Organized crime in the agri-food sector is worth 16 billion a year. Coldiretti writes it in a note, underlining that "the underworld takes possession of vast sectors of the agri-food sector and the resulting profits, destroying competition and seriously compromising the quality and safety of products, with the indirect effect of damage the image of Italian products and the value of the Made in Italy brand”.
The pathological aspects of the agri-food industry, "such as the rise in the prices of fruit and vegetables in the supply chain that goes from the producer to the consumer - continues Coldiretti - are the result not only of monopolies, but also of speculation due to the infiltration of the underworld in the activities of intermediation from fruit and vegetable markets. Fruit and vegetables are underpaid to farmers on values that don't even cover production costs, but prices multiply by up to 300% from field to table, also due to the monopolistic control of the markets operated by the underworld in certain territories”.
The association's complaint stems from an operation by the Carabinieri del Ros, which this morning carried out a blitz against the Piromalli gang, considered by investigators to be one of the most powerful of the 'Ndrangheta. There are 33 detention orders issued by the Reggio Calabria district anti-mafia prosecutor's office.
Those arrested are accused, for various reasons, of mafia association, drug trafficking, fictitious ownership of assets, self-laundering, attempted murder and other crimes aggravated by mafia purposes. At the center of the Ros investigations are the criminal activities of the gang which has branches in Lombardy and the United States, where the FBI is now carrying out "investigative investigations".
The investigations documented, in particular, the penetration of the gang into the economic fabric of the Gioia Tauro plain and its ability to exercise "radical control over the entrepreneurial systems, in the real estate and agri-food sectors, also with reference to the Milan fruit and vegetable market". Assets seized for a total value of 40 million euros.
