Sicily’s Mafia rakes in more than €1-billion a year through extortion, according to a study to be published on Friday.
Between 2002 and 2006, the Cosa Nostra earned more than €6-billion from Sicilian businesses forced to pay ”pizzo”, according to extracts of the study published on Tuesday by the financial daily Il Sole 24 Ore.
The funds amount to 1,3% of the southern island’s gross domestic product (GDP), the paper said, citing a study by sociologist Nino la Spina to appear on Friday.
”Of 2 246 businesses studied, 333 had to pay an average one-time sum of €25 000, while 646 companies paid pizzo every month for several years,” the paper said.
Monthly pizzo averages €881, ranging from €32 for a tobacconist to €27 000 for a large supermarket, the study found.
Construction companies are hardest hit by Mafia extortion, paying an average of €2 000 a month.
The Sicilian chapter of the employers’ group Confindustria last month cancelled the membership of a dozen business leaders who paid extortion money.
The chapter’s president, Yvan Lo Bello, was placed under police protection, while its offices in the central Sicilian city of Caltanissetta were sacked in late November in apparent reprisal for Confindustria’s action.
Nino Amadore, Il Sole‘s correspondent in Sicily who compiled the study’s extracts, has received death threats in recent days. — Sapa-AFP