Mafia in Tuscany, a Land of Conquest: the situation from a recent report

Organized crime seems to have learned how to team up. One of the findings of the second annual report on the phenomenon of organized crime and corruption in Tuscany is this. The analysis was carried out by the Scuola Normale di Pisa on a commission from the region, and it goes deeper into the details of the first edition that was published in 2017. It traces the roles that mafias and corruption have assumed in Tuscany and provides an account of the new dynamics of expansion.

Statistical data are crossed with analyses of punctual episodes. There is also a study dedicated to the Prato area, a very particular context where national dynamics of criminal migration of historical mafias intersect with other transnational ones in a similar mechanism of reproduction and colonization. And then there is a focus on civil society action and ‘grassroots’ engagement, because mafias are fought not only in the courtrooms or the courts but also in schools.

Few 416 bis (the Italian RICO)

The mafias in Tuscany, according to the Normale report and looking at court papers, do not seem to manifest themselves with a stable and organized presence in the territory. few and sporadic cases in short from article 416 bis, even in 2017, but far more numerous criminal activities in support of mafia-like associations.

“There is a lack of probative evidence of exclusive control of the territory,” clarified Florence prosecutor Giuseppe Creazzo, speaking at the presentation. ”The Cosche (Mafia groups) consider Tuscany a land of conquest where there is room for everyone. No mafia wars are recorded for this.” Still, it is a presence that should not be underestimated. If in the last fifteen years the number of people convicted in Tuscany for association remains so very limited, different is the case for crimes of aiding and abetting mafia-like criminal organizations. In the last three years, the Tuscan district is in fact the first in Italy, after the three regions with a historical presence of mafias (i.e., Campania, Calabria and Sicily) for arrests or charges with this aggravating factor: 223 people involved, more than 30 percent of the national total net of the three regions.

Risky areas

Four Tuscan provinces are said to be at the highest risk of criminal penetration: Grosseto, Livorno, Prato and Massa Carrara, the only one, moreover, that records an increase in the phenomena of intimidation and criminal violence. Fire damage, bombings and bank robberies (the latter especially in the province) are also growing in the region in recent years. For reports of extortion, Livorno is among the top in Italy for annual growth rate. Prato, on the other hand, tops the list for money laundering.

Beware of the ‘ndrangheta, the Calabrian Mafia

“The emergency today is definitely the ‘ndrangheta,” draws the attention of National Anti-Mafia Prosecutor Federico Cafiero de Raho, who is also present in FIrenze. ”It is a transnational organization of incredible economic strength, present in Europe as in Latin America, present in the port of Livorno as in that of Genoa or Rotterdam, in a stable way. “They have money galore and invest everywhere,” he adds. ”Lawyers, accountants and graduates lead it, chameleon-like and able to blend in.

Pisa University, the well-known “Scuola Normale,” has tried to map the presence in Tuscany of the four traditional mafias that have developed economic activities and exchanges in Tuscany in illicit or non-illegal markets. It counted 78 clans: 48 percent linked precisely to groups of the Calabrian ‘ndrangheta, 41 percent affiliated with the Camorra, and the rest, with 5 percent each, to the Cosa Nostra and Sacra Corona Unita of Puglia. Eight would be of predominantly indigenous origin, in five cases traceable to a Campanian matrix and in the other three Calabrian. Drug dealing (23 percent), extortion (13 percent), exploitation of prostitution and money laundering (11 percent), counterfeiting and usury (6 percent) appear to be their most frequent activities, along with waste trafficking. In drug dealing, foreigners arrested double that of Italians in 2016.

Land of conquest

The Mafia groups aim to control more markets than territory, and frequent would be precisely the exchanges and links between criminal gangs of different origins, suggesting possible integrations also of an organizational nature. National Prosecutor Cafiero explains it best again: “The mafias today are no longer separate; there are real business committees in which they all participate. Together they also move in the purchase of narcotics.” The arrest of fugitives in the Tuscan territory demonstrates the importance of Tuscany for historical mafia organizations, which are also willing to overcome the conflicts that exist in their territories of origin when they operate in the region. Prato is an example of this. There are also signs that there is a certain predisposition of some sectors of the Tuscan economy with respect to mafia matrix protection. And this sounds like a wake-up call.

The figures released in recent months by other organizations as well—the Caponnetto Foundation, for instance, surveyed 132 criminal groups in the region for an estimated turnover of 15 billion—ultimately depict a criminal conspiracy that, while operating covertly and with few violent acts, demonstrates that it has become entrenched in the region’s economic fabric, infiltrating even those who have no connection to the underworld with its culture.

According to L’Espresso, Matteo Messina Denaro, the leader of the Cosa Nostra superlatitant, was sheltered by the ‘ndrangheta and resided in Tuscany as well. . A land where criminal projection into the legal economy, as the data would show, would seem to prefer money laundering and concealment, the use of local entrepreneurs and professionals, and infiltration and action more in the private sector than in the public procurement market.

But it is necessary not to let our guard down. Thus Florence Prefect Laura Lega, who points out the ongoing relentless action to monitor construction sites together with the inter-force group, announces that the protocol against mafia infiltration in public contracts will be renewed and that anti-mafia investigations will be extended to the construction and urban planning sectors as well as to economic activities.