http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-italy-mob_spolarnov21,0,2387057.story

“Italy’s loan sharks feed on fiscal carnage”

By: Christine Spolar

November 21, 2008 

                Since the worldwide economic downturn, Italy’s economy has become more vulnerable.  It has opened the door for loan sharks to prey on the businesses that need quick cash and credit.  Confesercenti, a business association has tracked Mafia income for the past 15 years, and found that many people who struggle for credits or loans have gone to at least one of the four large Mafia gangs; the Cosa Nostra, ‘Ndrangheta, Camorra and Sacra Corona Unita.  Throughout the past year, about 180,000 firms in an economy dominated by small businesses have gone to loan sharks, partly because they can no longer qualify for banks loans.  Rome is the nation’s biggest loan shark market, with criminality a part of it.  Rome is the nation’s biggest loan shark market, with criminality a part of it.  Italy, like other 14 European countries that use the euro, has officially fallen into a recession, and criminal gangs are taking full advantage.  The criminal groups in Italy account for about 6 percent of the gross domestic product.  The big Mafia groups collect about $15 million from the high-risk credit deals.  What the Mafia most commonly demands on small businesses is for protection money, known as pizzo.  This usually pulls in about $8 billion annually.  But more and more, organized crime is trying to get financial cuts from tourism, the health care industry, meat and food producers and mostly any kind of business related services.

-Danielle Improte

http://www.upi.com/Top_News/2008/11/11/Credit_crunch_boon_for_Mafia_loansharks/UPI-39811226442149/

“Credit crunch boon for Mafia loansharks”

United Press International, Inc

November 11, 2008   

                Mafia loan-sharking actions have exploded in Italy since the global financial crisis is triggering banks to limit loans.  The Italian retail services association called the Confesercenti said that business owners are now more often being forced to look for high-interest loans from mobsters because banks aren’t lending.  The Mafia is now lending high-interest loans to about 180,000 businesses.  In a Confesercenti report it said that organized crime has become the biggest business within Italy; having revenues of $163 billion and profits of $87 billion.  Italian Interior Undersecretary, Alfredo Mantovano stated that, “The government is responding to this with a series of adequate measures…we are not being caught off guard.”

-Danielle Improte

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/italy/3442822/Net-profit-of-Italian-mafia-makes-them-Italys-biggest-business.html

“Net profit of Italian Mafia makes them Italy’s biggest business”

By: Nick Squires

November 11, 2008

                The Mafia uses intimidation and violence to force restaurant owners, shoe keepers and companies to pay more than 200 million euros worth of ‘pizzo’- which means protection money in Italian.  In Italy, if the four biggest Mafia groups joined together and combined their net profits it would make them the biggest business in Italy.  Many Italian firms are fearing the financial crisis because they feel that it could enable groups like the Mafia of Sicily; the Camorra of Campania and Calabria’s ‘Ndrangheta to tighten their hold onto many of the companies who are desperately seeking credit.  The Mafia also is making money by investing in a range of semi-legal enterprises, such as night clubs, construction, butcher shops, bakeries, fish markets and even funeral parlors.  An estimated 180,000 Italian businesses are currently being ripped off by the loan sharks.  Since being elected in April, the conservative coalition of Silvio Berlusconi stepped up the fight against these organized crimes by sending 500 armed troopers to Naples to take on the feared Camorra Mafia.

-Danielle Improte

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7724071.stm

“Mafia ‘boosted’ by credit crisis”

BBC News

November 12, 2008

                The country’s organized crime network, the Italian mafia, is currently making a profit off of the global economic downturn.  The credit crunch has forced about 180,000 businessmen to turn to the mafia as money-lenders.  This situation makes the mafia “even more dangerous”, said Marco Venturi.  Even though the mafia is making a huge profit off of this financial crisis, the Confesercenti said that illegal drugs and people smuggling is still top of the mafia’s earnings list.  Mafia bosses are also investing in well-known Italian companies that have been affected by this global economic problem.  Venture has been urging banks and the government to provide credit so that all these desperate business owners don’t have to turn to the mafia for loans.

-Danielle Improte