Google – AFP,
26 March 2014
 |
Men talk in
the main square of Rosarno in southern Italian
region of Calabria, on February
6, 2014 (AFP/File, Filippo Monteforte)
|
Rome — With
a turnover of 53 billion euros ($73 billion) in 2013, the 'Ndrangheta mafia
from southern Italy made more money last year than Deutsche Bank and McDonalds
put together, a new study said Wednesday.
The study
by the Demoskopika research institute detailed the international crime
syndicate's sources of revenue, including drug trafficking -- which brought in
an estimated 24.2 billion euros -- and the illegal garbage disposal business,
which earned it 19.6 billion euros.
The
southern Italian mafia earned the equivalent of 3.5 percent of Italy's Gross
Domestic Product (GDP) last year, said the report based on analysis of
documents from Italy's interior ministry and police, parliament's anti-mafia
commission and the national anti-mafia task force.
The
'Ndrangheta is thought to have some 400 key "operatives" in 30
countries, but its activities are believed to involve as many as 60,000 people
worldwide, the report said.
Extortion
and usury last year brought in a substantial 2.9 billion euros, while
embezzlement earned the mafia 2.4 billion euros and gambling 1.3 billion euros.
Arms sales,
prostitution, counterfeiting goods and people-smuggling were less lucrative,
bringing in less than a billion euros together.
The
'Ndrangheta -- whose name comes from the Greek for courage or loyalty -- has a
tight clan structure which has made it famously difficult to penetrate.
With its
network of hundreds of family gangs based around the southern city of Calabria,
it is even more feared and secretive than the Sicilian Mafia.
Its roots
go back to a criminal association specialised in gambling, the Garduna, which
was created in the Spanish city of Toledo in 1412.
It spread
to Calabria, one of Italy's poorest regions, and started building up as a crime
network based on kidnapping for ransom.
Pope
Francis called last week on Italy's mafia groups to "stop doing evil"
as he met relatives of their victims to demonstrate the Catholic Church's
opposition to organised crime.
"There
is still time to avoid ending up in hell, which is where you are going if you
continue down this path," he warned mafiosi, telling them to relinquish
their "blood-stained money" which "cannot be taken into
paradise."
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