Mafia arrests reveal mob was 'going green'
Police in Italy have seized Mafia-linked assets worth $1.9 billion – the biggest mob haul ever – in an operation revealing that the crime group was trying to "go green" by laundering money through alternative energy companies.
Investigators said the assets included more than 40 companies, hundreds of parcels of land, buildings, factories, bank accounts, stocks, fast cars and luxury yachts.
Most of the seized assets were located in Sicily, home of the Cosa Nostra, and in southern Calabria, home of its sister crime organisation, the 'Ndrangheta.
At the centre of the investigation was Sicilian businessman Vito Nicastri, 54, a man known as the "Lord of the Wind" because of his vast holdings in alternative energy concerns, mostly wind farms.
Interior Minister Roberto Maroni called the operation "the largest seizure ever made" against the Mafia.
General Antonio Girone, head of the national anti-Mafia agency DIA, said Nicastri was linked to Matteo Messina Denaro, believed to be Mafia's current "boss of bosses".Previously:
Investigators said Nicastri's companies ran numerous wind farms as well as factories that produced solar energy panels.
"It's no surprise that the Sicilian Mafia was infiltrating profitable areas like wind and solar energy," Palermo magistrate Francesco Messineo told a news conference.
Officials said the operation was based on a 2,400-page investigative report and followed the arrest of Nicastri last year.
Senator Costantino Garraffa, a member of the parliamentary anti-Mafia committee, said the Mafia was trying to break into the "new economy," of alternative energy as it sought out virgin ventures to launder money from drugs and other rackets....MORE
Sept. 7, 2010
"Mafia cash in on lucrative EU wind farm handouts - especially in Sicily"
Long time readers know that I am just fascinated by this stuff, see links below....Italian mobsters buck downturn, may target bourse (stock market for you Americans)
So a Sicilian mafioso walks into HSBC…
Mafia crime is 7% of GDP in Italy, group reports
Why the Mafia Loves Garbage
Mafia link to Sicily wind farms probed
Zeitgeist: Mafia Cash Increases Grip on Sinking Italy Defying Berlusconi
Interpol: "Forest-CO2 scheme will draw organized crime"
China's Kyoto Scam = $Billions
Noble Environmental Power offers 24M shares in IPO (NEPI; WNDY
This should be an interesting offering circular. If you recall, Nobel Environmental was one of the wind project developers mentioned in the Aug. 17, 2008 New York Times story "In Rural New York, Windmills Can Bring Whiff of Corruption"....
