If youve never heard of Mogilevich then you havent been studying organised crime. Here’s Der Spiegel hinting that he controls Gazprom’s partner RUE http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,394345,00.html and here’s the FBI wanted poster [nb, they spell it without the “y”]: http://www.fbi.gov/wanted/alert/mogilevich_s.htm He has his own Wikipedia entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semion_Mogilevich and here’s a useful piece from the Village Voice: http://www.villagevoice.com/news/9821,friedman,203,1.html … MOGILEVICH ARRESTED

Jason Burke discusses different types of candidates for radicalisation. This is the second half of the article, the title is taken from the cover of the original magazine, published last Sunday [20th January].

Police raids on gangs trafficking Romanian children to become pickpockets in the West End. Sounds like a tabloid editor’s dream. The court case should be worth waiting for. Possibly the most interesting thing to happen to Slough since John Betjeman wrote a poem about it.

Home Office quarterly figures out today as are British Crime Survey figures. I will add direct links to the two documents when I can find them. In the meantime the link is to a Guardian article.

Washington Post article on a court case involving two young Muslims who took videos of sites in Washington, allegedly to prove they were worth further training to become fighters. Some information on internet contacts, but it may be early days in the trial. Basically an account of the Government’s case against them and a little … TERRORISM PROBE POINTS TO REACH OF WEB NETWORKS

This is a post for John MacFarlane down there in Australia. Guardian article, which has several details about the Real IRA. But why on earth are they trying to buy arms in Lithuania? I know its a Catholic country, but its time someone realised that Eastern Europe is a den of fraudsters and thick with … REAL IRA SUSPECT ARRESTED IN LITHUANIAN ARMS STING

Washington Post article, mostly on the Sinaloa cartel and its apparent move into Mexico City. The article alleges that hit men from the Pacific cartel have been found in safe houses of the Sinaola cartel along with huge arms caches. Real “state within a state” stuff.

New book from the Council of Europe. Synopsis [taken from website] Cyberterrorism and the misuse of Internet for terrorist purposes represents a serious threat, since many essential aspects of today’s society are completely dependent upon the functioning of computer systems and the Internet. Further to the adoption by the Council of Europe of the Cybercrime … CYBERTERRORISM: THE USE OF THE INTERNET FOR TERRORIST PURPOSES

New York Times article on the relationship between police and informants. The case is ongoing, so, as usual, one has to be careful about a newspaper account. The allegation is that the officers used confiscated drugs to pay informants. There are questions about the quantities involved, as well as the supervision of the officers concerned.

Frattini is the EU security commissioner, apparently [what happened to “freedom, security and justice”, by the way? Didn’t take long for the important two to get dropped!] He appears to be announcing that the EU will follow the US in making entry more difficult.