(ANSA) - ROME, APRIL 22 - "Demoskopika's investigation into mafia infiltrations in tourism is worrying. It is a phenomenon that heavily damages the sector made up of serious entrepreneurs, damaged by the pandemic. They suffer twice as much from Covid, on business and on competition The government is elaborating transparent financing formulas capable of supporting the operators affected by the economic impact of the virus, in order to make them impermeable from mafia contamination. Minister Lamorgese has a clear picture and I believe she is already taking initiatives aimed at curbing this type of infiltration ". So to ANSA the tourism minister Massimo Garavaglia.
According to the Demoskopika survey, the turnover of organized crime deriving from infiltration into the legal economy of the tourism sector exceeds 2.2 billion, almost 40% of which are concentrated in the South. 40% of the total turnover is attributed to the ndrangheta alone, and almost 4,500 companies are at the greatest risk of money laundering associated with the liquidity crisis caused by the pandemic.
"Tourism on its knees for Covid is tempting to criminal associations", says the president of Demoskopika, Raffaele Rio.
"Over 13% of companies in the tourism sector at risk of default due to Covid - explains Rio - could suffer from the aggressive strategies of economic infiltration of organized crime. The prolonged emergency, caused by the pandemic, has generated a worrying liquidity crisis, making companies even more vulnerable to 'entry into the share capital of large amounts of money from criminal associations that need a high added value legal investment ". And he continues: "In this direction, the mafias are trying to bend entrepreneurs with attractive criminal welfare tools capable of guaranteeing company survival, coverage of the soaring levels of debt, greater financial solidity with their entry into the companytotal acquisition of the entrepreneurial reality ". (ANSA).