Assets confiscated from the mafia, too much waste

" We are the State ." This is the sign that greets visitors to the Pietra di Scarto cooperative in Cerignola, in the province of Foggia, where the land seized from mafia boss Rosario Giordano produces olive oil and tomatoes, and provides employment to a group of young farmers.

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ASSETS CONFISCATED FROM THE MAFIA

The Cerignola story, unfortunately, while not unique, does not offset the enormous waste of assets seized from organized crime clans . We have a sound law on the matter (dating back to 1996 ), thousands of ongoing seizures, a National Agency for the Administration and Disposal of Assets Seized and Confiscated from Organized Crime (ANBSC), established in 2010, but then everything gets bogged down in the darkness of bureaucracy and a lack of real resources. Not to mention corruption.

ASSETS CONFISCATED FROM THE MAFIA

The first problem is the length of the process to deliver a seized asset and reuse it. Years. Three to five, at least. Meanwhile, properties and businesses become impoverished, lose value, and are transformed into empty shells, completely wasted. Then there's the issue of resources : neither volunteer associations nor municipalities (especially small ones) have the financial resources and staffing skills to efficiently manage seized assets. And sale, according to the law, is only permitted as a last resort , when the seized asset has lost all value to potential buyers.

The figures for the waste of assets confiscated from clans, 26 years after the establishment of the Agency for Confiscated Assets, are truly shocking. And they give pause for thought. Of the 35 properties, over half, 17 thousand, they are unusedThe same goes for companies: 4 are frozen after the seizure, and the only ones who profit are the administrators who manage them. They have permanent contracts and are sometimes very opaque in their management. Faced with this enormous waste, 900 volunteer associations have been entrusted with the management of some assets, and they could do much more. But they are poorly involved, even in the tenders for the assignment of individual pieces of state-owned assets.

GOODS SEIZED FROM THE MAFIA

Entire buildings, condominiums, villas, cottages, houses, and apartments . Places that could, quickly and transparently, provide decent housing not only to the many refugees squatting in illegal properties, but also to many homeless or families experiencing extreme poverty. We're also talking, beyond the properties, about businesses, confiscated and managed through the clique of commissioners, without ever managing to revive them effectively and productively, perhaps even providing jobs to many unemployed young people . Confiscated businesses and business management have even ended up in the crosshairs of investigations by the Public Prosecutor's Office, with the truly diabolical and discouraging effect (another civil waste) of an illegality that, instead of becoming legal, generates other crimes, other misdeeds, other scams.

ASSETS CONFISCATED FROM CRIME

Prefect Bruno Corda himself, director of the National Agency for the Administration and Disposition of Assets Seized and Confiscated from Criminals, painted a truly disheartening picture of the situation: seized businesses, managed by commissioners appointed from time to time by state bodies, almost always end up in liquidation. The same goes for abandoned properties. Thus, the state ultimately stamps a double waste . It spends resources and manpower to manage seized assets, and instead of making them useful to the community, it drags them down a dead-end road.

WASTE OF GOODS CONFISCATED FROM THE MAFIA

And we're talking about cash , a treasure trove of over €3 billion , seized from Mafia, Camorra, and Ndrangheta clans: money rotting in ministerial coffers and in some recesses of our public bureaucracy, where alongside many good people who work with a sense of the "common good" and passion, there are small, powerful clans that have made their fortunes from inaction. To make money and careers, always and only under the banner of state waste.

HOW TO USE ASSETS SEIZED FROM THE MAFIA

A seized asset is a victory for the state. A seized and unused asset, besides being a waste, is a defeat for the state . This heritage cannot be left at the mercy of individual magistrates, and the Agency must be given the means, tools, and resources, probably by transforming it into a public economic entity.

The Agency will need to be equipped with the necessary staff in finance, business management, and real estate: people capable of appraising the value of seized assets before handing them over to management. The resources for this operation can be found within the Recovery Plan funds , and the Conte II government had earmarked €300 million for appraising confiscated assets. This is a generic and unnecessary expense.

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