our old friend Yulia Latynina arguing that Jihadists have set up a protection racket and are now well-funded and well-armed in Dagestan.

Piece from the magazine on women and shoplifting. There’s a book about to come out by Neal Lawson, author of this piece, which is accompanied by 5 interviews with shoplifters.

La Familia Michoacana, drug cartel and messianic cult, “promises to protect the poor while meting out “divine justice” to its enemies, including rituals in which executioners carve cryptic initials in their victims’ foreheads.” [Quotation from Washington post article.] the effect of the counter-narcotics strategy has been to change the nature of Mexico’s drug cartels, rather … A MEXICAN CARTEL’S SWIFT AND GRISLY CLIMB

Fake ads on real websites, with another website to take your money but claiming to “hold” it until the deal is complete…..

Dr. Daniel Tschofen and Professor Stephan Laske are organizing a conference stream on the organization of crime. The title of the stream is ‘organizing crime’. The stream will be within the Asian-Pacific-Researchers in Organization Studies (APROS) conference in December 2009 in Mexico. Concepts of criminal organizations are directly relevant to your work and a collaboration … ORGANISATION OF CRIME STREAM AT APROS CONFERENCE MEXICO DECEMBER 2009

the article claims that all figures for software piracy are “educated guesses” [ie made up by the business lobbyists]. Article appears to be talking about software piracy, but its a bizarre journey it has made. To the Independent from New Zealand and originating in Canada.

But life is so much better than it was under Saddam Hussein [says Tony Blair]….60% of all Iraqis depend on the food rationing system and it is within this system that the corruption is happening. The Independent claims 1,000 officials are to be arrested…

Dont leave your luxury car in a long stay car park! Abu Hamza’s sons will get the DVLA to transfer ownership to them…unbelievable tale.

BBC report of Intelligence and Security Committee report. Different newspapers spinning this in different ways. The significant statement is at the bottom. it was decided that Khan, Tanweer and Khyam of the fertiliser bomb plot] were involved in planning financial fraud rather than a terrorist attack…perhaps we should be devoting more resources to “small” frauds? … MI5 “TOO STRETCHED” BEFORE JULY 7TH

Home office spinning this report the other way. It works well on crime in car parks, but not a lot else. Very little has been properly evaluated. Which goes for just about all crime prevention work, after all.