Krivoi guilty in snitch murder

Marat Krivoi, 37, a Brooklyn mobster connected to the Russian Mafiya, was convicted Friday of two underworld murders, according to stories by Jennifer Fermino of the New York Post and Nancie L. Katz of the New York Daily News.

Krivoi (left) is the former son-in-law of Boris Nayfield, a chief of the Russian mob.

Krivoi was charged in Kings County NY of participation in two killings committed a month apart in 1992: Boris Roitman, 21, who Krivoi feared was a police informant, was killed by shotgun wounds to his chest and neck in Brooklyn on Aug. 26, 1992; Thien Diep, 24, a high-stakes pool player, was shot in the head during the course of a robbery on or about Sept. 23, 1992.

Prosecutors argued that Krivoi ordered underling Pyotr Sarkisov to kill Roitman and that Krivoi personally shot Diep. In a separate trial, Krivoi accomplice Vitaly Ivanitsky was found guilty of the same crimes a day earlier.

Italy intercepts black market arms deal with Iraq

Italian police recently stumbled onto information related to the planned black market sale of more than 100,000 Russian-made automatic weapons to the Iraqi government, according to a story published by CBS News.

The deal was uncovered by Operation Parabellum, originally an anti-Mafia probe. Early last year, police searching airline baggage for smuggled drugs found helmets, bulletproof vests and a catalog of weapons. Police were eventually led to the details of a $40 million deal.

The Iraqi participants in the deal claimed in e-mails with Italian brokers that the purchase had the approval of the U.S. government. A U.S. spokesman in Baghdad denied that.