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Italian experts encourage re-use of mafia assets across Europe

Xinhua, April 10, 2015 Adjust font size:

Experts gathered in Milan on Friday to present a project aimed at providing information on the re-use of mafia assets in society and fostering the adoption of similar standards at a European level.

Last year, the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union adopted a directive on the freezing and confiscation of instrumentalities and proceeds of crime, thus paving the way for a tougher fight against the mafia.

The ICARO project, launched by six Italy-based partners and financed with the support of the European Commission, is at work to ease the adoption of governance systems able to manage confiscated assets efficiently.

Particular attention will be paid to the issue of confiscated companies which suffer the freezing due to the long period necessary for confiscation and assignation, an official at ANBSC, a government agency tasked with reallocating assets confiscated to the mafia, Maria Rosaria Lagana, said.

The project is based on the long experience of the partners in the social fight against the mafia and organized crime.

Nando Dalla Chiesa, head of the observatory on organized crime (CROSS) of the University of Milan, whose department of social and political sciences is a partner of ICARO, said, "Each country must put the best strategies in place to fight this state-like criminal system," he stressed.

Public works, restaurants, shopping malls and gambling are among the mafia activities along with new businesses such as garbage, health and even sport, according to the ICARO experts.

A study released in 2013 by the European Police Office (Europol) found there were around 3,600 criminal organizations across Europe of which nearly 70 percent are mafia-style. Their illegal turnover has been estimated to be worth 25 trillion euros (about 26 trillion U.S. dollars).

No important cities are immune to this system, Milan's Mayor Giuliano Pisapia said. "Too many people believed the mafia to only be present in the south of Italy, while it is also deep-rooted in northern regions as well as in other European countries north of Italy," he added.

Lombardy ranks among the first regions in Italy in the number of confiscated assets from the mafia. So far, local authorities have been able to reuse as many as 130 mafia assets for social and educational purposes to contrast criminal organizations, Pisapia said. Endit