According to Italy's anti-mafia investigation directorate, "criminal organisations have all the interest in fuelling episodes of urban disorder by exploiting the situation of economic hardship to turn it into social protests, especially in the south" (Photo: EUobserver)

Feature

Italy's mafias - boosted by Covid, now eyeing EU's billions

Health & Society

by Valentina Saini, Bologna,

In early March 2020, as Italy was being brought to its knees by Covid-19, protests broke out in many prisons across the country.

Some degenerated into actual riots. According to ongoing investigations, Italy's various mafias appear to have played a major role in fomenting the chaos.

Months later, in October, fierce protests broke out on the streets of Naples too.

Clansmen of the Camorra, the powerful Naples mafia described in his books by the journalist Roberto Saviano, w...

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Health & Society Feature

Author Bio

Valentina Saini is a freelance journalist specialising in Italian social issues and politics, gender issues and the Middle East and North Africa region.