26 July 2006

£61m profit, a day

The Italian mafia made a £61m profit last year, per day!! That put's them on a par with Fiat & ENEL, and earns them five times as much as Telecom Italia.

The report, compiled for the Italian government, shows that the four major criminal organisations in Italy earned £25m A DAY from companies listed on the Milano stock exchange.

Revenues for the Mafia, which is made up of the Cosa Nostra in Sicily, the 'Ndrangheta in Calabria, the Camorra in Campania and the Sacra Corona Unita in Puglia are up 25% on earnings in 2004, to an annual total of £24billion.

The majority of extortion happens in southern Italy. In Sicily, 80% of businesses pay protection money to the Mafia. In Palermo a city centre store can pay as much as £700 a month, a supermarket can expect to pay up to £3,500

However, protection money accounts for a small percentage of Mafia income, with Gun running and drugs giving the largest incomes. Other activities include pornography, prostitution and gambling.

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