The mafias, a moving body that changes shape and objectives: how to fight them?

Thirty-three years have passed since the anti-mafia pool and the maxi-trial. How have the mafias changed in this time interval?

They have changed objectives, method and structure. Once we had a ferocious and violent mafia, of Riina, then a silent and corrupt one, of Messina Denaro, today we are dealing with the cyber mafia. Modern mafia organizations no longer infiltrate the vital ganglia of institutions but integrate perfectly, becoming in some cases even a point of reference for the so-called gray area. These are the changes that as a scholar I have been able to detect most clearly.

What are the goals of contemporary organized crime?

They are always the same and can all be summarized in the exercise of power (political, economic, financial, military). What changes, however, are the sectors in which the mafias operate.

Which sectors are predominant?

First and foremost , without a doubt, drug trafficking and commerce. The new mafias operate in the economic and financial markets. They manage contracts and economic aid. They use cryptocurrencies to operate in digital markets, laundering and reinvesting criminal proceeds. These are the main sectors where it is possible to further increase their power.

In your opinion, has the mafia also targeted the digital sector?

Absolutely. The advantages of digital technology for mafiosi are clear and include anonymity, the ability to engage in real-time encrypted communications, the ability to reach a wider audience (in terms of victims and customers), geographic mobility and the ability to control and operate markets from any mobile device. Criminal organizations have exploited the digital economy impeccably, favored by legislative differences in regulation and data provision.

What role does the culture of legality have in the fight against these new mafias?

The teaching of legality and its practice in everyday life, constitutes one of the most important educational resources in the fight against modern mafias. The goal is to train and educate the many young people who will one day become leaders, encouraging them to assume responsibility towards the community. The war against the mafias will be won outside the courts because the cultural factor is essential.

Those who lost their lives fighting the mafia are always remembered less, sometimes not even on anniversaries, how do you explain this?

It is our fault, my generation's, because as the years go by, some facts can fade in the collective memory, especially if they are not renewed through commemorative initiatives and especially study and training projects in schools. It is not enough to remember their stories, we must erect them as an example to follow through their sacrifice.

You had the great privilege of being able to remember Giovanni Falcone and his method at the United Nations. Are his investigative methodologies still valid today?

The Falcone method is not just follow the money . His anti-mafia investigation methods were able to get the most out of the rules in force at the time, leading to the historic convictions of the Palermo maxi-trial. He was a forerunner of bank investigations as an investigative tool. He was among the first investigators to profitably use direct contacts with foreign judges in international cooperation activities. His international rogatory letters gave great results to investigations at a transnational level, especially with Switzerland and the United States. His investigative methods, duly updated to the continuous mafia metamorphoses, will continue to be an essential reference in the fight against contemporary organized crime for a long time to come.

In your opinion, what are the most effective tools in the fight against new mafias today?

Wiretaps, collaborators of justice, asset measures, the fight against corruption, to name just a few of the most important. I must add, however, that, unfortunately, for years I have not seen the interest in strengthening and updating these tools that are more useful than ever to fight modern mafia organizations.

What is the segment that you would reform immediately?

Certainly the one concerning the tools needed to fight the mafia that operates in cyberspace. Technological tools and human resources to operate online, intercept encrypted phones, act in digital markets where money is laundered and invested, prevent all those criminally relevant conducts that are now perpetrated on the web. The fight against the new mafias will not be limited to the real world but has already extended to the virtual one. We will have to take this metamorphosis into due account.

Does this require significant economic investments or am I wrong?

If we only thought of fighting the new mafias without huge economic investments by the State, the war would already be lost from the start. Prevention and repression have costs without which they remain only decoys.

Are we able to fight these mafias on a transnational level?

Modern criminal organizations are able to operate in global markets with the best professionals in the sector at their service. This is their real strength today, to be struck relentlessly. The new mafias have the ability to quickly grasp and exploit political, economic and social transformations. They skillfully use modern technologies and dominate the economic and financial markets on a global scale, exploiting every opportunity for profit and achieving significant transnational speculative expansion. They have in their genetic heritage the ability to adapt to the variability of the contexts in which they operate. They have an important relational fabric even at a supranational level. The State, the European Union, the International Community, unfortunately, have not adapted to these mafia transformations. Today we are not sufficiently prepared in terms of modern investigations for this type of contrast strategies.

In conclusion, professor, do you think the State will win the battle against these new mafias?

I think so. If I were not optimistic, with what spirit could I go to schools to talk to young people? Knowledge, awareness of what we live, the search for truth, are essential to make life choices. We need to involve as many people as possible, starting with the new generations. "We are the State, let's never forget it". I always tell young people: "Fight the mafia by studying, it is the most powerful weapon you have". We must instill in the youngest new moral and social values ​​that contrast with the mafia-like and corrupt ways in place in our country. Rehabilitate those values ​​of integrity, honesty, transparency and professionalism, taking into account those who choose to break the rules. Defeating the mafia also means leading to long-term sustainable development for the benefit of all sectors of civil society. We must pave the way for a transformative social, political and economic program that harnesses the energy of future generations and calls everyone to try to build a society free from mafias and corruption and founded on rules, responsibilities, merit and honesty. In all this, the State cannot fail to do its part, otherwise it will be possible to say without fear of denial that it is totally in collusion with the mafias and wants corruption as a modus vivendi.

Vincenzo Musacchio, criminologist, professor of strategies for fighting transnational organized crime, associated with the Rutgers Institute on Anti-Corruption Studies (RIACS) in Newark (USA). He is an independent researcher and full member of the High School of Strategic Studies on Organized Crime of the Royal United Services Institute in London. During his career he was a student of Giuliano Vassalli, friend and collaborator of Antonino Caponnetto, an Italian magistrate known for having led the Anti-Mafia Pool with Falcone and Borsellino in the second half of the 1980s. He is among the most accredited scholars of the new transnational mafias. Expert in strategies for fighting organized crime. Author of numerous essays and of a monograph published in fifty-four States written with Franco Roberti entitled “The fight against new mafias fought at a transnational level”. He is considered the leading European expert on the Albanian mafia and his in-depth works on the subject have also been used by legislative commissions at European level.