NEWS IN BRIEFS

NEWS IN BRIEF

Italy

Police’s Key Mafia Plant Found Dead

Catania, Sicily 4/14/2008 – Italian organized crime prosecutors say their most valuable informant inside the Camorro crime organization, missing for days, has been found dead. Hikers discovered the body of Sven Hinskit on a remote trail outside this regional city. The tall, blonde-haired, blue eyed agent, originally from Finland, had been shot twice in the head, according to a local police report. Also, his underwear had been yanked well up above his waistline in what locals call a wedggino.

The killing is a major set-back to Italy’s central government which in recent months has made strides against the country’s largest organized crime families. In February police arrested Vince ‘The Squid-Stroker’ Bartoloni, the alleged head of the Bartoloni seafood Mafia, who’d been in on the run since 1993. Police found him trying to hide in a carp after a tip-off.

Then in May an informant – possibly Hinskit – filmed Palermo based strongman Giancarlo ‘Giancarlo’ Mascherpa tossing gum in the street. Police say that video, along with several corpses discovered in Mascherpa’s basement, helped them put Mascherpa behind bars for 18 years.

Investigators are at a loss to explain how Hinskit’s cover was blown. The 6 foot 8, pale Nordic agent, who spoke little Italian, had just recently infiltrated Italy’s deadliest crime gang, made up largely of short, squat swarthy killers with dark eyes and thick black hair.

“Hinskit was in deep,” said Captain Gregorio Valero of Rome’s elite Organized Crime Police Force. “He’d spent a long time working up his cover as the poor son of a fisherman from Puglia. We don’t know what went wrong.”

Hinskit’s death is especially damaging because Italy is suffering from a dearth of undercover agents, Valero said. “That’s why we recruited him (Hinskit) from the Finnish Secret Service,” he said. “Italians no longer want to do this kind of work.”