Crime Archive

A high-profile trial of a shadowy Turkish ultra-nationalist organization dubbed Ergenekon, after the mythic birth place of the Turkic race, got under way in the Silvri Prison Complex near Istanbul on Monday amid fervent demonstrations. The Turkish press has long anticipated the commencement of the trial, which is the culmination of a 16-month investigation and 2455-page indictment that has divided opinion in the country. The Islamist ruling AK Party has long championed the case as the first crackdown in Turkey on “the deep state,” an alleged covert, nationalist cabal of military officers, intelligence agents and policemen acting outside the judicial […]

Mexico’s drug violence reached a peak on Sept. 15, the eve of Independence Day, when a grenade attack on civilians bloodied a historic plaza in Morelia, capital of Michoacan state. But the very ferocity of the attack has managed to unite Mexican society against organized crime to an unprecedented degree. Coming on top of the roughly 3,800 murders attributed to drug violence just this year, the attack, which killed eight people and injured over 100, triggered a public outcry and a rare moment of national consensus. In its aftermath, even left-leaning opposition leader Andrés Manuel López Obrador, President Felipe Calderón’s […]

On Sept. 25, Somali pirates armed with rockets and assault rifles and traveling in small boats called “skiffs,” scaled the side of the Ukrainian cargo ship Fainaoff the Somali coast and overpowered the 22 crew members on board. Inside the 530-foot roll-on, roll-off vessel, the pirates made a surprise discovery: 33 Soviet-designed T-72 tanks, plus small arms, rockets and ammunition. The arms shipment was reportedly on its way to an unspecified customer in Sudan, but now seems likely to wind up on the African black market instead, unless the vessel’s shady owners cough up the unprecedented $20-million ransom demanded by […]