Whips and Nazi uniform found in raid on suspected Devon brothel

Lee Mill, near Ivybridge. It will all be in the News of The World eventually. Just down the road from your blogger. Round the back of the local Tesco, allegedly. There's some funny folk on the edge of Dartmoor! Local paper has pictures of the kit discovered: http://www.thisisplymouth.co.uk/news/Police-raid-suspected-brothel-South-Hams/article-1873114-detail/article.html

"Iran arms runners" held in Italy

Big cross-border investigation. Italian anti-terror police and prosecutors in the lead.

Spanish police arrest masterminds of "massive" botnets

The Mariposa botnet: 13 million PCs in 190 countries...taken down by an alliance of private sector operative with Guardia Civil and FBI. Are these pCs now free, or does someone else just take them over? I wonder if anyone really knows?

German court orders stored telecoms data deletion

Is sanity about to return to Europe? Are more of the idiocies that have been perpetrated in the name of counter-terrorism about to be overturned? Watch this space!

"Russian Mafia" abroad now 300,000 strong, Journal says

A provocative piece with many figures in it and the sources for those figures also given. You could get a couple of Powerpoint slides out of this at least, colleagues!
Full text, in Russian, of original article here; http://versia.ru/articles/2010/mar/01/russkaja_mafija

Trial of the Leonardo painting thieves

This is ongoing. Prosecution of a group from Ormskirk, Lancs and Scotland who are accused of stealing the Madonna of the Yarnwinder from Drumlanrigg Castle. There is more in the Liverpool press: http://tinyurl.com/yfr8njx

Drug gangs taking over US public lands

Hmmmm. I dont suppose organised crime respects the right to roam, eh? Its the crude explosives that worry me. Mexican drug gangs moving into marijuana cultivation off the beaten track in the US.

Ex-councilor guilty of laundering drugs cash

Another one of those stories I'd like to know a bit more about. This being the Torygraph, the angle is that he used to be a Labour councillor in Preston, but no mention of his employment in the piece.

The gun-toting boys who rule Rio's "corner of fear"

Its like London buses....you wait for ages and nothing happens. Then two turn up together. Very thin piece on youth gangs in Rio, to partner piece from Capetown.

Cape Town's gangs: Martin's story

On Panorama this evening: a programme on the gangs of Cape Town. there's also a slide show of gang tatoos linked from this piece, which describes the life of a gang member.