Italian mafia use Chinese ‘underground banks' to launder money
Mafia groups are increasingly turning to a system known as Fei Ch'ien – 'flying money' – as a clandestine way of moving vast amounts of cash around the world.
An underground banking network that originated in China, it operates through brokers in money exchanges, using encrypted communication systems and minimal record-keeping to make it hard for authorities to track.
'In relation to money laundering, there are links between Italian criminal organisations and Chinese groups who are active in underground banking,' the DIA, Italy's national anti-mafia agency, said in the report, entitled Follow the Money.
The clandestine system is now being used extensively by 'big criminal organisations that want to secretly transfer money abroad to finance their criminal activities or to reinvest it', the report said.
The DIA said mafia groups such as the Camorra of Naples, Cosa Nostra in Sicily and the 'Ndrangheta in Calabria were becoming increasingly adept at using digital technology to evade detection by the authorities. They employ encrypted communication channels such as EncroChat and Sky ECC, as well as messaging services such as Signal and Telegram.
'There has been a pronounced rise in the adoption of illicit financial instruments which are technologically sophisticated, including artificial intelligence models designed to elude checks,' the report said.
Even when mafiosi are arrested, convicted and imprisoned, they are still able to maintain contacts with their criminal empires on the outside. The smuggling of mobile phones into prisons is commonplace and some are delivered by drone, according to the report.
Meanwhile, Mafia organisations are increasingly recruiting young men from marginalised backgrounds in cities such as Naples and Rome to act as runners, lookouts and drug dealers.
Such groups are known in Italy as 'baby gangs'. These are made up of bands of young delinquents and aspiring mafiosi who, armed with knives and firearms, fight each other for territorial control.
Young people from areas with high unemployment are drawn to a life of crime partly by the easy money to be made but also by images that they see on social media, the DIA said.
Teenage boys are attracted by 'misleading models of power and wealth' as well as 'ostentation and the promise of affirming their identities,' the report added, saying: 'The glorifying of luxury and violence, through images on social media, contributes to the creation of an image that is warped but very attractive to young people.'
The DIA described the rise of 'baby gangs', fuelled by high levels of school absenteeism, unemployment and poverty, as 'particularly worrying'.
The report also highlights how Mafia groups are trying to muscle in on the billions of euros swirling around Italy as the country embarks on a number of huge investment projects. They include plans to build a vast suspension bridge from Sicily – the home of Cosa Nostra – to Calabria, the territory of the 'Ndrangheta.
Mafia dons have their eyes on the €200 billion of post-pandemic recovery funds that the EU granted to Italy, as well as the billions being spent in Rome to spruce up the city for this year's Jubilee, a special calendar of holy events organised by the Vatican.
The crime bosses are also targeting huge amounts of money being spent on preparations for the 2026 Winter Olympics, which will be hosted by Milan and the ski resort of Cortina d'Ampezzo, in the Dolomites.
Italy's different mafia groups are putting aside the bloody feuds of the past and forging collaborative links, the DIA said, with the Cosa Nostra and the Camorra forming alliances at home and abroad.
'Coexistence has fostered synergies that have progressively become structured,' said Michele Carbone, the director of the agency. 'These structures have become 'capable of absorbing overlaps, tensions and frictions'.
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