FT923-14709 _AN-CGGB1AAOFT 920707 FT 07 JUL 92 / Survey of Italy (15): A message from the Mafia - Robert Graham on the official approach to organised crime By ROBERT GRAHAM THE IMPACT of the assassination of Mr Giovanni Falcone, Italy's leading anti-Mafia magistrate, will take a long time to erase. Mr Falcone was killed along with his wife and three bodyguards on May 24 when a ton of high explosive was detonated under their three-car convoy as it travelled at high speed along a motorway near Palermo airport. The indiscriminate means employed were more reminiscent of the Lebanese militias or the Colombian drugs barons, but this horrendous crime has been unequivocally attributed to the Sicilian Mafia. The target was, sadly, well-chosen. As a campaigning magistrate, Mr Falcone's investigations led to a series of 'maxi-trials' of the Sicilian Mafia in the 1980s. He made extensive use for the first time of pentiti (informers who have plea-bargained, equivalent to a 'super-grass') and he was able to demonstrate that the Mafia was not a casual group of criminals but a complex organisation with a hierarchy of command linking the various families and their businesses. For this, he was a marked man. Mr Falcone had already been the subject of a failed assassination attempt in 1989 and was one of the most heavily guarded people in the country. At least 60 people were assigned to his full-time protection and his movements were kept deeply confidential. The killing was a deliberate challenge to the state, similar to the assassination in 1982 of General Carlo Alberto Dalla Chiesa and his wife days after he had taken up the post of prefect of Palermo. Just as the Dalla Chiesa killing prodded the government of the day to react with a series of police and judicial measures to aid the fight against the Mafia, so did the Falcone murder. The procedures for bail of suspected Mafia members were tightened, magistrates were given greater freedom to pursue investigations and new mechanisms were introduced for better co-ordination of police work. This reactive approach has characterised government action towards organised crime ever since the Second World War. For instance, last September when Mr Libero Grassi, a Palermo businessman, was murdered for publicly refusing to pay Mafia extortion demands, the authorities amid much breast-beating agreed to introduce new anti-extortion measures. These included special 'hot-lines' to denounce racketeers and financial assistance to those suffering losses as a result of extortion demands (insurance coverage for fire damage, etc). The measures became operative in June almost nine months after approved in cabinet. Police action tends to tackle the effects of organised crime, not its causes. Too often, new measures are simply added to existing ones, creating confusion. Last year, as a more generalised response to the spread of organised crime, the Andreotti government decided to create a special structure within the magistrature to deal exclusively with investigations into the Mafia. This consists of a 'super-magistrate' and 26 assistants countrywide. However, the lines of authority still remain unclear. The magistrates are wary of the new body because it smacks of direct government control - a wrangle which has delayed the introduction of the new structure. Indeed, before Mr Falcone's death, his candidature to be the first head of this body was being blocked for fear that his appointment was too political. At the same time, the Anti-Mafia Commissariat which had previously co-ordinated such investigations is being wound up. Organised crime has traditionally been a 'southern' phenomenon, associated with three groups, each distinguished by clear geographical and historical characteristics - Cosa Nostra, the Sicilian Mafia; the Camorra, based round Naples and the 'ndrangheta of Calabria. The Mafia, though retaining its strong Sicilian roots, has spread to Rome and the main cities of northern Italy. It has the biggest international connections through drugs dealing, arms trafficking and money laundering; the Camorra, heavily into contraband, has spread into central and parts of northern Italy and latterly has developed ties with Colombia as well moving into eastern Europe. The 'ndrangheta has remained the most local, and continues to specialise in kidnaps. In the 1980s the international spread of drugs (cocaine from Latin America, heroin from Turkey, central Asia and the south-east Asia), advances in telecommunications, liberalisation of banking, freer trade and the opening of eastern Europe provided an enormous stimulus to the growth of Italian organised crime. More recently, civil conflict in the Balkans has created fresh opportunities; while within Italy criminal activity is increasing well above the European average. A third of all homicides is attributed to organised crime in Italy. Between 1985 and 1990, the number of murders doubled while in Britain and Germany the rate declined. Indeed, organised crime has become so entrenched that not only is it going to be increasingly hard to eradicate; but it is becoming ever more difficult to distinguish between licit and illicit funds. A report released earlier this year by Censis, the social research institute, said the annual turnover of organised crimes' illicit and 'licit' activities was L19,389bn. Other guestimates have put the figure at over L35,000bn. The Censis report estimated 19 per cent of earnings came from 'licit' activities - the control of public contracts. In Sicily over 75 per cent of public contracts do not even go out to tender and virtually all the latter are considered to be controlled by the Mafia. The main source of income, equivalent to 20 per cent of all earnings, comes from drugs dealing; theft generates a further 18 per cent, followed by extortion (11 per cent), illegal gaming and lotteries (7 per cent and especially important round Naples) and contraband (4 per cent). Take just one detail - highway robbery. In 1990, criminals hijacked 6,899 trucks and articulated lorries, over 90 per cent of all such crimes committed in Europe. The favourite loads were clothing and electronic equipment which were sold in friendly stores or in clandestine supermarkets in southern Italy. The value of the average load was estimated at a minimum of L100m and only 3,581 trucks were ever recovered. The takings for these criminal gangs were estimated at over L1,300bn. One gang arrested last year was charged with 1,600 such thefts over five years. Hijacking of cargoes has become such a problem that insurance is difficult to find in southern Italy. The Italian state has the resources to combat such crime. There are some 250,000 carabinieri, police and financial police, the highest number per capita of population in Europe. But they remain poorly co-ordinated and eternal rivals. The organisation of political parties in the south, and the entire economic structure dominated by state funding, encourages and permits a fecund parternship of crime and politics. Until this changes, the criminals will thrive. Beyond this, the legal system is so unwieldy that criminals easily escape prosecution either through procedural devices or through the complex demands of proof - the security forces have detailed lists of the Mafia families. In the final resort the criminals still have the power to bribe and intimidate the judiciary. The murder of Mr Falcone was one such message; and now the government has been obliged to seek special 'volunteers' to pursue the investigation into his killing. The Financial Times London Page VII