Italian Mafia’s Cut in Tourism Sector is Over $2.6 Billion
Italian organized criminal groups have infiltrated the country’s robust tourism sector to the tune of US$2.6 billion, a recent report by Italian think tank Demoskopika, revealed. The groups take control over legitimate businesses in order to launder revenue from illegitimate enterprises like drug and arms trafficking, experts say.
That revenue is split between three major regional groups --
Sicilian Cosa Nostra, Neapolitan Camorra and Calabrian ‘Ndrangheta, as well as smaller
criminal groups in northern Italy’s Puglia and Lucania regions.
Though $2.6 billion is barely one percent of Italy’s total
tourism revenue of over $280 billion, it still represents a significant
foothold in one of Italy’s largest industries.
According to Demoskopika, some 4,400 businesses are at risk
of mafia infiltration, largely for the purpose of money laundering. The problem
has only been exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic.
As the world's 4th most visited country, tourism amounts for
some 13% of Italy's GDP. However, border shutdowns and global travel
restrictions have put the industry in dire straits.
“Over 13% of companies in the tourism sector are at risk of
default due to COVID,” Demoskopika’s Director Raffaele Rio said. That makes
them especially vulnerable to the aggressive economic infiltration strategies
of organized crime groups.
“The mafias try to bend the entrepreneurs with attractive
criminal welfare tools capable of guaranteeing business survival,” Rio said. To
that end they offer to cover soaring debt, provide greater financial security
through their entry into the business, slowly acquiring more and more until
sometimes they even fully control the business.
“A perverse circuit,” Rio called it. “Aimed at strengthening
the control of criminal families in the area, and at increasing their social
consensus that feeds serious illegal behaviors such as money laundering, usury
and extortion.”
Sergio Nazzaro, an expert on organized crime, who formerly
served as spokesman for the president of Italy’s Parliamentary Anti-Mafia
Commission doesn’t like the word ‘infiltration’ in this context.
“When someone tries to infiltrate, you want to stop him, you
close the door or the window to keep him out,“ he told the OCCRP. Instead Nazarro
called the mafia’s techniques a kind of
“creeping welfare.”
When a growing business falls short on funds, it’ll do
whatever it takes to stay alive, Nazzaro explained. That’s when the mafias
swoop in, he said. They offer support, and maybe even at a discount, but now
they have influence over the business.
“They can blackmail you, and so on,” Nazzaro said.
“Eventually they don’t need your money anymore, but they need your flat, or
your silence, or whatever else.”
Of the groups involved, the largest single actor is the
‘Ndrangheta. It’s infiltration into the tourism sector is thought to be worth
nearly $1 billion alone. ‘Ndrangheta is Italy’s largest organized criminal
group, whose illicit enterprises alone were once estimated to be around three
percent of Italy’s total GDP.
For the mafia, control over legitimate enterprises such as
tourism and hospitality entities are increasingly valuable. As their revenue
from illegitimate enterprises like drug and arms trafficking grows, seemingly
legitimate entities through which to launder their money are more and more
important.
The mafia’s revenue is so high, according to Nazzaro, they
don’t just acquire individual businesses and launder it but full industries.
“We’re talking full economic empires,” Nazzaro said.
“Construction, food distribution, you name it. Whatever they want, they take
control of. They have so much money they don’t know what to do with it.”
In early 2020 alone, Demoskopika saw a 242% increase in the
number of suspicious final transactions coming out of the tourism sector, which
may indicate money laundering.
If the economic crisis for the tourism sector continues,
those 4,400 businesses at risk of coming under the influence of Italian organized
crime may grow to as many as 33,000, Demoskopika said.
To that end, Nazzaro said one of the most important factors
in countering the mafia will be how Italy manages its economic recovery. If
handled incorrectly, or with too much bureaucracy, it will give the mafia more
space to swoop in and spread its influence.
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