Summary: The Italian Mafia make more money than the country’s biggest company ENI – and run at a 56% profit margin. Within the CORE-project, this is just nice-to-know information, feeding primarily to WP19 Education and training.  This entry comes directly from the following web-page: http://ampp3d.mirror.co.uk/2014/03/04/organised-crime-is-now-italys-biggest-company/

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The story and the numbers: When Italy’s Prime Minister Matteo Renzi promised to take on the Mafia (week of 4.3.2014), he talked about severing the financial lifeline of Italy’s organized crime. He has an economic powerhouse to deal with. The collected financial reach of the four big Mafia groups effectively makes it Italy’s biggest company, with a revenue equal to 10% of Italy’s entire GDP. Italy’s biggest legitimate company is ENI, a multinational oil and gas company headquartered in Rome. But its operations are dwarfed by the total reach of the country’s mafia groups, as estimated by a report.

The amount of money taken in by the mafia is £148bn a year (€180bn). The annual sales of ENI amount to significantly less than that £97.9bn ($163.7bn). The Mafia run at a considerably higher profit margin than the oil and gas giant. Clearly not having to pay taxes or comply with regulations has a beneficial effect on the bottom line. Of the Mafia’s total revenue £82.3bn (€100bn) is profit. By comparison, ENI makes profits of £6bn ($10bn). This means that the Mafia’s yearly profit margin is 56%, while the profit margin of ENI, Italy’s largest company is 7.3%.

The Mafia have some €65bn floating around in cash – giving them huge liquidity, and allowing them more lending capacity than many Italian banks. However, they’re not the biggest bank in Italy yet – the Unicredit Banking Group, for example, has deposits to the value of €495bn across its global operations – allowing them to lead easily many times more than the Mafia. That aside, loan sharking and extortion are a major revenue stream for the Mafia – one that has increased in the recession as legitimate loans get harder to come by. Mr Renzi’s plans for tackling Mafia money include making it much harder for the Mafia to move it around and clamping down on any official collusion with Mafia bosses through closer surveillance of government and company activities.

Please check all the details at: http://ampp3d.mirror.co.uk/2014/03/04/organised-crime-is-now-italys-biggest-company/

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