Lyrics should not be used as a confession, often they are bravado, exaggeration, complete fantasy, but often killers boast about murders in tunes.

We often think #mafias belong only to weak states. In my book "Mafia Expansion" I show this isn't true - and discuss what it means for our democracies. If you want to know more, join me for the Cambridge Criminology Series on 16 Oct, 5pm (also online) ➡️ www.crim.cam.ac.uk/events/mafia...

How the mafia infiltrated Germany

I wrote a long read for @unherd.com about how the mafia has infiltrated Germany - via the pizza restaurant. Based on a book by the excellent criminologist
@zorahauser.bsky.social

unherd.com/2025/08/how-...

Cocaine, corruption and bribes: the German port under siege by Europe’s criminal drug gangs After seizure in Hamburg of 16 tonnes of high-purity powder, state attorney is accused of being on payroll of gang he was supposed to be prosecuting

Germany has a problem with organised crime and @maxdaly.bsky.social picked it up. www.theguardian.com/world/2025/a...

New arrests for #mafia extortion in Germany shed light on an old story: the Farao clan has operated there for decades. Never dismantled, a new generation embedded itself in local life—sliding under the radar. I trace their history in my book, and this case is far from unique.

Verdacht auf Drogenhandel und Geldwäsche: Razzien in Thüringen und Sachsen-Anhalt | MDR.DE Seit Donnerstagvormittag durchsucht das Thüringer Landeskriminalamt Wohn- und Geschäftsräume in Thüringen und Sachsen-Anhalt. Die Razzien stehen im Zusammenhang mit Ermittlungen im Umfeld der italieni...

EXKLUSIV Razzia LKA @Polizei_Thuer u. Zoll. Verdacht auf Drogenhandel u. Geldwäsche. Ermittlungen im Umfeld der #Mafia #Ndrangheta . Zusammenhang mit Festnahmen vor 2 Wochen in #Leipzig u. #Duesseldorf. Recherche mit @ahemmerling.bsky.social f. #MDR

app.mdr.de/mdr-thuering...

LKA Thüringen ermittelt im 'Ndrangheta-Umfeld: Festnahmen in Leipzig und Düsseldorf | MDR.DE Dem Thüringer Landeskriminalamt ist nach 30 Jahren das erste Mal ein Schlag gegen die italienischen Mafia gelungen. Am Montag wurden zwei Männer festgenommen.

Das LKA @Polizei_Thuer hat zwei Männer festgenommen. Beide sollen mit Kokain gehandelt und eine Verbindung zur #MAFIA #Ndrangheta haben. Für die Thüringer Fahnder könnte es ein Schlüsselverfahren werden. Die Recherche m. @ahemmerling.bsky.social
www.mdr.de/nachrichten/...

Thanks for having me!

Honoured to get a sneak preview of Dr. @zorahauser.bsky.social 's new book 'Mafia Expansion: The 'Ndrangheta in Established Democracies'. Zora talked about her fieldwork&findings to rapt @royalholloway.bsky.social students of MSc Terrorism Studies in Bloomsbury!
📚👇

global.oup.com/academic/pro...

Libyan Smuggling Ring Busted: Migrants Tortured, Killed; Bodies Found in Mass Graves Arrested members of a migrant trafficking group admit to killing migrants and burying them in the desert.

A Libyan migrant smuggling network “beat, tortured, and abused” victims — and buried those it killed in the desert, local authorities say.

Officers arrested an unknown number of suspected smugglers in a crackdown following the discovery of two mass graves.

Image of people attending a lecture, alongside logo for the Oxford Sociology Network

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Join the Oxford Sociology Network - a community for researchers to connect, collaborate and exchange ideas across disciplines.

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@socsci.ox.ac.uk

Sexueller Missbrauch in der Kirche: Er erbt ein Haus. Und findet die Missbrauchsbilder seines Onkels Ein katholischer Priester hinterlässt ein Haus voll mit Aufzeichnungen sexualisierter Gewalt. Sein Neffe erbt den Tatort und versucht herauszufinden, was passiert ist.

Ein katholischer Priester hinterlässt ein Haus mit Aufzeichnungen von sexualisierter Gewalt. Sein Neffe erbt den Tatort – und versucht herauszufinden, was geschehen ist.

Wichtige @zeit.de Recherche zu sexualisiertem Missbrauch, #Kirche & die Lücken bei der Aufarbeitung

www.zeit.de/zeit-magazin...

Mario Francese.

Giuseppe Francese.

26 January 1979, Cosa Nostra kills investigative journalist Mario Francese (photo, left) in Palermo. The murder is witnessed by his then 12-year-old son Giuseppe (photo, right), who later helps to bring those responsible to justice, before taking his own life in 2002 [Thread] >>1

Nigeria Arrests 105 in Crackdown on Hotel Review Scam Nigerian authorities bust a sophisticated internet fraud scheme targeting mostly UK residents through fake hotel bookings.

🔎 A Nigerian cybercrime ring ran a hotel review scam that duped UK residents into costly bookings with false promises of crypto payouts.

105 arrests later—4 Chinese nationals and 101 Nigerians—authorities have dismantled the operation.

#cybercrime

Families of Sicilian mafia victims fear return of freed mobsters Most of the bosses, released from prison on furlough or for good behaviour, have never disavowed Cosa Nostra

20+ senior mafiosi released in Sicily after decades in prison. Their return to the neighbourhoods they once controlled sends a message of relative impunity to the community and the Sicilian mafia is now more likely to reorganise 👇
www.theguardian.com/world/2025/j...

Syrian rebels seize vast haul of banned drug captagon, country’s largest export Drug dwarfed all legal exports put together, with Assad’s brother widely believed to be power behind lucrative trade

Stashes of #captagon, off-brand Viagra and forged $100 bills found in government buildings in #Syria. Who will take on the business after Assad? www.theguardian.com/world/2024/d...

Evangelical Pastors Caught in a Charity Fraud Scheme Several evangelical pastors in East and North-East London exploited children’s charity funds to steal over 1 million British pounds, betraying the trust of their communities.

Two British church officials stole $1.9 million from a children’s charity through fraudulent gift aid claims. a London court has ruled.

Kwabena Duodu used stolen funds to buy a $697,665 home. Moses Asare, a head pastor, used his share for loansharking.

www.occrp.org/en/news/evan...

One of Britan's most wanted drug traffickers got caught. He commented: "It’s all part of the journey helping me grow into a better person.” - here the incredible story of his last years on the run 👇

Tether Has Become a Massive Money Laundering Tool for Mexican Drug Traffickers, Feds Say Tether is being used on a massive scale by large scale drug traffickers, to the point where Tether is sold cheaper in Mexico due to its links to drugs, according to court records reviewed by 404 Media...

New from 404 Media: the cryptocurrency Tether has become a *massive* money laundering tool for Mexican drug cartels, according to multiple court cases we dug through. The currency so heavily linked to drugs that the price of Tether in Mexico has gone down www.404media.co/tether-has-b...

Real Estate Deal With Royal Raises Questions About Drug Trafficker Raffaele Imperiale’s Business in Dubai Imperiale, who lived freely in Dubai for years despite being wanted for drug trafficking in Italy and Spain, was a shareholder in a real estate company that built luxury villas in the Emirati city-sta...

NEW: Even while wanted in the EU, Naples-born drug trafficker Raffaele Imperiale thrived in Dubai.

A signed contract shows that the son of Dubai’s ruler took a 51% stake in a real estate firm Imperiale once chaired —and the Italian was there to sign the papers.

Staatsanwalt im größten Kokain-Fund der Geschichte unter Korruptionsverdacht: Der Fall des Yashar G. Es gilt die Unschuldsvermutung, doch die Vorwürfe wiegen schwer. Ein Staatsanwalt aus Hannover soll über Jahre hinweg gemeinsame Sache mit Drogenschmugglern gemacht haben. Das ist der Fall Yashar G.

In Hannover ist ein Staatsanwalt beschuldigt mit der Kokainmafia zusammengearbeitet zu haben. Er leitete ein 16t-Kokain-Verfahren. Hier ist die Timeline des Falles:
@ndrrecherche.bsky.social
www.ndr.de/nachrichten/...

Image of Emilia Ziosi with quote: "As drug traffickers need access to transit points like airstrips, security checkpoints, and road networks to move drug shipments, they build relationships with the legal and extra-legal actors controlling these infrastructures and points of passage. This process embeds drug flows within the local social fabric, even in so-called 'transit' countries like Honduras, where drugs are primarily thought to be passing through."

✍️ Dr Emilia Ziosi's new research shows that illicit drug flows often integrate into the political & territorial landscapes of the countries they traverse - rather than remaining a transient activity detached from local social structures.

Read more ➡️ www.sociology.ox.ac.uk/article/rese...

Crypto ‘Laundromat’ Tied to Russian Financial Sector and Cocaine Trade - Police Britain's National Crime Agency said the money laundering bust was its biggest in a decade.

NEW: An international money-laundering ring run from Moscow & Dubai has been moving billions in crypto and cash for criminal operations, the UK National Crime Agency says.

84 people have been arrested as part of “Operation Destabilise,” involving police from the U.K., Ireland, the U.S. & France.

Let's extend that to most social sciences: the worrying trend of forgetting something was better in the past when it objectively was. Coupled with an anxiety to always reinvent the wheel. 👇

Gerry Hutch, “arguably Ireland’s most romanticized criminal with a reputation as a modern Robin Hood,” acquitted last year of murder and currently out on bail on money laundering charges, may be about to win a seat “after running a ramshackle campaign waged mostly from his popular TikTok account” 🇮🇪🤷

How many people receive a risk score? Confidential. How many people has the system flagged? Confidential. How much did the system cost to build? Confidential. How do you define fraud? Confidential

Alternative Dispute Resolution at Pavilion Room, 4th Floor, Gateway Building Tickets are now available for Alternative Dispute Resolution at Pavilion Room, 4th Floor, Gateway Building, St. Antony’s College on Fri 29 Nov 2024. Click the link for further information and to secure your tickets now!

Interested in war and peace in the underworld? A great line-up for this conference on conflict resolution organised by @universityofoxford.bsky.social - I'll be speaking about the Calabrian mafia - info here www.ticketsource.co.uk/sociologynis...

👋 We're excited to join BlueSky! 🚀

Oxford Sociology is known for its strong analytical, empirical and comparative focus, tackling real-world issues across diverse areas such as #demography, #criminology, #gender, #politicalsociology and more ⭐ Follow us for updates!

Minderjährige Auftragsmörder ‒ Schwedische Mafia-Bande in Spanien zerschlagen Alicante ist eigentlich als Urlaubsparadies bekannt. Aber dort sind auch Mafiabanden am Werk, die nicht zimperlich vorgehen. Nun ist den spanischen Ermittlern ein Schlag gegen die organisierte Krimin...

Alicante ist eigentlich als Urlaubsparadies bekannt. Aber dort sind auch Mafiabanden am Werk, die nicht zimperlich vorgehen. Nun ist den spanischen Ermittlern ein Schlag gegen die organisierte Kriminalität gelungen.

www.faz.net/aktuell/gese...

Dead drops, PR stunts and punishment beatings: the rapid rise of Russia’s powerful darknet drug industry Tech-savvy organised crime groups profiting from billion-dollar enterprise that is spreading beyond Russian borders

I wrote a piece for the Guardian on Russia’s mad drug world

www.theguardian.com/world/2024/n...