FBIS3-58058 "drweu005__a94026"
FBIS-WEU-93-000-A Document Type:Daily Report 2 December 1993
ANNEX Italy

Anti-Mafia Bureau To Continue Fight Against Crime

BR0601103194 Rome ANSAMAIL Database in English 1221 GMT 5 Jan 93--FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY BR0601103194 Rome ANSAMAIL Database Language: English Article Type:BFN [Unattributed article: "War on Mafia Far From Over, DIA Report Says"] [Text] Rome, 5 Jan (ANSA) -- Organized crime has suffered several blows over recent years but maintains hold on significant economic and financial resources and continues to intimidate, blackmail and condition even entire communities, according to the half-year report by the Anti-Mafia investigative directorate (DIA) which Interior Minister Nicola Mancino presented to Parliament today. The Mafia strength, the report said, continues to lie in its various illegal activities and its influence in political, administrative and judicial institutions. Given such conditions, the report warned, enthusiasm should be controlled over the recent and important success by law enforcement. The DIA report went on to observe how a "pure terrorist phase" had been consolidated within the Mafia, as evidenced by last year's bomb attacks in Rome, Florence and Milan, while the recent confiscation of weapons demonstrates how organized crime can count on a significant and sophisticated arms arsenal. There is ample evidence, the report continued, to assume that leading organized crime groups have graduated to major wholesale arms trafficking with transactions standing out for both volume and value and involving other foreign criminal groups and military-political factions in foreign countries. Sicily's Cosa Nostra and other domestic crime syndicates, the DIA said, have access not only to automatic weapons but also military explosives, missiles, cannon, armor-piercing projectiles and other weapons. Turning its attention to the various crime bosses currently behind bars, the DIA report underscored the need the bosses have to reinforce their leadership over their subjects and how this explained a number of "symbolic" murders. There is also a growing restlessness among the imprisoned so-called men of honor who are subject to special restrictive prison treatment and do not qualify for special permissions, alternative detention and working out of jail. This ill-feeling, the DIA claimed, has led many of these crime figures, over the past months, to decide to collaborate with justice. But this, in turn, has also opened the way for a new defense strategy for the part of the Mafia. This defense strategy, the report said, included a campaign to de-legitimized turncoats and state's witnesses and to spread disinformation. Examples of this were the statements by jailed Cosa Nostra boss of bosses Salvatore Riina on the "manipulation" of turncoats, the distorted interpretation of the American trial against the Gambino family and the "heavy and unjustified" attacks against magistrates and law enforcement. The Mafia is also seeking to induce the dismantlement the judicial approach set up by the first anti-Mafia pool, denying the existence of a secret association and its executive commission. The DIA report when on to show how a process is currently underway to unify criminal financial and human resources and stated that evidence exists proving that these "organized criminal consortiums" had worked with Cosa Nostra in planning and carrying out the most recent episodes of Mafia terrorism. The evidence cited in support of this situation included testimony by a turncoat and a series of "signals" which indicated how organized crime groups in Sicily, Calabria and Campania and, to a lesser degree, Puglia had developed an intricate network of business and activities. This "horizontal" integration of organized crime, the DIA report continued, has resulted in an increase in geographic mobility and the exchange of assets, duties and capital which has also allowed for organized crime to expand abroad. Investigators, in fact, have known for some time of the presence of Italian criminals operating in France, Germany, Canada, the United States, Australia and South America. There has also been repeated confirmation demonstrating how the Mafia is expanding its activities, interests and investments in former socialist states in East and Central Europe. In concert with this "horizontal" development, the DIA argued, the process of integrating illegal markets has also resulted in a "vertical" development which is not always under the guidance of Cosa Nostra. Contacts between various criminal organizations are "numerous and diversified," the report continued, with "elements of an illegal nature." Evidence of this were the proven contacts been Calabria's 'ndrangheta [local Mafia-style organization] and right-wing extremists in Reggio, dating as far back as the 1970's, and contacts between the Mafia and the underground leftist groups. It cannot be ruled out, the DIA report said, that pacts have been hammered out between these various illegal organizations to "pilot change in the country to their own advantage." Looking at organized crime's sources of income, the DIA report underscored how racketeering "continues to constitute a significant source" of illicit income and, over the years, extortion has become a tool to take over companies. Loan-sharking is equally as serious, the report warned, while there would appear to be a decline in drug trafficking, even if it remains today one of organized crime's chief activities and money makers. Another area of illegal income, the DIA said, was through manipulating public works tenders and taking over retail activities. This allows organized crime a "clean" outlet to launder significant amounts of illegal profit. In its section on organized crime's links with public institutions, the DIA report recalled how, in 1993, 34 municipal governments were dissolved for Mafia infiltration and conditioning; ten in Sicily, two in Calabria, seventeen in Campania, four in Puglia and one in Basilicata. A total of 76 municipal government have been dissolved to date, while charges of complicity with the Mafia has reached deep into public institutions, law enforcement and the judiciary. The battle against the Mafia, the DIA report concluded, represents a fundamental cornerstone in the overall effort to renew the State.