Ecomafia turnover increases: worth 9.3 billion. Crimes against cultural heritage soar

The grip of the ecomafias on Italy is not loosening. The attack continues, as does the scourge of corruption. This is what the new report by Legambiente "Ecomafia 2025. I numeri e le storie delle illegalità ambientali in Italia", presented today, Thursday 10 July in Rome, at Palazzo San Mancuto. Among the solutions outlined by the environmental association to combat environmental illegalities and strengthen standards and controls are the transposition of the European directive on the criminal protection of the environment, the strengthening of environmental controls, and the definition of a National Plan against illegal activities. "In the fight against environmental crime," notes Stefano Ciafani, national president of Legambiente, "Italy must accelerate the pace and can do so with the approval of a long-awaited fundamental reform, namely the transposition of the European directive on the criminal protection of the environment by 21 May 2026. The 2025 edition of Ecomafia is dedicated to the 30th anniversary of the death of Frigate Captain Natale De Grazia, who died between 12 and 13 December 1995 while investigating suspicious sinkings in the Mediterranean Sea of ships with their cargoes of waste.

Let us start with the numbers. In 2024 the wall of 40,000 environmental crimes will be surpassed, that is 40,590, +14.4% compared to 2023. We are talking about an average of 111.2 crimes per day, 4.6 every hour. The number of reported persons is also increasing, 37,186 (+7.8%), while the turnover of the ecomafias is worth 9.3 billion euro (+0.5 billion compared to 2023) and the number of clans involved is also growing, 11 more than those surveyed in the previous Ecomafia report. The number of investigations into corrupt phenomena in environmental contracts is also increasing: 88 those surveyed by Legambiente from 1 May 2024 to 30 April 2025, (+17.3% compared to 2023), 862 people reported, +72.4%. These investigations range from the construction of public works to the management of services, such as urban waste and purification, and the granting of environmental authorisations to companies.

Going into the details of the Ecomafia data processed by the environmental association and provided by the police forces and port authorities, in 2024 in Italy 42.6% of environmental crimes were concentrated in the four regions with a traditional mafia presence (Campania, Puglia, Calabria and Sicily). The largest number of offences is to be found, on a national level, in the cement industry (from unauthorised building to illegal quarrying to offences connected to public works contracts) with 13,621 ascertained offences in 2024, +4.7% compared to 2023, or 33.6% of the total. Followed by offences in the waste cycle as many as 11,166, +19.9%, and those against animals with 7,222 criminal offences (+9.7%).

The report reveals a surge in crimes against cultural heritage (from handling stolen goods to crimes against the landscape, from clandestine excavations to the counterfeiting of works): there are 2,956, +23.4% compared to 2023. With regard to illegal supply chains in the agri-food sector, while there was a slight decrease in controls (-2.7%), there was an increase in the number of crimes and administrative offences (+2.9%), as well as arrests (+11.3%). Completing the picture of environmental illegality in 2024 is the growth in administrative offences, 69,949 (+9.4%), equivalent to approximately 191.6 offences per day, 7.9 every hour. As for clans, from 1995 to 2024, the number of clans surveyed by Legambiente rose to 389.

With regard to the most serious crimes, envisaged by Title VI-bis of the Criminal Code, in 2024 in first place we have environmental pollution with 299 contested offences, the total number of offences was 971, an increase of 61.3% compared to 2023, and 1,707 people reported (+18.9%). Numbers that, the environmental association notes, together with the increase in controls on this type of offence (1,812 in 2024, +28.7%) demonstrate the effectiveness of Law 68 of 2015, which celebrated its tenth anniversary in May 2025. Specifically, from June 2015 to December 2024, thanks to this fundamental reform, 6,979 offences were ascertained, with 12,510 people reported, 556 arrests and 1,996 seizures.