The global downturn is giving Italy's mafia the chance to buy up struggling businesses and tighten its grip on the economy, according to a report by the country's intelligence services released on Tuesday. Mobsters are looking to use proceeds from drug trafficking and other illegal activities to buy stakes in Italy's retail, tourism and real estate sectors, the report to parliament said. “Unemployment and the restriction of credit have been, and may continue to represent, conditions favourable to exploitation by the criminal system,” it said. Cash-hungry businesses had become more vulnerable to loan sharks and protection rackets, it said. Organised crime could also find new recruits among the growing number of unemployed. Italy's four biggest mafia organisations - Calabria's ‘Ndrangheta, Sicily's Cosa Nostra, Naples' Camorra and Puglia's Sacra Corona Unita - are believed to count for a large chunk of Italy's economic output. Interior Minister Roberto Maroni has estimated that the ‘Ndrangheta alone makes $57.10 billion a year, thanks in large part to drug trafficking in Europe. The intelligence report did not offer figures, but warned the ‘Ndrangheta was the “most insidious and pervasive expression of criminality” in Italy. It also sounded the alarm about the group's infiltration into public works projects. Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's is promising a massive public works programme to jumpstart an economy which most analysts expect to contract by around 3 percent this year. Critics say those infrastructure projects, which includes the construction of one of the world's longest suspension span bridges, could also fall prey to mafia infiltration. Beyond home-grown criminals, the intelligence report warned of advances by foreign criminals operating in Italy, particularly in central and northern parts of the country. It cited North African, Chinese and Russian gangs.
