Word: corsicans
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Corsicans have spread around the world for much the same reason Sicilians came to the U.S.-hopeless poverty at home. "We see our sons as they leave as young men and when they come back to retire on their pensions," says a Corsican detective in France. Often smuggling is the only way that Corsicans can make a living...
...French bring a new language to international crime; the army of ordinary racketeers, for instance, is known simply as the "milieu." The Corsican gang boss ordinarily carries his identification in plain sight-a watch-fob medallion bearing the Moor's-head crest of Corsica. Like the Mafia, the Union Corse has a code of honor, the word of a gangster is supposed to be his bond. The difference is that Mafiosi are forever doublecrossing each other-hence the present gang war in New York-while the Corsicans usually keep their word. Members of the Mafia usually submit internal disputes...
...outfit's former agents, Roger de Louette, who was convicted in Newark last April of smuggling $12 million worth of heroin into the U.S. and is currently serving a five-year prison term, testified that he imported the drugs in league with his superiors in the agency. The Corsican influence in French law-enforcement agencies is also believed to have been a large factor in the French government's reluctance to crack down on the Corsican narcotics laboratories in Marseille until drugs became a problem-and a political issue-in France...
...same kind of political fix, arranged in other ways, has kept the Union Corse narcotics network operating in Southeast Asia since 1948. A large share of the heroin used by U.S. troops in Viet Nam was supplied by Corsican-financed narcotics producers in Laos and Thailand. For about ten years following the French withdrawal from Indochina in 1954, a group of Corsican war veterans ran several small charter airlines whose purpose was the smuggling of narcotics from Laos into South Viet Nam; the lines were collectively known as "Air Opium...
...Latin America, the Union Corse is extremely influential in a number of countries, including Mexico, Brazil, Venezuela, Paraguay, Bolivia and Panama. In some cases, the influence has proved strong enough to protect a handful of heroin laboratories that have recently been moved there from Marseille. In Paraguay, Corsican influence is believed to have been behind the U.S.'s recent difficulties in extraditing French-born Auguste Ricord to the U.S. to face narcotics charges...