Report: Italy's crime is the nation’s No. 1 business

Italian Mob Revenue Surges to $167 Billion From 2007. By Flavia Krause-Jackson
Bloomberg, Jan. 30, 2009

Revenue raked in by Italy’s mob surged 40 percent last year, turning crime into the nation’s No. 1 business, Eurispes said in its annual report.

Income increased to 130 billion euros ($167 billion), up from about 90 billion euros in 2007, according to figures supplied by Eurispes and SOS Impresa, an association of businessmen to protest against extortion. Drug trafficking remains the primary source of revenue, bringing in about 59 billion euros, and the mob earned 5.8 billion euros from selling arms, the Rome-based Eurispes research group said today.

“During a crisis, people lower their guard,” Roberto Saviano, who wrote the bestseller “Gomorrah” about the Camorra crime bosses, said in an interview. “Studies show the criminal market never suffers during a crisis. I’m convinced that this crisis is bringing huge advantages to criminal syndicates.”

Organized crime groups siphon 92 billion euros, about 6 percent of Italy’s gross domestic product, from Italian businesses a year through protection payments, usurious interest rates on loans and other forms of extortion, Eurispes estimates. That works out to 250 million euros a day and 10 million euros an hour, Eurispes said. Italians are struggling to make mortgage payments and support their families as the worst recession since 1975 threatens jobs and makes banks more reluctant lenders.

“With people more desperate, loan sharks thrive,” Amedeo Vitagliano, an Italian crime expert at Eurispses, said in a telephone interview. “While the country is on its knees, the mob rejoices.”


Tide Turning?

There are signs that the tide could turn against the mob. Italy’s biggest employers’ group, Confindustria, a year ago took its strongest stance against organized crime in its 98-year history, announcing that any members found to have paid the Sicilian Cosa Nostra an extortion payment, known as the “pizzo,” would be expelled. Still, when the new rule was announced, only five members of the association admitted having received mob threats.

The country’s main criminal syndicates are the Mafia in Sicily, the Camorra based around Naples and the ‘Ndrangheta that operates from Calabria, the region located at Italy’s southern toe.

Eurispes estimates that the Italian authorities confiscated 5.2 billion euros in assets from the mob last year. The Camorra had 2.9 billion euros seized, the report says. The Sicilian Mafia had 1.4 billion euros sequestered and ‘Ndrangheta, 231 million euros, Eurispes said.