ITALY:"Mafia Inc" is Italy's biggest company. With revenue that comes from extortion, loan-sharking, burglary, theft, counterfeiting, contraband, kickbacks and control of public-contracts, Italian organised crime has an estimated annual turnover of €90 billion, or 7 per cent of Italian GDP.
The above figures are contained in a report released this week by Confesercenti, the association of small businesses, which claims that the line between legitimate business and criminal activity is harder to discern every day.
"From textile factories to tourism to business and personal services, and from farming to public contracts to real estate and finance, the presence of organised crime consolidates itself in every economic activity," says the 86-page report.
Loan sharking and extortion make up almost half of mafia income, with many businesses in the south looking on protection money, the "pizzo", as an unavoidable expense. Businessmen who refuse to pay the "pizzo" risk having their premises torched or otherwise damaged, while, on occasion, they risk execution by the various mafias.
Tano Grasso, head of Italy's anti-rackets commission and son of Libero Grassi, who was killed in Palermo in 1991 because he had refused to pay protection money, pointed out this week that organised crime still acts as a major deterrent against foreign investment in southern Italy.