In 2019 105.000 recycling operations were reported. Data on the rise also in 2020
The alarm was raised by the CGIA Studies Office: in 2019, over 105 suspicious money laundering transactions were reported to the Bank of Italy's Financial Intelligence Unit (UIF): a record never reached before.
We are talking about alleged crimes carried out mostly by criminal organizations that seek to reinvest the economic proceeds deriving from illegal operations in companies or "clean" sectors. Furthermore, in the first four months of 2020, the UIF received 35.927 reports, an increase of 6,3 percent compared to the same period of 2019.
• Criminal organizations bill 170 billion annually
“According to our estimate based on data from the Bank of Italy - declares the coordinator of the CGIA Studies Office Paolo Zabeo - the turnover attributable to the criminal economy present in Italy amounts to approximately 170 billion euros a year. Virtually the same GDP as Greece. It should be noted, based on the definitions established at international level, that this amount does not include economic proceeds from violent crimes - such as theft, robbery, usury and extortion - but only from illicit transactions characterized by the agreement between a seller and the buyer. . Such as, for example, smuggling, arms trafficking, clandestine betting, illegal waste disposal, gambling, stolen goods, prostitution and the sale of drugs. We recall that for some years a part of these 170 billion, equal to just over 10 per cent of the total, has been counted, thanks to the new European provisions on national accounting, even in our national GDP ”.
Confirmation of the importance of the turnover of criminal organizations also emerges from the number of reports received in recent years by the UIF, a structure present within the Bank of Italy. We are talking about the suspicious economic and financial transactions "reported" to this Unit by financial intermediaries (credit institutions, post offices, notaries, accountants, arcade managers, financial companies, insurance companies, etc.). The main technical forms that in 2019 originated the reports to the UIF, for example, concerned, in particular, national transfers, money transfers and transactions in cash.
• The criminal economy: the only sector that knows no crisis
It is clear - says the secretary of the CGIA Renato Mason - that the organizations that manage these criminal activities need to reinvest the proceeds in the legal economy. And it is very important that during the control the authorities in charge are able to distinguish well the company capital from that of suspicious origin, in order to avoid mixing that could generate dangerous misunderstandings during the investigation phase. The boom in complaints that took place between 2009 and 2019, however, is a very worrying sign. Although we do not know the number of reports filed by the UIF and even the economic dimension of those that were subsequently examined by the DIA or the Currency Police, we suspect that the increase in reports recorded in recent years demonstrates that the economy criminal is the only sector in the whole country that has not been affected by the crisis ”.
• Less money from banks, more use of "easy" credit
According to the CGIA Studies Office, the increase in reports of money laundering could find its "justification" in the fact that in recent years live bank loans to businesses have undergone a very strong contraction. Therefore, it cannot be excluded that having received much less money from credit institutions, many entrepreneurs, especially small ones, have turned to those who could provide credit with a certain ease. In fact, between June 2011 (maximum peak of disbursement of bank loans to businesses) and the same month of this year, Italian companies suffered a credit squeeze equal to 250,5 billion euros (-27 per cent). If in the economic realities with more than 20 employees the reduction was equal to 196,7 billion (-26,1 per cent), in the very small businesses with less than 20 employees the decrease was 53,8 billion (-30,8 percent).
• In 2019, over 105 thousand reports: 99 per cent related to money laundering activities
Between 2009 and 2019, reports increased by over 400 percent. If in 2009 they were 21.066, last year they reached the record quota of 105.789 (see Graph 1). The CGIA recalls that once these "notices" have been received, the UIF carries out investigations on suspicious transactions and transmits them, enriched with financial analysis, to the Special Currency Police Unit of the Guardia di Finanza (NSPV) and to the Anti-Mafia Investigation Department (DIA ). Only if the reports are deemed unfounded, the UIF files them. Among the 105.789 communications received last year at the UIF, 104.933 (equal to 99,1 percent of the total) concerned money laundering operations. On the other hand, there are very few "reports" concerning the alleged activity of terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
• Campania, Lombardy and Liguria are the regions most at risk
At the territorial level, the most “affected” Regions in 2019 were Campania (222,8 reports per 100 thousand inhabitants), Lombardy (208,1), Liguria (185,3) and Tuscany (184). The less interested realities, however, were Abruzzo (115,7 per 100 thousand inhabitants), Umbria (110,3) and Sardinia (86,6). Compared to 2018, Sicily (+26,3 percent), Molise (+23,8 percent) and Basilicata (+17,4 percent) were the realities that recorded the percentage changes in the number of reports most important. Finally, the only regions in contrast were Piedmont (-0,5 per cent), Tuscany (-1,6 per cent), Umbria (-3,3 per cent) and Valle d'Aosta (- 4,3 percent).
• Prato, Milan and Imperia the provinces with the most reports of recycling
At the provincial level, the realities that in 2019 recorded the highest number of reports received by the Financial Information Unit per 100 inhabitants were Prato (344,6 per 100 inhabitants), Milan (337,1), Imperia (275,9, 270,7), Naples (235,8), Trieste (225), Parma (209,4) and Caserta (76,9). Those least invested, however, concern L'Aquila (75), Chieti (46,5), Nuoro (45,9) and Southern Sardinia (175,3). The national average was 100 per XNUMX inhabitants.