ITALY: The Underworld Outsells Multinational Corporations

ROME, Nov 19 (IPS) - The top 10 multinational corporations in the world have a combined annual income of 700 billion dollars, 50 billion less than that of organised crime, according to a press release from the United Nations Ministerial Conference on Criminality due to begin Monday in Naples.

The astronomic income of criminal organisations outdoes the combined sales of Royal Dutch Shell, Ford, General Motors, Exxon, Mitsubishi, IBM, General Electric, British Petroleum, Mobil and Fiat, placing great economic power in criminal hands.

This worrisome issue is part of the agenda for 140 Foreign Ministers and 30 intergovernmental entities during the three-day meeting next week.

According to the press release, drug trafficking brought in 300 billion dollars in 1992, with Colombian drug cartels alone making seven billion dollars from the world cocaine market.

The communique also listed details on the Italian mafias - the Cosa Nostra, the Ndrangheta, the Camorra and the new Sacra Corona Unita - and showed links with crime syndicates in Canada, Bolivia, Turkey, Venezuela and Colombia.

Immense incomes are generated by drug dealing, extortion, illegal gambling and control over vast armies of manpower and a great many apparently legal businesses.

Italian Interior Minister Roberto Maroni said the fight against the mafia was "a central part of government policies," suggesting that the conference create a "National Criminal Intelligence Service," and initiate a reform to help the legal system protect society from economic infiltration by the mafia.

© Inter Press Service (2014) — All Rights Reserved. Original source: Inter Press Service

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