Italian police have seized some
18 billion euros from Italy's three main mafias in the last five
years, or over 1% of Italian GDP, according to a report
published Monday.
Goods and property worth some seven billion euros have been
confiscated while a further 11 billion have been sequestered,
the report said.
The high command of the Guardia di Finanza (GdF) tax police
said that "the attack on the property of organised crime has
always been the hallmark of the corps and it has boosted and
refined its ability to intercept the business, economic and
financial interests of criminality, not only organised, but also
in its more evolved form of economic and financial offshoots."
It said the assets had been seized from persons who had been
identified as "socially dangerous".
As well as assets proper, the corps had gone after
"safe-haven assets" including diamonds, precious metals,
paintings and archaeological artefacts, it said.
Italy's strongest and richest mafia is 'Ndrangheta from
Calabria, which expanded to northern Italy in the 1980s and has
since gone global after it cornered the European cocaine market.
Then comes its older cousin Cosa Nostra from Sicily, which
has been hit by police action following campaigns of
assassination including anti-mafia crusaders Giovanni Falcone
and Paolo Borsellino in 1992.
The third biggest mafia is the Camorra from Naples, whose
death threats have forced anti-mafia writer Roberto Saviano into
a police protection programme.
There is also a fourth mafia, the Sacra Corona Unita (United
Holy Crown, SCU), in Puglia.
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