Mafia Wars London officially opens, let the Crown Jewel heist begin!

There's no time like the present to take your mafia on a working vacation -- to London. The new Mafia Wars London mission officially opened at midnight and for the next three weeks, you'll be pulling off the heist of a lifetime, i.e. stealing a Crown Jewel.

Of course, your crew won't be able to simply walk in and take it. We're talking about the Crown Jewels after all. You'll have to perform a series of special jobs, which require a certain number of London passports (found as loot dropped from jobs and fighting and by visiting the London page every 24 hours) to complete. The longer your perform a job, the more police will be on your tail, which will make it more difficult to get your job done, i.e require more energy and passports to complete a task. The police activity is measured by a Heat Meter, and once its full, you'll have to wait eight hours for it to reset so you can continue your job.

That time restraint butts up against the fact that there is a limited time frame to pull off this heist -- 21 days to complete all three chapters. If Mafia Wars Paris taught us anything, it's that you have to be a tenacious mobster to get the job done. Once you complete each chapter, you'll be rewarded with an item exclusive to the London mission. In your down time, work like a fiend to get as many London passports as you can (more on that soon) -- looks like you're gonna need them.

Have any tips on the best ways to find London Passports? Leave a note in the comments below.