loan shark

(Newser) - Drug smuggler-turned-loan shark Jonathan Braun was pardoned by Donald Trump for the drug smuggling but he hasn't gotten off scot-free for running what authorities say was a network of predatory lenders. Braun was fined $20 million on Tuesday, almost double what a jury had recommended, by a federal judge...

(Newser) - A minor crime averted in Italy: Police seized $6 trillion in phony US Treasury bonds that a criminal network reportedly planned to use to buy plutonium. Cops grabbed the fake bonds at a Swiss trust company in the city of Potenza, they said yesterday. US experts identified the forgeries and...

(Newser) - How bad is Italy's debt crisis? So bad that the Mafia is now collectively "Italy's No. 1 bank," with roughly $83 billion in liquidity and about $127 billion in annual profits, according to a new report from a prominent Italian business group. Crime organizations such as...

(Newser) - He robbed from the rich, but Robin Hood didn't just give it away to the poor—he loaned them money at stiff interest rates like some kind of medieval loan shark, claims a new book. One of the earliest historical references to the outlaw of Sherwood Forest, a ballad from...