Italian Prosecutors: Mobs Exploit Corona's Pandemic to Recruit Elements

Italian prosecutors and local officials confirmed that the Mafia gangs in Italy are seeking to take advantage of the Coronavirus pandemic crisis to gain the loyalty of people by providing loans and food to poor families, especially in the southern districts and Sicily Island.

Federico Cafero de Rao, the national attorney general for the Mafia gangs, said that his team members had detected suspicious activities in the city of Naples.

Those activities committed, by the Camura Gangs, included the distribution of free food aid to families in financial crisis due to the general isolation measures.

De Rao explained that his team acquired evidence but he did not elaborate, saying that investigations into this matter are continuing. He added that the Camorra Gangs know that this is the right time to invest in.

In turn, Antonio Loccidi, an employee for the Ultra Latera Napoli (other Napoli), said that this institution collected more than 150,000 euros to deliver food to needy families so that they would not accept gang gifts during the general isolation procedures.

He went on to sat that when hunger becomes a real problem, it is difficult to resist the temptation.

Amedeo Scaramella, an Italian lawyer, said we know that the so-called families of friends, all of them money-lenders, provide financial loans to people who face difficulties. He explained that the moneylenders (usurers) initially offered loans with interest to compete with banks, then surrounded the borrower and raised the interest to 300 percent.

Previous experiences indicate that gangsters may demand the return of favour by requiring those receiving aid to carry out criminal activities, including drug transport. This practice is seen as a long-standing recruitment method.

Officials believe that public isolation measures have hurt the economic activities of the Mafia gangs because they have limited their mobility across the various parts of Italy.

In this context, the governor of the South Apulia region, Michael Emiliano, a former judge, said the collapse of the drug trade is causing great harm to the mobs.

Italy is stronghold of the mobs who sneaked to the other coast of the Atlantic Ocean where they get mushroomed and grass rooted in the USA.