«The strategic geographical position, central and nerve center for transit entering and leaving Europe of goods and people” represents an element of strong attraction for the mafias “always ready to seize “new business opportunities useful for laundering and reinvesting their illicit capital”. The analysis of info-investigative elements extracted from the Dia’s heritage presents a scenario that is no longer new for Trentino Alto Adige. The report on mafia-style organized crime phenomena relating to the first half of 2023, presented by the Minister of the Interior Matteo Piantedosi, confirms the appetites of the mafias and the attempt to insinuate themselves into the economic fabric of the Trentino and Alto Adige, a concrete risk especially as regards the primary sector, therefore agriculture, services and large works, especially in light of the Pnrr, which has pushed the police forces to raise their guard. «The lively economic fabric» of the region — despite the Russian-Ukrainian crisis the economic trend reported a positive signal of 9.4% in 2023 compared to the previous year — fuels the appetites of crime.
Here Trento
In the government police station a A permanent observatory involving Trento has been established the economic categories, trade unions and professional orders. A synergy between institutions and the territory to grasp the signals before the mafias manage to settle in the territory, swallowing up companies in difficulty or seeking support in political circles, as had happened for the Municipality of Lona Lases, at the center of the investigation Ros di Trento which revealed a local Trentino linked to the ‘ndrangheta infiltrated the world of porphyry. The investigation has already led to several convictions, some of which have been confirmed by the Supreme Court (the appeals of Pietro Denise and Domenico Morello are pending in the Supreme Court) and next week the trial against Innocenzo Macheda, considered the head of the Trentino club. In the paper, Dia recalls the 2020 investigation and underlines the risks of infiltration. «The economic fabric of the province of Trento is not immune – writes the Anti-Mafia Investigation Directorate – from forms of interference by mafia-type criminal organisations». Criminal organizations that move capital and act silently, replacing violence with corrupt actions. This is also demonstrated by the “Black Fog” operation in Bologna which revealed a round of ‘Ndrangheta dirty money reinvested in northern Italy. And in the affairs of Daniele Pizzichemi, believed to be close to the Reggio Iamonte affair, there were also the Romanian hydroelectric power plants attributable, according to the prosecution’s reconstruction, to two Trentino professionals believed to be frontmen of some de facto companies. But there is not only money laundering, the business of the underworld also passes through drug trafficking whose proceeds are reinvested abroad to purchase products.i electronics or luxury goods to clean up the money. It is above all “criminal groups of foreign origin” that pull the strings of drug trafficking, “in particular cocaine and heroin are the prerogative of more structured ethnic associations, such as the Albanian and Nigerian ones. The Romanian and North African groups, which are less organised, are involved in hashish trafficking and the retail sale of all types of narcotics.”
Bolzano here
Drug trafficking is an alarming phenomenon also for Alto Adige. And it is once again the ‘ndrangheta to shine the spotlight on the thriving South Tyrolean territory. «Considered an important industrial hub and center of the tertiary sector, it has always aroused the interest of criminal organizations», underlines the Anti-Mafia Investigation Directorate which recalls the «Freeland» investigation which certified «the stable operation of the ‘Ndrangheta». According to investigations, the main source of profitability of criminal cartels, at a transactional level, remains the trafficking of narcotic substances which is often also managed via the web, especially in the sales phase, which is why the Trentino Alto Adige becomes a center of interest for criminal organizations, the Brenner motorway has always been under the spotlight of investigators and used for the transport of drug loads across the border. Drugs, but also great works. The focus today is mainly on to the most important construction sites such as the railway bypass“regional wealth, fueled by the Pnrr”, could in fact “represent a preferential channel for those organizations always ready to infiltrate the channels of the real economy”.
