The business of agro-mafias has reached 25.2 billion. In just over a decade, the agro-mafia has practically doubled its turnover, recovering the ground lost during the pandemic and expanding its operations to new areas: from illegal hiring to the counterfeiting and adulteration of food products, from control over logistics to the appropriation of farmland and public funds, all the way to usury, theft, and cybercrime. This is the picture outlined by the new Report on agri-food crimes in Italy drawn up by Coldiretti, Eurispes and the Agromafia Observatory Foundation. The report indicates that criminal organizations are increasingly attempting to expand their influence over a variety of food-related assets, as the agri-food sector has become more appealing to them. One example is the exploitation of immigrants through illegal gangmastering, managed by both Italian and foreign criminal networks. However, agro-mafias use the loopholes of bureaucracy to promote illegal credit, acquire farms, and launder money, while entrepreneurs face threats and damage when attempting to sell land and activities. This situation is further aggravated by the crisis linked to international tensions and rising production costs that has characterized recent years, weakening many businesses. The primary goal is to control public funds as well as markets and tenders through the use of compliant personnel and fraudulent paperwork. However, the infiltrations spread to restaurants, fruit and vegetable markets, and large-scale distribution, not to mention actual food fraud—adulterated or unlabelled products, often sold in discount stores. The most affected sectors are wine, oil, animal feed, and rice, involving the use of banned pesticides and fake organic certifications on imports from Eastern Europe.
|