TREVISO. Recycling alert in the Marca. The pandemic does not stop the gray areas of our economy, on the contrary 2021, at least in the first six months, sees a net growth. In Treviso and its province, from January to June, 962 reports of suspicious transactions received by the Financial Intelligence Unit of the Bank of Italy were recorded: 23% more than in the same period in 2020.
But if the comparison goes to the second half of 2020, then the figure is explosive, because the increase is 41%.
A worrying picture. The Bank of Italy itself underlines how much of it can be traced back to the recycling area. And to sound the alarm is Confapi of Padua, whose Fabbrica study center has processed the data of the Bank of Italy and its supervisory structure on suspicious financial transactions.
Another disturbing factor is that the Marca, for suspicious transactions, ranks second in Veneto, behind Verona (991 suspicious transactions, before Vicenza (939), Padua (921), Venice (782), Rovigo (248) and Belluno (147). In total, Veneto went from 4,272 reports in the first half of 2020 to 4,102 in the second, but in the first six months of this year it definitely rose again, to 4,990. In Italy there were 70,157 reports in the first half of 2021 (32.5% compared to the same period in 2020), with the doubling of the reports submitted by money transfer.
According to Confapi, the data, in the Marca as in the rest of Veneto, is fueled by the new contraction in credit to businesses and families, after the partial recovery in the first months of 2020. “The organized crime clans could take advantage of the liquidity crisis, too the associations must be vigilant “, declares Carlo Valerio, president of Confapi in Padua,” The indiscriminate increase in the prices of raw materials is a further risk factor “.
Confapi’s thesis is that there may be a correlation between the trend of reports of suspicious money laundering operations in the area and that of bank loans to businesses and households.
Valerio and Confapi emphasize that the decline in reports of suspicious transactions recorded in 2020 corresponds to a reversal of the trend in credit to businesses and households, with bank loans that for the first time after an uninterrupted decade contraction had started to rise again in 2020, as demonstrated by the evolution of the Brand: if credit to businesses and households traveled around 23 billion euros in the first quarter, there was constant growth both in the second quarter (23 , 9 billion) and in the third (24.4 billion). But then the year ended with a minus sign, since the amount of credit dropped to 24.1 billion, almost 330 million less put into circulation.
The clues converge, and for Confapi they make a test: when credit grows, suspicious transactions decrease, when, vice versa, the taps tighten, the gray areas grow. And on this front, Confapi awaits credit data in 2021, in order to close the circle.
But Valerio is already putting institutions and the world of credit on alert: “The new credit contraction may have prompted more than a few entrepreneurs in difficulty, in the following months, to resort to the shortcuts proposed by criminal organizations”, he points out, “The inversion of trend in the trend of loans in 2020 it turned out to be an excellent signal, also due to the set of protective networks put in place by the State in the emergency period to support businesses “.
Measures that according to Confapi have “made it possible to stem the problem at least”. But today, Valerio relaunches “we are unfortunately faced with a different situation”, because “when so many small entrepreneurs are in crisis due to the consequences of the pandemic on their business, the risk of pollution of the economy and of usury by mafia crime ». According to the Confapi dossier, the categories most at risk include small businesses and merchants, and those who live off work rather than capital.
Finally, the chapter on raw materials: «The credit lines of companies are calculated on a volume of business which is the average one, if the prices of raw materials increase this volume is greatly exceeded. The entrepreneur will need more resources to buy the same product and, if those resources do not have them, the temptation to rely on scorer will be stronger.illicit tricks “.Andrea Passerini