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The Businesses of Italian Mafias

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Abstract

Drawing on information taken from a recent Transcrime report on “Mafia Investments”, this article discusses the following topics: 1) the expansion of Italian mafias in Italy; 2) their criminal activities and related revenues; 3) how and where mafias invest these revenues. Going beyond the Transcrime report, this article will conclude by considering the changes in mafia business that may open the way to more effective policies against organized crime in the future.

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Notes

  1. The “Mafia Investments” report is the result of a study on investments by organized crime that Transcrime carried out in 2012–2013 as part of a Project funded by the Italian Ministry of the Interior within the Programme “PON Sicurezza 2007–2013” (www.investimentioc.it). The data reported in this article are drawn mainly from that report.

  2. See in particular the Methodological Appendix to Chapter 2 of the Transcrime report.

  3. For a detailed description see Transcrime (2013), and in particular the Methodological Appendix to Chapter 2.

  4. Statistics on goods confiscated and seized in Italy are provided by various databases. Besides the database from the ANBSC, the Criminal Analysis Service (SAC) of the central management of the Criminal Police of the Ministry of Interior also provides data which allow distinction between goods seized and confiscated. The SAC database, especially with regard to seizures, today provides the most complete picture of goods removed from organized crime, in terms of both numbers (more than 50,000 goods) and updates (until 2011). ANBSC confiscations are updated to 2012 as well, but they refer to goods actually seized several years earlier. On the other hand, the SAC database provides information only at the aggregate level, which is therefore unsuitable for the type of analysis conducted by this study. For this reason, it was decided to use the ANBSC database.

  5. The property values data refer to the second half of 2011. Although it is possible that these values have changed in the course of time, these changes are likely to be very limited and they should not affect the results of the analysis, at least in the aggregate.

  6. For a detailed description of these analyses see Transcrime (2013), and in particular the Methodological Appendix to Chapter 5.

  7. In particular, in this analysis, a reduced index calculated without considering confiscated properties was used. This index was classified into three classes as follows: Low, with values between 0 and half of the average; Medium, with values ranging from half of the average value and the mean plus one standard deviation; High with values above the average plus one standard deviation.

  8. For a detailed description of these analyses see Transcrime (2013), and in particular the Methodological Appendix to Chapter 5.

  9. This analysis does not include “corporate bonds” because there was no additional information in the database used.

  10. For a detailed description of this analysis see Transcrime (2013), and in particular the Methodological Appendix to Chapter 6.

  11. In particular, calculation was made of the linear partial correlation between the number of confiscated companies (total 1983–2012 per Italian province per sector NACE 1digit), assumed as the independent variable Y, and the characteristics of the provinces or of the sector NACE 1 digit, reported in Table 6, assumed as dependent variables X. The correlation was calculated with the effect of some controlling variables Z which were assumed likely to intervene in the relation between Y and X.

  12. The report contains guidelines to devise modern policies against the mafias.

  13. Project “Organised Crime Portfolio” (OCP) (www.ocportfolio.eu). The Project has been funded by EU Commission, DG Home Affairs within the Programme “Prevention of and Fight against Crime” (ISEC) and it is carried out by Transcrime which coordinates an international consortium of seven other partners.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore and Transcrime - Joint Research Centre on Transnational Crime, Largo Gemelli, 1, 20123, Milan, Italy

    Ernesto U. Savona

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  1. Ernesto U. Savona
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Correspondence to Ernesto U. Savona.

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Savona, E.U. The Businesses of Italian Mafias. Eur J Crim Policy Res 21, 217–236 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10610-014-9261-7

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