Organised crime continues to infiltrate legal gaming in Italy, with “a strong operation” recorded in online poker, according to a new report by the National Anti-Mafia Directorate (DNA).
“In the illegal games”, says the report of the Direzione Nazionale Antimafia covering the period July 2011 to June 2012, “the mafia associations found a historically important form of subsidy, but there have also been major leaks in the legal gaming system.”
According to the DNA, the activities of organised crime “focuses mainly on gaming machines, but a strong operation of the clans was also recorded in illegal betting and online poker.”
Italy’s gambling regulator AAMS signed a memorandum of understanding with the DNA in April last year, aimed at combatting the profiteering of organised crime from the country’s rapidly growing gambling market.
Italians spent more than €80bn last year on betting and gaming, with the Mafia allegedly the main beneficiary alongside the Italian state. Giuseppe Pisanu, the head of Italy’s parliamentary anti-mafia commission, has suggested that for every euro in revenue the Italian government gets from gambling, the Mafia takes at least eight.
Italian organised crime organisations allegedly use fronting companies to obtain licences then launder drug money through the operations while falsifying records, depriving the state of tax revenues.
The DNA detailed in its new report that legal gaming now provided a channel for the Mafia to quickly invest recurring earnings, with the various game types being used to “launder ill-gotten funds”. It added that “the risk of this illegal conduct being identified is relatively low and the judicial consquences, usuall, are rather small.”
Even land-based bingo halls now “represent an area of great interest to the Mafia, which aims to infiltrate the company management”, it added, while in horse racing, unlawful activities were taking place both within the physical betting operations and in fixing races. The Mafia also launders money from contests and sweepstakes, identifying the winners - usually with the help of operators - and acquiring the winning ticket at an inflated price, reported the DNA.
Article written by Stephen Carter
This is not new started in 2000 in Asia .Money brings everyone to the party.