Dirty money

ITALY: The expression “crime doesn’t pay” means that the punishment for doing something illegal is greater than any benefits it may bring. However, according to a recent report, Italy’s biggest industry is organized crime.

Business dealings by the Mafia are now worth about €140 billion a year, says the report “Criminality's Grip On Business” by Confesercenti, an association of Italy’s small and medium-sized businesses. This is equal in value to about seven per cent of the country's GDP. Marco Venturi, president of Confesercenti, calls the Mafia “the biggest bank in the country”, with liquid assets of more than €59 billion.

Confesercenti lists criminal activities such as drug dealing, arms smuggling, prostitution and gambling as traditional sources of income for the Mafia. Gangsters also commonly profit from extortion — demanding payment to protect business owners from violence — as well as money laundering, which involves using fake businesses to cover up illegally earned money.

The Mafia lends money to businesses that are short of cash.

But the poor global economic situation makes crime worthwhile in other ways, too. The Mafia is earning more through loan sharking —  lending money to businesses that are short of cash, and then demanding excessively high rates of interest. “There are parts of the country that are controlled by organized crime, and the ongoing financial crisis — coupled with the lack of money — has made this problem even more dramatic,” Venturi told The Telegraph.