Are the Mafia unstoppable? (Photo by Piero CRUCIATTI / AFP) (Photo by PIERO CRUCIATTI/AFP via Getty Images)
![](https://unherd.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/tjones-100x100.jpg)
Most of us have an idea of what the Italian mafia looks like. We imagine gangs of violent criminals who make their fortunes from drug-dealing, prostitution, racketeering and, increasingly, public contracts. Thanks to hundreds of cinematic portrayals, we can’t avoid certain tropes: food-obsessed fatties, trilbies and trench coats, nightclubs and blood.
The reality, however, is far more subtle. Today, the biggest mafia trial in Italy for 35 years begins in Lamezia Terme, on the Calabrian toe of the Italian boot. More than 900 witnesses will give evidence in a cavernous call centre which has been converted into a court to seat nearly 1,000 lawyers, judges, prosecutors and spectators. But what is noticeable is that the majority of the 355 indicted criminals — who will be locked in cages — are not thick-set, unshaven toughs, but suited professionals. Indeed, the mugshots of lawyers, accountants, managing directors, politicians and even a police chief speak of an organisation that is far more white-collar than we might imagine.
At the end of last year, I spent two hours with Nicola Gratteri, the magistrate who has led the “Rinascita Scott” investigation, which involved raking through 24,000 wiretaps and months of surveillance footage. Inside his office fortress in Catanzaro, he repeatedly told me how far removed Italian mafias are from stereotypes. The proceeds of criminality, he said, are far more likely to be invested in international stock-markets than in seedy clubs. It’s a similar message offered by the National Anti-Mafia Prosecutor, Federico Cafiero de Raho, who last October warned that “the mafia’s strategy at present is focused more than ever on loans to, and acquisitions and infiltrations of, companies”.
The reason for this is simple: Italy’s mafias — Cosa Nostra in Sicily, the Camorra in Naples and Campania, the Sacra Corona Unita in Puglia and the biggest, the ‘Ndrangheta in Calabria — are now so rich that they make money out of money itself. Figures purporting to show their worth are always controversial — it’s not like they file a statement of accounts — but estimates suggest that the ‘Ndrangheta alone enjoys a turnover of between €36-€55 billion per annum, the equivalent of roughly 3% of the country’s entire GDP. In the space of a century, mob bosses have gone from being agricultural gangmasters to sophisticated investors and fund managers. Rather than stalk the streets, today their sons typically graduate in business studies and, often, in chemistry.
But what has changed organised crime more than anything in the last year is, of course, Covid-19. Today, mafias are in effect multinational empires, and, like every international organisation, have been hit by travel restrictions and lockdowns. Drug-routes have been disrupted, people trafficking channels have narrowed, closed stadia have put paid to ticket-touting and their restaurants – those constant, small earners and useful cash laundromats – have no diners.
Yet even so, national crises have always offered opportunities for organised crime. Whenever the Italian state appears flat-footed or absent — earthquake reconstruction is a common example — their “operational flexibility”, to borrow a phrase from a recent UN Office on Drugs and Crime report, allows mafias to fill the void. In particular, the pandemic has provided organised crime with something even more important than money: a chance to cement territorial control. For example, with many Italian families now struggling to make ends meet, a number of mafiosi have taken to showily distributing food packages. Last spring, the brother of a Cosa Nostra boss in Palermo was seen distributing packets of pasta. The Camorra, meanwhile, went one step further and suspended collections of the pizzo (protection money) and started distributing sugar, coffee and pasta instead. It’s an ancient strategy, not dissimilar to Al Capone opening a foodbank in Chicago in 1930, though the Italian Internal Ministry only recently came up with a term for it: “mafia welfare”.
Join the discussion
Join like minded readers that support our journalism by becoming a paid subscriber
To join the discussion in the comments, become a paid subscriber.
Join like minded readers that support our journalism, read unlimited articles and enjoy other subscriber-only benefits.
SubscribeI think most of us moved on from the ‘traditional’ idea of the italian mafia some time ago, which isn’t to say that there isn’t a lot of interesting news and information here. One of the European countries to watch in this regard is the Netherlands. A few years ago the head of the police union said that the country was in danger of becoming a ‘narco state’, and the various Dutch drugs mafias have only become further entrenched and emboldened since then. A lot of their money is recycled into property which, in a sense, gives all property owners – including politicians – a vested interest in their ongoing success.
Most ordinary people have no concept of the amounts of money we are talking about. It is vast, so vast that it will undermine the State. The only solution I can see is to legalise much of the trade and tax it. Just as with prohibition in the 1920s USA it didn’t work.
‘So the gangs’ largesse isn’t altruistic.; Exactly the same as socialism then?
When a state is weak or weakened, organisations such as the various Italian mafias will take advantage
The same is happening in Latin America with the gangs there. It’s a global issue that needs a coordinated global response. But unfortunately there are too many countries which are more than happy to be the filter through which this dirty money passes. The UK isn’t whiter than white either !
“Coordinated global response” just doesn’t feel the same to me any more…
Interesting article thanks. Two thoughts on this, neither particularly ground-breaking…
First, it always fascinates me that essentially the difference between large crime organisations and corporations is quite minimal – perhaps just the degree of legal/illegal activity undertaken is the key distinguishing factor. Organised crime works often for local people by being the least worst option for them. Southern Italy is more rife with this as the government has had less effect over the years from corruption and incompetence. Not that other governments elsewhere are perfect, but there’s definitely a scale.
Secondly this increase in organised crime is perhaps in part due to the erosion of the Nation State in the globalised world.
Organised crime has had less of an impact on Northern European countries over the years because the states are far more absolute in power, and general corruption is lower. That said, with the erosion of state power (not least through decreased democratic accountability) we may see this increasing. Such as Mr Bailey mentions about the Netherlands.
The social programmes (charity) are a feature of Islamist political organisations too. Particularly in poor and corrupt countries where state assistance isn’t great. Hamas gained popularity through their social programmes, paid for with foreign money. It’s a clever tactic.
Strozzini is the business model for China’s Belt & Road Initiative. Pour money into tin-pot African nations (and Australia) then move in for ownership when the country can no longer afford the largesse.
One thing the EU and others could usefully do is close off the ready means these people have to stay anonymous.
If you set up a company in Cyprus it need have only two named directors. One can be a company and the other can be a nominee. Neither need be the actual beneficial owner. When looking into some of my company’s shadier clients a while back I found large numbers where the company named as a director had been wound up years ago, while the nominee was a lawyer from a brass-plate firm that had provided nominee directors to thousands of similar firms. In other cases the individual director appeared to be a non-existent person – an accountant with hundreds of directorships but no LinkedIn profile, for example.
Once established they’re as fungible within the EU as any genuine company. They’re properly established under Cyprus company law (or Maltese – much the same), so they can operate anywhere.
Likewise, under Liechtenstein law there is a type of legal entity called an Anstalt (‘foundation’, roughly). It need have only one director, who can be a nominee, and all that need be reported is his name (so he can be “John Smith”). Such an entity pays a flat rate of tax, about 15,000 euros a year I think, and has next to no reporting requirements. A landlord I used to know had 30-odd buy-to-lets owned by such an entity which received all the rents from his properties, and which paid them to him. If HMRC ever demanded to know who owned this owner of UK property, and what happened to the rent money it received, he expected to have to disclose neither, as Liechtenstein law didn’t oblige it.
I don’t know whether that ruse would actually work, but the Cyprus case is real. I struggle to think of a legitimate, genuine purpose for such structures. They are surely used only by financial criminals and tax fugitives. I am baffled why it is so hard to outlaw them.
EDIT: sorry, I read that as “media” and made an irrelevant comment.