It is a well known fact that the underworld on the Italian peninsula controls vast stretches of the Italian economy.
Some readers will remember the underworld’s
waste-management activity that ended in the sinking of some 42 ships
laden with toxic and/or hazardous waste throughout the Mediterranean.
This was well-known to environmentalists but confirmed during the
Palermo maxi-processo, when Mafia turncoat Francesco Fonti gave evidence identifying the location of one such sunken ship, the Kunsky, loaded with 120 barrels of toxic waste, just off the Calabrian coast.
This network of organised environmental crime
is so vast that, at one time, it also dumped toxic, hazardous and
nuclear waste in Somalia. The warlords in the Somalian civil war were
partly financed by the Italian underworld, which supplied them with arms
in return for their consent to the dumping of the toxic, hazardous and
nuclear waste in their country. Rai Tre’s investigative journalist
Ilaria Alpi and her cameraman Miran Hrovatin were murdered in Mogadishu
after having successfully tracked down the toxic shipments.
In early 2008 it was discovered that buffalo
mozzarella originating from some 83 dairy farms in an area near Naples
was tainted with dioxin. The buffalo were grazing in an area where the
Mafia was controlling the dumping of toxic waste containing dioxin. When
ingested through food, dioxin can cause birth defects and organ failure
in mammals. Large quantities of buffalo mozzarella tainted with dioxin
were withdrawn from the market.
Carmine Schiavone, another Mafia turncoat,
spilled the beans on more dumping of toxic and hazardous waste by the
Mafia in the Naples area, in particular the area around Casale di
Principe. It has been reported that the incidence of cancer in these
areas has skyrocketed as a result of the dumping contaminating the water
table.
It is estimated that the underworld has
garnered some €20 billion a year in the last few years from its illicit
dealings in waste. Add to this the billions from its drug dealings,
estimated at another €20 billion annually, and you can clearly
understand the Mafia’s need to launder huge sums of money.
Two specific areas seem to have been selected
for this purpose. One such area was an investment in wind-farms in
Sicily. Wheeling and dealing in the Sicilian wind farms was a certain
Gaetano Buglisi who, for a time, made use of Malta’s fiduciary services
by hiding behind their corporate veil. Last February the Italian Courts
sentenced him to three years in jail as well as a substantial fine on
finding him guilty of tax evasion. MORE
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