A month ago, Mafia boss Matteo Messina Denaro was arrested in Italy after fleeing justice for 30 years, in which period he visited many countries including Malta, Tunisia and Spain.
It transpires that Messina Denaro wove a very strong protective network of people, in politics, in the police, in deviant masonic lodges, in the judiciary, the Anti-Mafia Commission, business as well as the medical and legal professions.
It is clear that in the Italian state and society there were those who were trying to catch him and those who did all they could to help him escape justice.
It is crucial to understand the state of affairs in Sicily and Reggio Calabria as what happens there affects us a great deal. Messina Denaro, who has built a business empire worth at least €5 billion, worked over the years to bring together the Sicilian Mafia and the Calabrian ’Ndrangheta as one big business organisation operating worldwide and investing in many different economic sectors to help them launder their money and morph with regular economies.
Sergio Nazzaro, an Italian mafia expert, told (April 19, 2021) the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project how sophisticated the Mafia and 'Ndrangheta had become.
He explained that the days when the mafia was more involved in street crimes and operating on local levels is long gone. “We know that when they need to use violence they will but their main purpose now is to control the economy.”
There are no borders between Sicily, Reggio Calabria and Malta as people, goods and capital, including dirty money, can circulate unhindered. Does this explain the abundance of cocaine available on our islands? How much of our economic activity is driven by organised crime to launder their dirty money? Why is unexplained wealth not investigated properly?
Like sharks, Mafia and 'Ndrangheta are found thriving in all five continents in hospitable waters provided by powerful contacts they build in politics, business and society. In an intercepted call in Reggio Calabria a few years back, an 'Ndrangheta boss was heard boasting: “Never kill a magistrate, a journalist, a politician, it draws a lot of attention. You can buy them with money and with the power we have we can get them elected to parliament” (La Voce Cosentina, January 23, 2023).
Writing in The European Review of Organised Crime (2019), Luca Ranieri (research fellow in the Department of Law and Politics at Sant’ Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa) traces the growth and development of the gaming sector in Malta since “2004, when the government, led by then-prime minister Lawrence Gonzi of the Nationalist Party, introduced the first online gaming regulations in the European Union (EU). The decision quickly paid off and generated unprecedented returns”.
Working with Italy
Since then it has continued to grow. The National Statistics Office reported recently that the Gross Value Added (GVA) generated by the gaming industry during the first half of 2022 amounted to €573 million, employing 10,861 people and contributing up to 10 per cent of the country’s GVA.
Ranieri says that, despite the regulatory framework set up by Malta, “the criminal-political-family collusions underpinning Malta’s patronage politics have frequently interfered with the quest for transparency and accountability in the gaming industry, with high-profile individuals posturing as fiduciaries because of their vested interests in this business”.
He adds: “As a case in point, until 2016, David Gonzi, the son of the former Maltese prime minister who first introduced online gaming in Malta, was among the shareholders of the trust holding the betting society controlled by Matteo Messina Denaro, the boss of the bosses of the Sicilian Mafia. Similarly, a system of revolving doors between private and public entities has resulted in several former MGA officials starting to work as private consultants in the online gaming sector.”
It is crucial to understand the state of affairs in Sicily and Reggio Calabria as what happens there affects us a great deal- Evarist Bartolo
Ranieri refers to a report by Civillini and Anesi in La Repubblica (May 10, 2018) where they refer to Malta’s gaming industry as the Mafia’s ATM. Have any of these serious accusations been denied by those concerned?
The Malta Gaming Authority objects strongly to such generalisations and insists in its January – June 2022 report that it remains committed to safeguarding Malta’s reputation internationally and strengthening cooperation with other countries’ regulatory and supervisory bodies against crime and corruption.
Although the Maltese regulators have suspended the licences of several companies identified as belonging to crime organisations like the Mafia and 'Ndrangheta, the Italian investigators feel this is inadequate. They would like such companies’ assets not to remain active and to be seized.
Nicola Gratteri, the anti-mafia prosecutor who led the investigation of an 'Ndrangheta company operating out of Malta, complained to the anti-mafia committee of the Italian parliament that “it is hardly conceivable that a country so close, with whom we have such friendly relations, is not answering us […] It is easier to work with Peru or Colombia than with Malta.”
Is this true?
Argentina, Australia, Austria, Brazil, Belgium, Canada, Colombia, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, the US and Uruguay (but not Malta) are working together in the I-CAN three-year (2020-2023) initiative to achieve a new level of multilateral police cooperation to combat the 'Ndrangheta and disrupt its global networks. 'Ndrangheta is present on every world continent and it is essential to take it on by leveraging Interpol’s capabilities and analytical tools to share expertise, intelligence and best practices.
It is indispensable for us to work together with Italy, first and foremost, but also with other countries to fight international organised crime as no country on its own can deal effectively with its threats to our sovereignty, economy and democracy.
Our police and security services need a national strategy to cooperate with other countries and international organisations to prevent us being colonised and controlled by international criminal networks and their local proxies.
Evarist Bartolo is a former PL foreign and education minister.