ROME: Italian police arrested 91 mafia bosses, underlings, loan sharks and frontmen belonging to two Palermo clans operating in Milan, in a probe into the mob’s efforts to take advantage of the COVID-19 pandemic to infiltrate the country’s economy.
Other Sicilian clans, including the Acquasanta and the Arenella, were also hit by the police raid.
Prosecutors in Palermo, Sicily, said the Cosa Nostra was set to spring into action and snap up crisis-hit firms that were forced to shut down because of the national lockdown to stop the spread of COVID-19.
The two Palermo clans, the Ferrante and the Fontana, allegedly coordinated criminal activities from Milan, police said.
Charges range from mafia association to extortion, receiving stolen goods, money laundering, drug trafficking and a range of fraud, police said.
The three brothers leading the Fontana clan, Angelo, Giovanni and Gaetano, were captured in Milan. Police also arrested a former “Big Brother” contestant accused of acting as a frontman for the mob.
Crime experts have warned that the mafia could take over struggling businesses and curry favor among the population by distributing food to the needy.
Along with traditional criminal activities such as extortion, drug trafficking and illegal betting, the Palermo mobsters had already branched out into the legal economy.
They controlled the local boat yard, market, butcher, bars and supermarkets, and traded in coffee and luxury watches.
Right after the national lockdown started on March 9, prosecutors warned that the mafia would try their best to profit from the pandemic.
“In the last few decades, they’ve invested in multi-service companies (canteens, cleaning), waste recycling, transportation, funeral homes, oil and food distribution. The mafias know what you have, and will need, and they give it, and will give it, on their own terms,” Palermo Chief Prosecutor Francesco Lo Voi told Arab News.
“We’d seen all this coming in the past few weeks. Now we have the facts. The mafia will make the most of this health emergency to infiltrate the legal economy and increase its business,” he added.
“No business can escape from their attack, especially in this particular moment. People have no money. Those who made their living by working off the books earned nothing in the lockdown as they weren’t eligible for government benefits. They all could become new ‘soldiers’ for the mob.”
Police believe that clans are using dirty money to buy restaurants and luxury hotels for next to nothing.
“That’s a perfect way to launder their money,” Lo Voi said. “Emissaries of the mob have been reported in the past few weeks to have ‘visited’ owners of restaurants and even luxury hotels, which have been closed for the lockdown and will struggle to go back to business. They offer them a low amount of cash compared to the actual value of the property. If the owner doesn’t immediately agree to sell, they warn him that they’ll return the following week and offer him half the initial sum. Many entrepreneurs agree to sell off their properties to the mobsters because they fear they won’t be able to survive the economic crisis after the lockdown.”
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Arrests made over mafia plan to profit from Italy lockdown
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Arrests made over mafia plan to profit from Italy lockdown
- Right after the national lockdown started on March 9, prosecutors warned that the mafia would try their best to profit from the pandemic
China’s top diplomat to visit Somalia on Africa tour
- Stop in Mogadishu provides diplomatic boost after Israel became the first country to formally recognize breakaway Somaliland
- Tour focusses on Beijing's strategic trade access across eastern and southern Africa
BEIJING: China’s top diplomat began his annual New Year tour of Africa on Wednesday, focusing on strategic trade access across eastern and southern Africa as Beijing seeks to secure key shipping routes and resource supply lines.
Foreign Minister Wang Yi will travel to Ethiopia, Africa’s fastest-growing large economy; Somalia, a Horn of Africa state offering access to key global shipping lanes; Tanzania, a logistics hub linking minerals-rich central Africa to the Indian Ocean; and Lesotho, a small southern African economy squeezed by US trade measures. His trip this year runs until January 12.
Beijing aims to highlight countries it views as model partners of President Xi Jinping’s flagship “Belt and Road” infrastructure program and to expand export markets, particularly in young, increasingly affluent economies such as Ethiopia, where the IMF forecasts growth of 7.2 percent this year.
China, the world’s largest bilateral lender, faces growing competition from the European Union to finance African infrastructure, as countries hit by pandemic-era debt strains now seek investment over loans.
“The real litmus test for 2026 isn’t just the arrival of Chinese investment, but the ‘Africanization’ of that investment. As Wang Yi visits hubs like Ethiopia and Tanzania, the conversation must move beyond just building roads to building factories,” said Judith Mwai, policy analyst at Development Reimagined, an Africa-focussed consultancy.
“For African leaders, this tour is an opportunity to demand that China’s ‘small yet beautiful’ projects specifically target our industrial gaps, turning African raw materials into finished products on African soil, rather than just facilitating their exit,” she added.
On his start-of-year trip in 2025, Wang visited Namibia, the Republic of Congo, Chad and Nigeria.
His visit to Somalia will be the first by a Chinese foreign minister since the 1980s and is expected to provide Mogadishu with a diplomatic boost after Israel became the first country to formally recognize the breakaway Republic of Somaliland, a northern region that declared itself independent in 1991.
Beijing, which reiterated its support for Somalia after the Israeli announcement in December, is keen to reinforce its influence around the Gulf of Aden, the entrance to the Red Sea and a vital corridor for Chinese trade transiting the Suez Canal to Europe.
Further south, Tanzania is central to Beijing’s plan to secure access to Africa’s vast copper deposits. Chinese firms are refurbishing the Tazara Railway that runs through the country into Zambia. Li Qiang made a landmark trip to Zambia in November, the first visit by a Chinese premier in 28 years.
The railway is widely seen as a counterweight to the US and European Union-backed Lobito Corridor, which connects Zambia to Atlantic ports via Angola and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
By visiting the southern African kingdom of Lesotho, Wang aims to highlight Beijing’s push to position itself as a champion of free trade. Last year, China offered tariff-free market access to its $19 trillion economy for the world’s poorest nations, fulfilling a pledge by Chinese President Xi Jinping at the 2024 China-Africa Cooperation summit in Beijing.
Lesotho, one of the world’s poorest nations with a gross domestic product of just over $2 billion, was among the countries hardest hit by US President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs last year, facing duties of up to 50 percent on its exports to the United States.
Foreign Minister Wang Yi will travel to Ethiopia, Africa’s fastest-growing large economy; Somalia, a Horn of Africa state offering access to key global shipping lanes; Tanzania, a logistics hub linking minerals-rich central Africa to the Indian Ocean; and Lesotho, a small southern African economy squeezed by US trade measures. His trip this year runs until January 12.
Beijing aims to highlight countries it views as model partners of President Xi Jinping’s flagship “Belt and Road” infrastructure program and to expand export markets, particularly in young, increasingly affluent economies such as Ethiopia, where the IMF forecasts growth of 7.2 percent this year.
China, the world’s largest bilateral lender, faces growing competition from the European Union to finance African infrastructure, as countries hit by pandemic-era debt strains now seek investment over loans.
“The real litmus test for 2026 isn’t just the arrival of Chinese investment, but the ‘Africanization’ of that investment. As Wang Yi visits hubs like Ethiopia and Tanzania, the conversation must move beyond just building roads to building factories,” said Judith Mwai, policy analyst at Development Reimagined, an Africa-focussed consultancy.
“For African leaders, this tour is an opportunity to demand that China’s ‘small yet beautiful’ projects specifically target our industrial gaps, turning African raw materials into finished products on African soil, rather than just facilitating their exit,” she added.
On his start-of-year trip in 2025, Wang visited Namibia, the Republic of Congo, Chad and Nigeria.
His visit to Somalia will be the first by a Chinese foreign minister since the 1980s and is expected to provide Mogadishu with a diplomatic boost after Israel became the first country to formally recognize the breakaway Republic of Somaliland, a northern region that declared itself independent in 1991.
Beijing, which reiterated its support for Somalia after the Israeli announcement in December, is keen to reinforce its influence around the Gulf of Aden, the entrance to the Red Sea and a vital corridor for Chinese trade transiting the Suez Canal to Europe.
Further south, Tanzania is central to Beijing’s plan to secure access to Africa’s vast copper deposits. Chinese firms are refurbishing the Tazara Railway that runs through the country into Zambia. Li Qiang made a landmark trip to Zambia in November, the first visit by a Chinese premier in 28 years.
The railway is widely seen as a counterweight to the US and European Union-backed Lobito Corridor, which connects Zambia to Atlantic ports via Angola and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
By visiting the southern African kingdom of Lesotho, Wang aims to highlight Beijing’s push to position itself as a champion of free trade. Last year, China offered tariff-free market access to its $19 trillion economy for the world’s poorest nations, fulfilling a pledge by Chinese President Xi Jinping at the 2024 China-Africa Cooperation summit in Beijing.
Lesotho, one of the world’s poorest nations with a gross domestic product of just over $2 billion, was among the countries hardest hit by US President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs last year, facing duties of up to 50 percent on its exports to the United States.
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