Gambino associate arrested in alleged scrap scam in Ohio

A reputed member of the Gambino crime family who was once married to John Gotti's daughter was arrested Wednesday over a $3 million scam involving stolen cars and scrap metal, authorities said.

Carmine "The Bull" Agnello, 55, was arrested at a scrap yard he's been operating in southeast Cleveland after his release from federal prison in 2008. Police said Agnello would buy stolen cars, fill them with sand to add weight and would sell the compacted vehicles to an unidentified metal processing company. Agnello is accused of bribing employees at the processing company to ignore the extra weight that increased the price paid for the compacted vehicles.

Cleveland police Deputy Chief Ed Tomba said at a news conference on Wednesday that Agnello married a woman from the Cleveland area after prison and lives in the village of Bentleyville, about 20 miles southeast of Cleveland. The investigation into Agnello's activities began after Cleveland police noticed a spike in auto thefts and realized that many of the vehicles weren't being recovered as usual, Tomba said.

Detectives conducted searches at three Cleveland scrap yards and Agnello's upscale home, seizing $45,000 in cash and guns, authorities said. Because he's a convicted felon, Agnello is not allowed to own firearms.

Agnello is expected to be charged with theft, money laundering, conspiracy, drugging animals before competition, cruelty to animals and corrupting sports, according to a news release. Tomba said at the news conference that Agnello is accused of injecting race horses with drugs but would not provide further details.

No attorney information for Agnello was immediately available.

A detective from the New York Police Department's organized crime division assisted Cleveland police with the 18-month investigation. Tomba and others said traditional organized crime lost its foothold in Cleveland years ago.

Agnello was married 17 years to Victoria Gotti, who gained fame as the star of the reality television show "Growing Up Gotti." The show featured Gotti and her three sons with Agnello. The couple divorced in 2002, months after Agnello pleaded guilty to racketeering and conspiracy to defraud the Internal Revenue Service. He received nine years in prison and was ordered to pay $11 million in restitution. The charges were related to the scrap business in Queens, New York.

Agnello is now married to the daughter of Mourad "Moose" Topalian, whom he met while serving time with Topalian at a federal prison outside Youngstown. Topalian pleaded guilty in May 2000 to possession of explosives and a machine gun and was sentenced to 37 months in prison. Authorities accused Topalian of being a member of an Armenian terrorist group. See more http://news.yahoo.com


Views here : Mumbai Scrap yard  and Scrap Dealers in Mumbai

POSCO may scrap planned $12 billion India steel project

South Korean steelmaker POSCO could scrap plans for a $12 billion project it had agreed to set up in India a decade ago, after a new law makes it costlier to source iron ore for the plant, a company spokesman said.

The 2005 project to set up a steel plant in Odisha was billed as India's biggest foreign direct investment at the time, but it has encountered a series of delays.

The company waited almost a decade to acquire land for the proposed 12 million-tonnes-a-year steel plant due to opposition from local tribal groups.

A mining law enacted in March by India means the company would now also have to buy a mining licence in an auction. Originally, the Odisha government had promised to help the company obtain the licence for free.

That could raise costs for the company at a time when a global steel glut is depressing prices.

"We will have to see how our costs will be, whether it will be viable," POSCO's India spokesman I. G. Lee said. "We will take a final call only after auction details come."

Asked whether POSCO could skip the auction and withdraw from the Odisha project, Lee said: "Yes".

POSCO and ArcelorMittal, the world's top steelmaker, have scrapped a number of other projects in India over the past two years, citing difficulties in acquiring land and mines.

Another withdrawal by POSCO, the No. 6 steel firm, could dent Prime Minister Narendra Modi's "Make in India" manufacturing push.

Odisha's mines minister, Prafulla Kumar Mallik, said his government remained keen to help POSCO, but had not heard from the company.

"We had requested the central government for a concession for POSCO but the central government wanted to go for an auction," Mallik said. "It is now for POSCO to decide if they want to participate in the auction."

The union Steel and Mines minister, Narendra Singh Tomar, has repeatedly ruled out making an exception for POSCO.

Since the mining law was announced in March, POSCO has cut a number of jobs in Odisha, given up real estate and not rebuilt temporary site offices that were burned down by people protesting against land acquisition by the company.

"We downsized in April because there is no work," Lee said.

Instead, POSCO is importing steel from South Korea for its expanding network of processing centres in India.


See more http://www.sify.com


Views here : Mumbai Scrap yard  and Scrap Dealers in Mumbai

Posco may scrap planned $12 billion Odisha steel project

South Korean steelmaker Posco could scrap plans for a $12 billion project it had agreed to set up in India a decade ago, after a new law makes it costlier to source iron ore for the plant, a company spokesman said.

The 2005 project to set up a steel plant in Odisha was billed as India's biggest foreign direct investment at the time, but it has encountered a series of delays.

The company waited almost a decade to acquire land for the proposed 12 million-tonnes-a-year steel plant due to opposition from local tribal groups.

A mining law enacted in March by India means the company would now also have to buy a mining licence in an auction. Originally, the Odisha government had promised to help the company obtain the licence for free.

That could raise costs for the company at a time when a global steel glut is depressing prices.

"We will have to see how our costs will be, whether it will be viable," Posco's India spokesman IG Lee said. "We will take a final call only after auction details come."

Asked whether Posco could skip the auction and withdraw from the Odisha project, Lee said: "Yes".

Posco and ArcelorMittal, the world's top steelmaker, have scrapped a number of other projects in India over the past two years, citing difficulties in acquiring land and mines.

Another withdrawal by Posco, the No. 6 steel firm, could dent Prime Minister Narendra Modi's "Make in India" manufacturing push.

Odisha's mines minister, Prafulla Kumar Mallik, said his government remained keen to help Posco, but had not heard from the company.

"We had requested the central government for a concession for Posco but the central government wanted to go for an auction," Mallik said. "It is now for Posco to decide if they want to participate in the auction."

The Union Steel and mines minister, Narendra Singh Tomar, has repeatedly ruled out making an exception for Posco.

Since the mining law was announced in March, Posco has cut a number of jobs in Odisha, given up real estate and not rebuilt temporary site offices that were burned down by people protesting against land acquisition by the company.

"We downsized in April because there is no work," Lee said.

Instead, Posco is importing steel from South Korea for its expanding network of processing centres in India. See more http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com


Views here : Mumbai Scrap yard  and Scrap Dealers in Mumbai

Crews Respond to Fire At City Scrap Yard

The Rochester fire department was called to a fire at a scrap metal center in the city.

The fire started behind the Upstate Shredding center on Steel Street off of Lyell Avenue on the city's west side. A large plume of smoke rose above the city after a pile of scrap material caught fire.

No word yet on what started the fire. Time Warner Cable News will bring you those details as they become available.
 Read more http://www.twcnews.com

Views here : Mumbai Scrap yard  and Scrap Dealers in Mumbai

Brian Koonz: Diaco needs to scrap ‘Civil Conflict’ message

It didn’t take long, maybe four or five minutes, before UConn football coach Bob Diaco reached for the Central Florida rivalry card Monday night.

A few weeks ago, the card was pristine. There were no creases, no folds, no flaws in the “Civil Conflict” as Diaco anointed it.

But as Diaco summoned his inner P.T. Barnum at the Sign of the Whale pub in Stamford, the rivalry card was a little tattered. Actually, it was a lot tattered.

Not that it mattered to the partisan UConn alumni crowd from Fairfield County.

Everyone here, with their free drink tokens and light bites, wanted to hear about Diaco’s plan to beat up Central Florida on the American Athletic Conference schoolyard.

Even if the Golden Knights, the league’s flagship program, never got the note in lunch.

“The Central Florida stuff … that was about pride. That wasn’t a gimmick,” Diaco insisted, working the rooftop beer garden like nobody’s business.

“That was us saying, ‘Hey, we don’t like you. We don’t care if you don’t like us, but we don’t like you. At your place, at your school, you meet us by the flagpole. We’ll be there.’ “

Read more : http://www.ctpost.com

Views here : Mumbai Scrap yard  and Scrap Dealers in Mumbai

Tightening in scrap market could limit downside for nickel – BofA

Contrary to the trend seen through most of 2014 and into 2015, stainless steel scrap prices have outperformed nickel quotations recently, the bank said, on improved sentiment in Europe’s stainless steel industry. During 2014 and into 2015, nickel contained in stainless steel scrap as a percentage of the London Metal Exchange nickel...

Read more : http://www.metalbulletin.com

Views here : Mumbai Scrap yard  and Scrap Dealers in Mumbai

Hong Kong teachers urge the government to scrap territory-wide system assessments in schools

About 65 per cent of over 2,000 teachers believe the government should scrap a city-wide exam that they say has lost its original purpose and forced endless tutoring and drilling sessions, a survey shows.

Territory-wide system assessments (TSAs) started in 2004 as a way for the Education Bureau to keep track of pupils' study progress and schools' education results. The exams are held for Primary Three and Six and Form Three pupils. The primary-level exams are not used as a reference when graduates are allocated secondary school places.

The exams include Chinese, English and mathematics.

But some educators said officials from the bureau, when visiting schools, often asked the schools to improve their TSA results, which put pressure on school operators, who would then tell teachers to drill their pupils for the exams.

In the survey, conducted by the Professional Teachers' Union in March and April, about 70 per cent of the 2,055 teachers who responded to questionnaires by mail or online said TSA preparation had affected their daily teaching. Almost 70 per cent set up after-school tutoring sessions lasting an average two hours per week.

About 97 per cent said they required Primary Three and Six pupils to buy an average of three extra TSA exercise books.

"My son once cried and asked me: 'Mum, what's the meaning of my existence? Is it just to do homework?'" said Josephine Cheung Man-sen, whose autistic son studied for the TSA.

Many parents who had children with special educational needs studying at mainstream schools said the children had to rely on antidepressants to ease the pressures arising from extra studies, Cheung said.

Another parent, Doreen Ho Mei-yee, said teachers never told parents specifically that TSA, unlike the other two major exams for Primary Six pupils, would not affect their children's chances of entering good secondary schools.

She also said the bureau had provided little information about the system.

Read more : http://www.scmp.com

Views here : Mumbai Scrap yard  and Scrap Dealers in Mumbai