Enzo Serata, the director of the Bank
of Italy's Financial Intelligence Unit (UIF), on Wednesday
sounded the alarm about "the persistence of the danger of
contamination of the legal economy by organized crime".
Addressing a hearing in the Lower House, Serata spoke, among
other things, about the National Recovery and Resilience Plan
(NRRP), a huge programme that seeks to make the Italian economy
Greener and more modern with the help of over 190 billion euros
in EU grants and low-interest loans.
He said the NRRP funds were "an extraordinary opportunity for
development and growth" but also offer "further opportunities to
criminal organizations, which are interested in entering the
sectors that most benefit from public contracts and in
conditioning the activities of public administrations through
various forms of corruption".
Serata added that the UIF estimates that value of money
laundering was around 25-35 billion euros a year in Italy in
the 2018-2022 period, around 1.5-2.0% of GDP.
He said that a UIF study had uncovered that "more than 106,000
companies, about 2% of the total registered in the business
registry in the 2005-2020 period, were found to be potentially
close to organized crime".
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