Several members of organised crime gangs based in the south of Italy have been arrested after anti-mafia police in Naples and Caserta uncovered a 20-year plot to control the fresh fruit and vegetable markets of central-southern Italy.
A total of 67 people belonging to the Sicilian Cosa Nostra, the Naples-based Camorra and Calabrian group 'Ndrangheta were arrested yesterday (10 May) during raids in which real estate, weapons and vehicles allegedly belonging to the gangs were also seized.
Head of Italy's anti-mafia squad Antonio Girone said the three syndicates had set aside traditional rivalries to collaborate in fixing prices and tightly controlling logistics contracts for fresh produce shipped from locations all the way from Sicily in the south and as far north as the Italian capital Rome.
The cartel is alleged to have been centred around the Fondi wholesale market, in southern Lazio, where logistics operators are understood to have monopolised the transportation of fruit and vegetables through much of the centre and south of the country.
National farming group Coldiretti said the mafia groups' stranglehold on the region's fruit and vegetable trade had seen prices from production to retail rise by as much as 200 per cent.
The gangs are also alleged to have regularly shipped underweight consignments, while extorting money from growers and distributors and interfering with business transactions. Allegations that the gangs 'stole entire crops' have also been raised.
According to a report released by commercial organisation Confesercenti, over recent years criminal gangs have sought to legitimise their previously illegal operations by entering the agriculture sector, diversifying into fruit and particularly vegetable production and effectively removing competition from the market in order to fix prices and control labour.
'This is, essentially, a transition from the management of illegal markets and illegal products – drugs, prostitution etc – to legal ones in which all Italians have an interest,' said the report. 'With their power base and criminal networks, the gangs' influence can be seen in every house and, in the case of agricultural products, even on the dinner table.'
The gangs' influence on growers is also understood to have been huge, with many producers left with no choice but to accept lower prices for their crops.
'They have no qualms about this, so the farmer is forced to choose either to accept it or run the risk of losing their entire crop, and with it many years' work,' said a spokesperson for farming organisation CIA.
Italy's Minister of Agriculture Giancarlo Galan said crime within the fresh produce markets of central-southern Italy was potentially as damaging for the Italian economy as the 'financial speculators attacking European economies'.
'This latest extraordinary police operation reveals once again how in different parts of Italy our agriculture is severely polluted,' he said. 'All of which leads me to say we need to remove the masks that hide a truly sad reality within our country's farming sector.'
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