ANCONA – In the Marche region, due to its entrepreneurial capacity «the territory could be potentially attractive for organized crime, and due to the considerable public funding attributed to the Marche Region with the PNRR, the Next Generation EU funds and the Structural Funds of the 2021-2027 Programming, the l institutional attention to avoid any mafia infiltration in the territory”. It is a passage of Half-yearly report first half of 2023 of the Dia, Anti-Mafia Investigation Directoraterelating to the period January-June 2023.
The report highlights that the port of Ancona it represents an important port for international traffic of vehicles and passengers and one of the first for the movement of goods. The Marche production system is mostly based on small and medium-sized companies active in various sectors, such as agri-food, manufacturing and tourism.
«From the law enforcement activities carried out by the police over the years, there are no elements that suggest the rooting of mafia-type criminal organizations – we read in the report -, but the presence of offshoots attributable to mafia organizations mostly of ‘Ndrangheta origin with interests in the sector of money laundering and reuse of illicit proceeds in the legal economy. The presence of the Camorra would be marginal but involved, through the management by individuals from Campania, some linked to criminal associations, in drug trafficking.”
As regards foreign crime «the operations of subjects have consolidated foreigners mostly Albanians, Nigerians, Romanians, and Afghans who have managed to carve out their own spaces in the drug dealing sector, as well as in crimes against property. In this regard, the operations were carried out mainly in the provinces of Ancona, Pesaro and Fermo”.
In the Province of Ancona in the semester “foreign crime, in addition to the drug sector, was responsible for gang-master crimes and aiding and abetting illegal immigration”. The report recalls the “Country workers” operation carried out on 9 February 2023 by the Financial Police of Ancona, whose investigations, resulting from the examination of suspicious banking movements, allowed the arrest of «a Pakistani entrepreneur, domiciled in Fermo , which had involved over 50 workers and a dozen agricultural companies operating in the southern area of the Region in the illicit activity. Specifically, the Pakistani citizen, in order to provide low-cost labor to the agricultural companies involved, hired fellow countrymen in obvious need, assigning them to work on third-party agricultural land, in exploitative conditions.”
In the rest of the regional territory «police activities have confirmed how drug dealing constitutes the main illicit activity perpetrated both by foreign gangs and by common crime present in the Marche area”. Among the operations cited, that of 13 January 2023 when the State Police of Pesaro arrested a Liberian citizen for possession for the purpose of dealing narcotic substances and then that of 1 February 2023 in Pesaro Urbino when «the Carabinieri, in As part of the “Winter Sea” operation, they executed a custodial order against a criminal group made up of subjects from Campania and a Calabrian, partly resident in that area, held responsible for the detention, transfer and sale of large consignments of cocaine destined not only for the provinces of Pesaro and Urbino, but also for Ancona, Rimini and Perugia”.
On 6 March 2023, the Carabinieri of Fermo, as part of the “Uunderground” operation, arrested 8 people (of Italian, Moroccan, Albanian and Romanian nationality) «held responsible for drug trafficking. The criminal association operated mostly along the entire Fermo and Macerata coastline. As regards the aiding and abetting of illegal immigration, reference is made to the “Wet shoes” operation carried out on 31 January 2023 by the State Police of Macerata and Rome, against a criminal association aimed at aiding and abetting illegal immigration with the aggravating circumstance of transnationality. The 3 Tunisians, arrested, made use of a network of accomplices in the Macerata area and of “…contacts with the organized criminal groups operating in Tunisia who took care of the transport of illegal foreigners by sea”. The criminal association was able to manage the clandestine landing on the Sicilian coasts of foreigners, mainly North Africans, through logistical support as well as providing the necessary coverage to obtain the documentation for all the countries in the Schengen area”.
