INFILTRATION OF THE ‘NDRANGHETA INTO THE ECONOMY: INVESTIGATION BY THE DIA AND THE GUARDIA DI FINANZA IN REGGIO CALABRIA – A LEADING COMPANY IN THE SECTOR OF FOOD DISTRIBUTION WAS PLACED UNDER JUDICIAL MANAGEMENT

The Direzione Investigativa Antimafia, a directorate within the Department of Public Security, and the Provincial Command of the Guardia di Finanza in Reggio Calabria, coordinated by the local District  Antimafia Prosecutor’s Office, headed by Dr. Giovanni BOMBARDIERI, carried out a preventive measure of judicial management, upon order issued by the Court in Reggio Calabria – Section Preventive Measures – ex art. 34 of the Antimafia Code – against a LLC with headquarter in Catania.

The well-known brand, operating in the food retail sector, has over 100 stores in Calabria and Sicily, with a yearly turnover of approx. 900 mil euros and 2500 employees.

The complex analysis of the investigative elements, including the results of Operation Planning, also conducted by the DIA and by the Economic-Financial Police Unit in Reggio, highlighted a stable relationship, between the managers of the economic activities of the company and ‘ndrangheta affiliates or persons close to this group, thus facilitating the territorial commercial expansion .

Moreover, the construction and the renovation of some stores in Reggio Calabria and its province were allegedly carried out by companies, officially registered in the name of frontmen, but actually managed by entrepreneurs close to the local criminal organization, indirectly also enriching the criminal group.

In this context, it was ascertained that mafia infiltration strongly influenced corporate strategies of the contracting company.

For this reason, the Court, given the state of the proceeding and without prejudice to future specific assessments, having established the existence of sufficient evidence that the activity carried out by the managers of the company, though negligently, facilitated the entrepreneurs who operated in the interest of the ‘ndrangheta, ordered the judicial management of the company for one year, with the aim to curb mafia infiltration.

The institutional activity shows, once again, that the high attention of the Public Prosecutor’s Office  – Antimafia District Directorate in Reggio Calabria, of the DIA,  and of the Guardia di Finanza in Reggio Calabria aims at dismantling economic organized crime in order to intercept and counter any form of infiltration into the legal economy and to protect honest businessmen and citizens, thus restoring adequate levels of legality, transparency, and public security.

Reggio Calabria, 16 March 2023