BERLIN Germany has become the world’s second largest mafia homeland, next to Italy, says an investigative journalist who follows the mafia Sandro Mattioli.
According to the authorities, the number of “mafia groups” is also increasing. While at the end of the last decade, the German Ministry of the Interior estimated that there were more than five hundred people on the payroll of the mafia living in the country, now the number of mafia units is already estimated to be thousand.
According to the Italian authorities, the mafia has at least three times as many people on its payroll in Germany, i.e. more than 3,000 people.
The biggest mafia organization in Germany is the Calabrian ‘Ndrangheta, which is also called the world’s most dangerous criminal organization, which launders the money it gets especially from the drug trade.
Criminals are attracted to Europe’s largest economy by the widespread use of cash and weak money laundering controls.
Also violent, originating in Morocco”mocro mafia” has started to grow this year.
In Germany, illegal money is turned into legal money roughly already one hundred billion euros a year – clearly more than the annual budget of the Finnish state. Anti-money laundering operations mostly originate in Italy, not Germany.
“Germany is naive”
In Finland, Germany is used to being a country of discipline and order, where things are handled with Protestant conscientiousness. However, the country is naive when it comes to security issues, says a professor of criminal law who specializes in money laundering and the mafia Kilian Wegner.
Germany is the largest euro economy and therefore attractive to organized crime, Wegner explains.
– At the same time, there is a relatively weak protection architecture against organized crime here. It is good to operate in Germany without a great risk of being caught for crimes.
Part of the reason lies in the German nature, Mattioli, a journalist who has followed the mafia for a long time, estimates. He grew up in Germany in the family of an Italian father and a German mother.
As long as everything seems to be working, the German closes his eyes to problems. Only when problems come to the fore, as was the case with the energy trade with Russia, for example, is the situation addressed.
According to Mattioli, the mafia in Germany is supported by the admiration of Dolce Vita, or the Italian wonderful life. It started in the 1950s and 1960s.
– At that time, many traveled to the shores of Italy for the first time. There we got to know a new way of life. And it has had very long-lasting effects, says Mattioli.
Italian food is very popular in Germany.
– The downside is that the negative aspects of Italy are not recognized, and this category also includes the mafia.
For example, Mattioli takes the owner of a popular pizzeria in Stuttgart “Mario L’s”which was known for its sunny and generous hosting for decades.
Every time a guest left, Mario brought more free grappa to the table. Many local politicians also declared themselves Friends of Marion.
He was subsequently sentenced to prison as a mobster – in Italy.
The wave of guest workers in the 1960s also helped the mafia gain a foothold in Germany.
– ‘Ndrangheta, Cosa Nostra and Camorra built their foundations on Italians who moved to Germany, who came from classic mafia areas, Mattioli says.
Porsche for cash
According to Professor Wegner, money laundering is easy in Germany because it is not controlled. For example, you can get a ten percent stake in a bank without telling where the money comes from. You can buy a Porsche or a Mersu with cash.
After all, it has not been possible to go to apartment deals with a banknote portfolio for two years now, but there are gaps in supervision.
– The same authorities that monitor the origin of money issue license plates to cars. You can wonder how well they have time to check money laundering, Wegner describes.
According to Wegner, Germany invests less in combating organized crime than Italy, for example. Despite the billion-dollar business, mafiosi are allowed to operate freely in Germany.
– We have few supervisors scattered in different states and agencies.
Members of criminal leagues who are exiled from their home country are also hiding in Germany.
– Cash offers very easy ways to launder money, even for less ambitious money launderers. Criminals can be cleverly disguised when many people still carry and use a lot of cash.
The common people suffer defeat
At first glance, money laundering is invisible to the average person. But in the background it has a significant effect, says Wegner.
– This can be seen in the real estate sector in big cities, where money launderers operate in the housing market. Prices rise as organized gangs compete for apartments, and ordinary people try to buy apartments with their salary income.
The rent level is also partly rising due to speculation.
In Wegner’s opinion, the situation can only be tackled if Germany, together with other EU countries, invests more than currently in the fight against money laundering.
– The authorities still work in silos, and do not look at what other authorities on the left and right are doing. A lot of work is wasted now.
According to Wegner, the situation can be improved by the new EU anti-money laundering authority Amla, which will soon be established in Frankfurt.
You can read more about Amla here: Football teams, aircraft dealers and luxury stores are the reasons – the EU is starting to track down money laundering crimes
It would be important to intervene immediately
Journalist Mattioli also heads an association called MafiaNeinDanke (Mafia no thanks), which has been tracking mafia business in Germany for years.
Mattioli lists areas where the mafia operates “for sure”: drug trade, tax and insurance fraud, real estate, cryptocurrencies, online gambling, mineral products and renewable energy.
In Mattioli’s opinion, criminal acts should be cut off immediately, because in the future it may be too late.
– Italy has seen that when the mafia expands and infiltrates the economy, some industries can no longer be cleaned.
The risk is not that the mafia will “colonize” Germany completely, but that it will attach itself to the key points of the economy and politics.
– Then it corrupts people from there, i.e. bribes or binds people to itself through win-win situations and makes offers that cannot be refused, Mattioli says.
How can an ordinary person detect money laundering in a pizzeria?
– It is always suspicious if a restaurant is in a good location, where it clearly has to pay high rent, but there are few customers, and yet it continues to operate year after year, says Wegner.
– Then the restaurant can be kept afloat by a hidden source of income such as money laundering.