‘Risk that small and medium-sized businesses engulfed by gangs’
(ANSA) – LAMEZIA TERME, 17 MAR – The Covid emergency would have been an excellent source of income for the ‘Ndrangheta. This emerges from the annual report of Dia according to which “the analysis of the crime trend referring to the period of the lockdown has shown that the mafia organizations have moved with a strategy aimed at consolidating control of the territory, considered fundamental for their survival. and an essential condition for any criminal strategy of accumulation of wealth. Control of the territory and availability of liquidity which could prove to be aimed at increasing social consensus also through forms of assistance to individuals and companies in difficulty “. Hence “the risk that small and medium-sized businesses will be swallowed up by crime in the medium term, becoming a tool for laundering and re-using illicit capital”. In this sense, “the ‘Ndrangheta has proven to be able to intercept opportunities in socio-economic changes and a great flexibility and ability to reshape its investment basket to maximize profits. It is known that Calabrian crime, like the homologous mafia matrices, he has always been able to propose himself with ‘philanthropic’ actions towards families in difficulty to whom he can offer economic support, triggering a dependency mechanism that will be redeemed in due time “. The ‘Ndrangheta, therefore, would become like an “alternative welfare”, “only to present the bill to the beneficiary companies”. This, without abandoning other means of income such as drug trafficking, “which the emergency has in no way slowed down”, alongside the “ability to forge direct links with politicians, representatives of the institutions, entrepreneurs, professionals”. According to Dia “the clans have never stopped ‘marking the territory’, perpetuating their extortion and usurious pressure on entrepreneurs and traders”. They are also “able to adapt to the evolutions of the social context, national and foreign, keeping pace with progress and globalization, knowing how to project, at the right moment, their attentions towards Eastern European markets, also attracted by the large allocations of ‘EU “. (HANDLE).