About time Europe steered clear of criminal syndicates

Without a consistent and coherent system of legislation, it is hard to rein in the rise of mafia in the continent

Whether Italians like it or not, people around the world often associate their country with the mafia, and Sicilian crime syndicate - the classic stereotype. The term mafia itself comes from the island's dialect.
But there are other highly organised, even more dangerous, criminal syndicates of Italian origin. And they have spread, almost unchecked, from Italy to other countries in Europe.
"Italian mafias operating in Europe follow the scent of money," says politician and writer Claudio Fava, who is also Vice-President of the Italian Parliament's Anti-Mafia Commission. Like an octopus, you will find their tentacles wherever there is money to be made. "For years, some EU countries have been bank vaults for mafia associations," says Fava.
As coordinator of the National Secretariat of the Sinistra Ecologia Libertà Party and a former member of the European Parliament, Fava says Italian criminal organisations are not well understood in other European countries, so efforts to respond have fallen short.
But he knows a great deal about it. Fava has dedicated much of his life to battle the shadowy groups because his father Pippo, a journalist and playwright, was murdered by the Sicilian mafia in Catania in 1984.
Today the most powerful syndicate could be the 'Ndràngheta organisation from Calabria in southeast Italy.
"The 'Ndràngheta is a global mafia that operates in five continents," says Fava. "They certainly don't invest in Calabria where public spending is high. They invest in Europe, which has more investment opportunities, fewer social contacts and more money laundering."
In fact Europe has become a churning machine for dirty mafia money. It is infiltrating into the legal economy through construction, hotels and restaurants, real estate and recently "green" energy, with the help of professionals.
Spreading into countries with ineffective anti-mafia enforcement, sophisticated organised crime cartels seem to have got a free hand. Estimates suggest that 'Ndràngheta's annual revenues very well surpass those of McDonald's and Deutsche Bank's combined. With the exception of Italy, it is not a criminal offence to be a member of a mafia association in European countries.
"Europe has chosen disengagement from this serious issue," says Fava. "It is not responsive and shows disinterest in ensuring a consistent and coherent system of legislation on this."
The Italian Parliament's Anti-Mafia Commission has asked for coordinated European laws, creation of an anti-mob prosecutor, introduction of offence of mafia association, and mutual efforts to seize property and freeze assets. Professor Ernesto U. Savona, Director of Transcrime, a research centre at Università Cattolica in Milan, agrees that seizure of assets and economic sanctions are crucial in the fight. Fava notes, "These measures must in any case get a go ahead from each member state of the EU. It requires a delegation."
The current legislative failure "is a reflection of Europe's identity crisis", says Fava. "Judicial cooperation is only a façade. Following the massacre at Duisburg in Germany in 2007, the EU focused greater attention on the problem, but soon after stopped being supportive. As usual, the mafia is treated as merely an Italian curse," he added.
"It's as if operations against the 'Ndrangheta in Belgium and drug trafficking in the EU never took place, as if the murder of six men in Duisburg wasn't a 'Ndràngheta massacre between two rival clans. Besides Italy, only Germany and Spain are aware. The rest of member states still believe that the mafia is confined to Sicily and that its language is Sicilian. Believing that mobsters are less dangerous today because there is less bloodshed is an error that is extremely dangerous."
Mafia groups in Europe are estimated to generate some ?110 billion a year, according to a study by Transcrime.
The 'Ndràngheta is active especially in central Europe, Australia and Canada, says Savona. The Sicilian mafia is most active in southern Europe, the US and Latin America, while the Camorra, a secret society that originates in the Campania region around Naples, works mostly in central Europe where it is involved in drug trafficking, illicit waste dumping and distributing counterfeit products made by Chinese criminal groups.
The Sacra Corona Unita and the Società Foggiana from the Apulia region started with cigarette smuggling and evolved into human trafficking, drugs and weapons. They are present in the Netherlands, Germany, Spain and Albania.
"Europol counts the members of criminal groups in Europe at about 6,000," says Savona. Their biggest revenue comes from drugs. Rotterdam is the largest port on the continent and "also the key entry point for drugs especially cocaine", says Fava. "But the Italian port of Gioia Tauro in Reggio Calabria Province is no better." Of the 11 million containers that pass through Rotterdam annually, only 50,000, or 0.45 per cent, are scanned.
Spain has become an ideal site for drug storage at the ports of Barcelona, Valencia and Algeciras.
But European intelligence agencies are getting better at sharing information. "It is slowly improving," Savona says.
Toughened Italian policemen and experts are helping when called. Victimised by assassinations of judges, journalists and police, Italy knows all too well the dangers that lurk around organised crime syndicates.
Mariella Radaelli and Jon Van Housen are editors at Luminosity Italia, a news agency based in Milan, Italy.