April 3 - Mexican police arrest suspected drug lord Victor Magno Escobar in Tijuana
April 6 - The wearing of hooded Easter penitents is allowed once again in the town of Corleone. It had been banned for the previous 40 years due to its use in mafia assassinations.
April - Brazilian police arrest 20 suspected members of a gang specializing in contract killings in the state of Pernambuco.
April 17 - Iccho Itoh, mayor of Nagasaki, is shot twice in a suspected Yakuza attack. He dies soon after.
May 4 - Vito Rizzuto pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit murder as well as racketeering charges, admitting that he was present at the triple murder in 1981 of Philip Giaccone, Dominick Trinchera and Alphonse Indelicato, but stated he had only yelled "it's a holdup", while others did the shooting; he received a 10-year prison sentence and was fined $250,000, to be followed by a three-year supervised release as part of the plea bargain.
May 16 - Five Mexican policemen are killed and several abducted in the town of Cananea. Drug cartels are believed to responsible for the attack. Eight attackers were reportedly killed by police hours later.
May 17 - A fugitive from Italy connected with the Camorra is captured in Lancashire, England.
May 18 - Retired Yakuza Hisato Obayashi gives himself in to police after a two-day standoff during which he shot at both his family and police and held his wife hostage.
June 27 - 19 people die in a fierce gun battle between drugs gangs and police in Alemao, Rio de Janeiro.
June 29 - An abandoned boat containing 1.2 tons of cocaine is discovered off the coast of Senegal.
July
July 20 - Luis Hernando Gomez is extradited to the US.
July 26 - A BBC investigation reveals a child trafficking ring in Bulgaria.
July 26 - The FBI shuts down a major international Chinese media piracy ring, believed to have distributed illegal software with a total selling price of over 2 billion dollars.
August 10 - Chinese authorities report to have foiled a plot by Snakehead gangsters to smuggle a dozen young men abroad by posing them as martial artists from the Shaolin Temple.
August 15 - 6 men with connections to the 'Ndrangheta are shot dead in Germany after exiting a pizzeria. The murders are believed to be related to the San Luca feud.
August 28 - A girl of three survives a gangland execution where three were killed and two injured in Hertfordshire, England. The deaths were later believed to be over a drugs debt of £600.
August 30 - Police in Italy arrest more than 30 suspects in the connection with the 'Ndrangheta murders in Germany.
September
September 10 - Joey "The Clown" Lombardo and four other defendants are found guilty of various charges ranging from murder to racketeering.
November 1 - The mob-related murder cases against former FBI agent Lindley DeVecchio are dropped by prosecutors because of conflicting evidence.
November 2 - Mexican authorities seize a record 23.5 tons of cocaine at the port of Manzanillo.
November 5 - Sicilian mafia boss Salvatore Lo Piccolo is captured near the capital of Palermo. Lo Piccolo had been on the run for 20 years.
November 26 - United Brotherhood of Carpenters President Douglas J. McCarron ordered an emergency, temporary supervision over Manhattan East Side Local 157, citing allegations of bribery, ties to members of the Genovese and Gambino crime families, and no-show business agents; the Local's top three officers resigned, while two Local shop stewards are under federal indictment. The Executive-Treasurer of the N.Y.C. District Council of Carpenters, Michael Forde, maintains his top position while facing a re-trial in Manhattan state court on charges of accepting bribes from non-union contractors and splitting the payments with the former acting boss of the Lucchese crime family. Local 157's President, William Hanley, was removed from his position, and a federal grand jury was empaneled to investigate the charges, including allegations that Hanley prevailed upon a contractor to hire one Joseph Vecchiarello, an organized crime figure with no carpentry skills.
December
December 14 - Camorra boss Edoardo Contini is captured in Naples after more than seven years on the run.
December 18 - New Jersey Attorney GeneralAnne Milgram announced the indictment of 32 members and associates of the Lucchese crime family, including its top captain in New Jersey, Ralph Perna, and two of the family's top New York leaders, Joseph DiNapoli and Matthew Madonna. The indictment alleges that the wiseguys even had an ongoing operation with members of the Bloods gang, whereby they were providing inmates in a New Jersey prison with drugs and other contraband.
December 19 - Lucchese crime family soldier John Baudanza was sentenced to 7 years in prison and $20,500 in restitution for heading a violent stock pump-and-dump scheme for over 10 years.
December 19 - Ailing Staten Island and Brooklyn-based Gambino crime family captain George DeCicco pleaded guilty to running a loan sharking operation from 1999 to 2007. DeCicco is the uncle of former family underboss Frank DeCicco and father of associate Robert DeCicco who was nearly killed in an attempted murder outside a Brooklyn social club earlier in the year. DeCicco was the last of the captains either alive on still on the street from the days of John Gotti's reign.
December 29 - The entire police force in the Mexican town of Playas de Rosarito, Baja California, is disarmed from their weapons after suspicion of collaborating with drug cartels.
