Roberto Saviano in the English weekly Observer he recounted the activities of our local mafias during the pandemic.
The Italian writer speaks of home deliveries by the mafia and the Camorra. He argues that the underworld, now as not hands, are chasing all the opportunities that the pandemic, through the injection into the economy of large quantities of cash, can give.
The mafia chases cash. The opportunity is particularly favorable for the mafias due to the speed with which contracts are awarded and the possibility of moving goods and money without the normal legal and bureaucratic controls or protocols.
With their usual business sense, in recent decades criminal organizations have invested in a series of companies that have become very profitable today due to the health emergency: multiservice companies (catering, cleaning or disinfection), industrial laundries, transport, pumps funeral homes, waste collection, food distribution and health.
In Italy, the police and services have also already raised the alarm on the investments of the mafias in the production and distribution of "anti Covid kit“, Which include masks, hand sanitizers and latex gloves.
Saviano increases the dose. For every honest entrepreneur at risk of having to close his shop, there is a mafia clan ready to replace him. For the Calabrian mafia, the 'Ndrangheta, this would be familiar territory: for years it has made capital investments in the pharmaceutical and healthcare products sector. In fact, in March 2016, it was discovered that the 'Ndrangheta had worked aggressively to establish itself in the field of medical and pharmaceutical industries throughout Lombardy. He had even sent relatives with degrees in medicine, nursing and pharmacology to the region.
But such commercial opportunities are not the only benefit that epidemics bring to criminal organizations. An even more profitable product is silence. With public attention monopolized entirely by the Covid19 epidemic, the mafia can act undisturbed.
Saviano argues that with most law enforcement officers employed in the fight against Covid-19, controls at sea and in ports have decreased, favoring the global circulation of narcotic substances.
Door to door delivery
In Italy, criminals have lost their traditional drug-dealing locations outside of schools and parks. However, they resorted to home delivery, adopting a method known in Anglo-Saxon countries "door to door " on call.
Another service is offered by the Camorra which has set up daily home deliveries of basic necessities.
According to the Italian anti-mafia, the Camorra would also have started to lend, but not at its usual interest rates of between 50% and 70%. Competitive and lower rates than banks.
They do it because they are investing in consensus: the desperate people who today receive the help of the Camorra will be grateful or, rather, will have to express their gratitude when everything is back to normal. The Camorra will need workforce for illegal activities. This is a strategy already adopted by the Mexican mafia cartels.
The next phase of the pandemic will see even more mafia activity
Firm companies will need a capital injection to resume their activities: from catering to commerce, from cement to tourism. In these sectors, the Italian mafia organizations are already well integrated, not only in Italy but also at the international level. For every honest entrepreneur who risks having to close their restaurant or shop, there is the mafia ready to intervene and take control of the company, or offer an injection of money in exchange for shares.
If governments don't act now to help companies in crisis, it will be too late. Europe must immediately act quickly to support the economy. Many believe that giving money to Italy is equivalent to feeding the mafia - as erroneously stated by the German newspaper Die Welt in early April - but it is exactly the opposite. The less financial support is made available, the more the mafia organizations will benefit from it. Financial centers such as the city of London, Luxembourg and Andorra know this perfectly because the vast resources of the mafia are kept in their tax havens.
The mafia was also used in the 2008 crisis. It stepped in to save the banks during the 2008 financial crisis, as revealed by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. Similarly, in the current pandemic, there is a risk that the mafias could come to the rescue of European companies.
Today Roberto Saviano concludes, we are in an emergency and the imperative is to survive, but we must not let our guard down because criminal interests are mobilizing.