Fighting organised crime

Dia: Mafias use social networks and apps for illegal activities

The six-monthly report of the Anti-Mafia Investigative Directorate presented today in Rome also highlights how criminal organisations have "implemented relational skills by replacing the use of violence, increasingly residual but never repudiated, with strategies of silent infiltration and with corrupt actions".

by Redaction Rome

18 June 2024

2' min read

Key points

Dia: mafias target corruption and business, less violence
"Risks for Pnrr, mafias interested in funds"
"Confiscated 130 mln assets from mafias in first 6 months 2023"

2' min read

"As they shed the model of an old-generation mafia, adhering rather to the new and appealing business image, the use of technology takes on a decisive role for the illicit activity of criminal organisations, which, with increasing frequency, use encrypted communication systems, multiple instant messaging applications and social networks". This can be read in the six-monthly report of the Anti-Mafia Investigative Directorate presented today in Rome and concerning the activities carried out in the first six months of 2023. "From the results of the investigations concluded in the six months, it emerges how the main source of profitability of the criminal cartels, at a transnational level, continues to be drug trafficking, sometimes managed - it is stressed - through new organisational models capable of exploiting the web, especially in the phase of disposal".

Dia: mafias focus on corruption and business, less violence

Criminal organisations, which have long been committed to adapting to socio-economic changes and infiltrating the legal economy, have "implemented relational capacities by replacing the use of violence, increasingly residual but never repudiated, with strategies of silent infiltration and with corruptive actions", reads the Anti-Mafia Investigative Directorate's Report to Parliament. "Today, the mafias prefer to turn their attention to business-entrepreneurial spheres, taking advantage of the huge amounts of capital accumulated through illicit activities".

"Risks for Pnrr, mafias interested in funds"

The Dia in its report also points out that 'the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR) represents an important package of investments and reforms currently being implemented, but due to the high overall value of the funds involved, there is a risk that mafia organisations may show interest in these funds, increasing the phenomenon of infiltration into the legal economy'. To effectively counter these attempts, 'the Ministry of the Interior has adopted a preventive strategy focused on anti-mafia documentation, with particular attention to the information provided by the Prefectures,' it added. In the first half of 2023, 'there were 11,890 PNRR anti-mafia investigation initiation requests nationwide and 8 ended with a positive outcome, i.e. with the adoption of anti-mafia interdiction orders'.

"130 mln assets confiscated from mafias in first 6 months 2023"

Over 29 million assets seized and almost 130 million confiscated. These are some of the figures on the action taken against mafia groups contained in the Dia's half-yearly report on the activities carried out in the first six months of 2023. In particular, the value of assets seized in the preventive activity amounted to 29,130,500 euro and 542,343 euro in the repressive one. Assets worth 120,620,101 euro were confiscated in the preventive activity and 8,230,00 euro in the repressive one. In detail, over 4 million assets were seized from organised crime in Calabria, about two million from organised crime in Sicily and 2.6 million from organised crime in Campania. In terms of confiscations, the value of assets seized from Sicilian crime is close to 100 million. Thirteen investigative activities were concluded by the Dia in the same period and 63 restrictive measures were taken. At present," reads the report, "there are 295 judicial police activities underway, of which 77 named operations (13 launched on its own initiative and 64 by proxy) and 218 investigations related to criminal proceedings.