Agriculture and EU funds: Mafia infiltration in the South, speculation in the North. Penalties of 40 million

Environment (landfills, waste, pollution):
91,942 inspections, 6,142 complaints, 4,915 infringements, 10.7 million euro fines.

General Daniel Melis, on the other hand, focused on the supervision of the entire food chain. "Our task is to ensure that every product, from field to plate, complies with quality and safety regulations. It is not enough for a food to be healthy: it must also comply with production specifications."

Melis also recalled the investigations conducted jointly with the Nas and turned the spotlight on the risk of Mafia infiltration in accessing European funds: 'In the Messina and Catanese areas, we have unmasked connivance between officials and Mafia families. Phenomena that are more widespread in the South, but also present in the North, where large investors come into play'.

"The Cufaa," said Minister Lollobrigida, "is an excellence of our system of controls and persecutory capacity against those who commit acts contrary to the law, and as Masaf we want to understand how to be of further support to the work of the corps and be able to guarantee a greater capacity to impact on the many environmental issues, the protection of our forests, biodiversity and the fight against poaching".

The minister also announced Lollobrigida that the government intends to include in the amendment to law 157/92 on hunting the central role of the Arma 'in terms of deterring poaching and strengthening controls'.

Emphasising the work done by the Cufaa 'both in the regions with ordinary statutes and in those with special statutes where the corps intervenes in a subsidiary manner, given the latency of regional structures', Minister Lollobrigida said that on the issue 'further study should be done, because there is an organisational disharmony that, in my opinion, does not make much sense and on which, with the Conference of the Regions, we could understand how to make the collaboration structural or try to put the corps in a position to have a greater number of personnel to be able to make up for the objective deficiencies that those regions have been demonstrating for some years'.

"There is no other country that has 8,000 people dedicated to this type of control. Within the control booth at Masaf, the control system has been further refined and made more efficient, and compared to previous years, not only is the implementation of these controls exceptional, but also the number of successful ones,' the minister concluded.