Word: ganges
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1970-1979
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...after his father returned to the little mining town of Tonypandy). As a young man just out of the army, Gordon began playing a mouth organ in theaters and clubs, eventually becoming the harmonica champion of Wales. He gravitated to London, landed a job with the Morton Fraser Harmonica Gang, formed a vocal group called the Viscounts, then tried his hand at songwriting...
...France, the very existence of the Union Corse is still denied, in much the same way that the Mafia was often dismissed as fictional in the U.S. two decades ago. "The structure is a myth," says a senior French cop. With five gang murders in Marseille in the past six months alone, that notion is beginning to change...
...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...
About 10 years ago, the Union Corse began to move into the U.S. to fill the vacuum created by the partial withdrawal of the Mafia from the narcotics racket. Its chief contact in the U.S. became Florida Gang Boss Santo Trafficante Jr., who traveled to Saigon and Hong Kong to work out narcotics deals with the Corsicans and later turned up in Ecuador to check out a cocaine network in which he had been offered a partnership. The Union Corse also supplied and financed the new gangs of South Americans, Puerto Ricans and blacks, who moved into the vacant territories...
...fact that almost as many Protestants as Catholics have been killed-and that few of the victims had any connection with extremist organizations-has now led to fears that a terrorist gang of assassins, possibly psychopaths with no political connections, may be at work. One gang in the Protestant area, says Paddy Devlin, an M.P. for the Falls Road area in Belfast, is led by a "mad, dangerous man who uses a knife on many of his victims." The killers operate at night, mostly on weekends, often prowling in stolen cars or listening in on taxi radios, and apparently picking...