Italy's Kinder, Gentler Mafia in Expansion Mode

Mafia violence is on the wane.

The Italian mafia is on the march, infiltrating new sectors of the country's economy, according to a new report.

Newspaper articles have been seeking to offset this news with word that the Mafia has been keeping a lid on violence -- as if taking a page from its American brethren, which no longer sanctions murder.

The report, by the government’s anti-mafia directorate (the Dia), adds that while Sicily’s Cosa Nostra faces a troublesome ongoing restructuring and the Naples-based Camorra is getting major attention from law enforcement, the Calabrian Ndrangheta has consolidated its position as the most powerful criminal organization in all of Italy, if not the world.

Spreading "like a cancer" through Italy's richest regions, the mafia is expanding beyond its traditional economic sectors and into more “innovative” ones, such as health, restoration, gardening and alternative energy.

Riccardo Guido, a consultant at Italy's Parliamentary Anti-mafia Commission, told The Local:

"These activities are the most worrying at the moment, because the mafia are becoming part of the normal economy. They’re no longer the “mean” mafia, but present themselves as investors."

At the same time, the mafia has scaled back on violence. The bombing campaigns that tore Sicily apart in the early 1990s "are unlikely to be repeated," he further told The Local.

Meanwhile, corruption of Italy's government institutions has reached a “systemic level."

Corruption damages local government institutions, which are often in denial about the problem, the report says.  These authorities find it hard to get central government money and face "daily changes to competition rules,” the Dia said.

The report focuses on the last six months of 2013.

The Calabria-based 'Ndrangheta continues to have strong ability to “exploit the pockets of dishonesty in the administrative apparatus,” cementing the group’s influence. Guido said the 'Ndrangheta is "definitely" the most powerful mafia in Italy, if not the world, due to it control over the cocaine trafficking market.  

Sicily’s Cosa Nostra mafia has been less successful and is currently going through a restructuring, having “lost solidarity, freedom of action and power of influence” on the island. 

Italian authorities have made some headway in the Naples area, the homeland of the Camorra. There the mafia has “suffered from the pressure of investigations”, which are ongoing, the Dia said.