular view of 'work'This concept of fake work is rooted, at least partly, in political disagreement. Several of the tech figures pushing these ideas lean Republican, in contrast to the left-leaning tech workers they're lambasting. "I think it's a false narrative to say many people do fake work, especially when companies already deploy workplace monitoring tools."

☆ 'PayPal Mafia' member says Google and Meta intentionally overhired engineers to prevent them from working at other companies.
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-09 | by ( Diamond Naga Siu | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

"PayPal Mafia" member says Google and Meta "do fake work." The companies over-hired thousands of employees to fulfill a "vanity metric," said investor Keith Rabois. He's part of the infamous PayPal cohort (pictured above — he's number nine) that went on to play influential roles at other major tech companies. Rabois estimates that Facebook parent company Meta and Google each have thousands of employees who don't do much. He even suspects that Google intentionally overhired engineers to prevent them from working at other companies.

☆ Nigerian woman who ran prostitution ring extradited to Italy
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-08 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

ROME, March 8 (Reuters) - A Nigerian woman who has been wanted in Italy since 2010 has been flown from Abuja back to Rome where she has been sentenced to 13 years in prison for crimes including running a prostitution ring, Italian police said on Wednesday. The extradition was facilitated by a treaty signed by Nigeria and Italy in 2020. She was arrested in Nigeria on June 4, 2022, on an international warrant issued by Italy, the statement said. Italian investigators in the eastern city of Ancona said Jeff played a leading role in trafficking women to Italy, Spain and the Netherlands, where they were forced into prostitution by violence and threats. Video released by the Italian police showed the woman being flown from the Nigerian capital Abuja to Ciampino airport in Rome where she was taken away in a wheelchair by police.

☆ Google and Meta over-hired thousands of employees who do 'fake work,' says PayPal Mafia's Keith Rabois
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-08 | by ( Hasan Chowdhury | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Silicon Valley VC Keith Rabois says mass layoffs are due to hiring becoming a vanity metric in tech. Rabois told an Evercore-hosted event that firms like Meta over-hired by thousands of staff. It's all fake work," Rabois said. Speaking remotely from Miami at an event hosted by banking firm Evercore, he called out major tech firms for over-hiring and said the sector's current mass shedding of jobs to rein in costs was overdue. Later on the call, he estimated that Alphabet's Google and Facebook owner Meta had thousands of employees who don't do anything.

☆ Sister's note led police to mafia boss Messina Denaro
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-03 | by ( Alvise Armellini | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

Rosalia (Rosetta) Messina Denaro, 67, was detained in Sicily on mafia membership charges, Carabinieri police said, releasing a 57-page arrest warrant. Her brother, Matteo Messina Denaro, 60, was Italy's most wanted man until his arrest on Jan. 16, after 30 years on the run. Italian authorities had already said that Messina Denaro was snared by his failing health, but on Friday they revealed the source of the key tip. 'BIG STRAWBERRY'While on the run, Messina Denaro followed mafia tradition in communicating with relatives and affiliates via "pizzini", small pieces of paper sometimes written in code. Rosalia's husband, Filippo Guttadauro, is another convicted Sicilian mobster, while her daughter Lorenza is Matteo Messina Denaro's defence lawyer.

☆ New: LAPD Officer Rashad Sharif Discovers A Murder Scene
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-02 | by ( ) www.cnbc.com time to read: 1 min

Share Share Article via Facebook Share Article via Twitter Share Article via LinkedIn Share Article via EmailNew: LAPD Officer Rashad Sharif Discovers A Murder SceneAs LAPD Officer Rashad Sharif is called to check on a home in posh Benedict Canyon with the back door left open, he is shocked when he happens upon a murder scene and a victim with Las Vegas Mafia connections. Blood & Money premieres Tuesday, March 7 at 10pm ET on CNBC.

☆ Colombia and Venezuela sign deal to revive trade
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-16 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

[1/4] Colombian President Gustavo Petro and Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro react during a meeting for signing the Partial Scope Agreement Number 28 that will resume bilateral trade between Colombia and Venezuela at the Atanasio Girardot International Bridge on the border between Colombia and Venezuela, in San Antonio del Tachira, Venezuela, February 16, 2023. Colombian Presidency/Handout via REUTERSBOGOTA/CARACAS, Feb 16 (Reuters) - Colombia and Venezuela on Thursday signed an agreement to revive trade between the two countries during a ceremony on a border bridge at which Colombia's President Gustavo Petro and Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro both signed. The deal "updates everything having to do with tariffs, with goods traded, (and) lays the foundations for a new dynamic, for the expansion of trade between Colombia and Venezuela," Maduro said at the event broadcast on Venezuelan state television. "We have to fill these bridges with trade," Petro said, warning that "there is lots still to do because it is not a question of whether these bridges are filled with trade but rather than they are filled with people." Caracas broke off relations with Bogota in 2019 after Venezuelan opposition activists tried to send aid trucks from Colombia.

☆ The Manhattan DA's office considered charging Trump with racketeering before backing off, book says
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-03 | by ( Sonam Sheth | Jacob Shamsian | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

The Manhattan DA considered charging Trump with racketeering, a new book says. Mark Pomerantz, a former prosecutor in the DA's office, writes that he built a sweeping case against Trump, according to NYT. The DA's office ultimately decided not to indict the former president. The DA's office charged the Trump Organization and its chief bookkeeper, Allen Weisselberg, with 15 felony counts in July 2021. He seemed always to stay one step ahead of the law," Pomerantz writes.

☆ Trump 'demanded absolute loyalty' and stayed 'one step ahead of the law' like a mafia boss, ex-prosecutor says in new book
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-03 | by ( Oma Seddiq | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

An ex-prosecutor in Manhattan DA's office compared Donald Trump to mafia boss John Gotti. "He demanded absolute loyalty," Mark Pomerantz said of Trump in his new book, per NYT. He seemed always to stay one step ahead of the law," Pomerantz wrote of Trump, according to The Times. "In my career as a lawyer, I had encountered only one other person who touched all of these bases: John Gotti, the head of the Gambino organized crime family." Pomerantz had helped lead the investigation into Trump and his businesses in the Manhattan DA's office from early 2021 until his resignation a year later.

☆ A Mexico soccer icon entered politics. Prosecutors say narcos followed
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-03 | by ( Cuernavaca | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +27 min

Regional politicians, officials and military officers gathered in the Morelos state capital of Cuernavaca for breakfast in February 2022 to mark Mexico’s annual Army day. Mexican drug lords have a long tradition of buying off politicians in exchange for government protection of their illicit trade. Attempts to reach two of the alleged drug traffickers in the photo – Figueroa and Irving Solano Vera – were unsuccessful. Prosecutors in April asked the Morelos state congress to impeach Blanco so that he could be stripped of that shield. “He likes me very much because I’m not a politician,” Blanco told Reuters, in reference to the president.

☆ Italy facing attacks by international anarchists, foreign minister says
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-31 | by ( Alvise Armellini | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

ROME, Jan 31 (Reuters) - Italian embassies all over the world are at risk of anarchist attacks linked to the case of the hunger-striking Alfredo Cospito, Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said on Tuesday. Cospito, 55, is an Italian anarchist who has been on a hunger strike for more than 100 days to protest against being jailed under the strict "41 bis" isolation regime. "We are raising security in all of our embassies and consulates because at the moment international anarchists are mobilised against the Italian state," Tajani told a news conference in Rome. Italian embassies, consulates or culture institutes have been targeted in Bolivia, Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Spain, Germany and Switzerland, he said. Cospito was placed under the regime in May, after he wrote articles from prison calling on fellow anarchists to continue their armed struggle.

☆ Trump says he has more lawyers working for him than even 'the late great gangster' Al Capone did
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-31 | by ( Cheryl Teh | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Donald Trump on Monday compared his legal predicament to that of mobster Al Capone's. Trump wrote on Truth Social that he has "more lawyers" working for him than Capone did. Trump appeared to laud the mob boss, calling him the "late great gangster, Alphonse Capone." In a Truth Social post, Trump wrote that he has "more lawyers" working for him "than any human being in the history of our Country, including even the late great gangster, Alphonse Capone!" "Like the Al Capone effect, you're not going to get him on murder, extortion, racketeering.

☆ Damar Hamlin speaks for the first time since cardiac arrest, expresses gratitude
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-29 | by ( Https | Media-Cldnry.S-Nbcnews.Com Image Upload Newscms Dennis-Romero-Circle-Byline-Template.Jpg | Dennis Romero | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +2 min

Buffalo Bills player Damar Hamlin spoke publicly for the first time since his heart went silent Jan. 2 in the middle of a Monday Night Football game viewed by millions. It shocked fans when he stayed down after his first-quarter hit on host team Cincinnati's Tee Higgins, and then team health personnel began CPR on the field. The Buffalo Bills player said he was in no rush. A fund-raising account that Hamlin had set up in 2020 to support a toy drive in his home neighborhood in McKees Rocks, Pennsylvania, was flooded after he was hospitalized. The safety appeared to have his greatest gratitude for children — "to all the kids who sent me letters and heartwarming gifts," Hamlin said.

☆ Damar Hamlin thanks fans, loved ones, and the medical staff who saved his life in first public message since his on-field collapse: 'It was a lot to process'
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-29 | by ( Maria Noyen | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Damar Hamlin has shared his first public statement after his on-field cardiac arrest on January 2. In an Instagram clip, Hamlin thanked his fans, teammates, and medical staff for their support. He thanked medical first responders who helped "swiftly and skillfully" to save his life, as well as the training staff and the medical staff at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center and Buffalo General Medical Center. AP Photo/Joshua A. BickelHe told fans their support and love helped him stay positive throughout his recovery. Hamlin also praised those who helped his charity, Chasing M's Foundation, raise over $9 million over the last month.

☆ From PayPal to Facebook, Silicon Valley has long been obsessed with the idea of company "mafias." Take a look at ex-Square staffers who have created more than $40 billion of startup value.
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-27 | by ( Samantha Stokes | Stephanie Palazzolo | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

The idea of Silicon Valley "mafias" first emerged with the Oracle, Facebook, and PayPal mafias. Former Square staffers have gone on to launch startups worth nearly $40 billion cumulatively. Silicon Valley insiders have long been obsessed with the idea of startup "mafias." The "PayPal mafia" was perhaps the most infamous company that spawned the founders of tech giants like YouTube, Yelp, Tesla, and LinkedIn. Facebook and Oracle also have their own mafias of former employees that have produced iconic tech companies like Salesforce, Asana, and GoodRx.

☆ A Russian graveyard reveals Wagner’s prisoner army
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-26 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +18 min

The resting places were adorned with simple wooden crosses and brightly coloured wreaths that bore the insignia of Russia’s Wagner Group - a feared and secretive private army. The news agency matched the names of at least 39 of the dead here and at three other nearby cemeteries to Russian court records, publicly available databases and social media accounts. He said gravediggers told him the bodies had come from the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don, close to Russia’s border with Donetsk region. According to Russian court documents, Kochas and another man burst into the apartment of an acquaintance while drunk in an attempted robbery. But he refused, so he’s a fool.”A Russian graveyard reveals Wagner’s prisoner army By Felix Light and Filipp Lebedev in Tbilisi and Reade Levinson in London Photo editing: Simon Newman Graphics: Fielding Cage Art direction: Eve Watling Edited by Janet McBride

Catalano's brother, Agostino, was a policeman who died in a 1992 bomb that killed anti-mob magistrate Paolo Borsellino - a attack that prosecutors say Messina Denaro helped mastermind. The last confirmed sighting of Messina Denaro was in 1993, making it difficult for police to identify the most wanted man in Italy. Only one of them decided to collaborate with justice," said Roberto Piscitello, a prosecutor who tried to capture Messina Denaro from 1996 to 2008. FALSE IDENTITYPolice say they managed to catch Messina Denaro after learning from wiretaps of his relatives that he had cancer. BUSINESS CONTACTSMagistrates said they found evidence that Messina Denaro had visited Spain, Greece and Austria over the years.

☆ How Dmitry Medvedev, Russia's former president, went from perceived pro-West reformer to virulent warmonger since the invasion of Ukraine
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-25 | by ( Sinéad Baker | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +8 min

Russia's former president has become one of its most vitriolic figures amid the Ukraine invasion. When Dmitry Medvedev was elected, some saw him representing a more liberal future for Russia. Russian President Vladimir Putin and then-Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, in December 2016. Russian President Vladimir Putin and then-Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev during the United Russia party congress in Moscow, Russia, in December 2017. Putin became president again once Medvedev's first term was up, and Medvedev duly became his prime minister, serving until 2020.

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