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GENERALITY "The fight against mafia will find us at the forefront; from this criminal and mafia government they will only have disdain and inflexibility"; so Prime Minister Giorgia MELONI, in the programmatic statements of the Government at the Chambers, underlined the commitment of the Executive in the specific sector, bringing out, in all its importance, the social cost of organized crime and the need to protect the legal and social fabric indispensable, in order to create a growth.

The same government line was confirmed by the Minister of the Interior, Matteo PIANTEDOSI, who has specified as "compared to the consolidated professionalism of our forces of order, every government that happens can have the only task to favor the ideal conditions so that they can work in the best way.

The Meloni government, since the first steps in these months, has launched important messages about the fact that the fight against mafia will always be a priority for an executive who has in the first place in the agenda the respect of law1. [...].

A territory in the hands of the mafia is not free, its citizens are not free, because their choices are always influenced by forms of conditioning, whether clear or subdule.

If the rights are not of all, if a right is to be recognized and exercised as a privilege, this is far from the same democracy outlined in our Constitution.

Mafia is a "dictating" to rebel against. " In the same context the considerations expressed in the contribution given by the President of the Parliamentary Commission of inquiry on the phenomenon of mafias and other criminal associations, including foreign ones, On. Chiara COLOSIMO:

"The more the state will be able to fight and defeat the mafia, the more the value and strength in terms of freedom and virtue that we will leave to the new generations. The fight against the Mafia is not a battle, but it is the battle.

From here starts that form of cultural revolution that will lead to the creation of a society that will look to the future with confidence and hope; without fear and resignation, which represent, more than all, the evils that support our lives.

That same trust and hope that step by step we helped build together. Here, today and tomorrow. Forever."

In this context, the action of contrast conducted by the Magistrature and the Police Forces also in the second half of 2022, has extensively documented the pervasive action of the Italian criminal organizations, the strength they exercise in the national territory, the projections in all continents and the consolidated international links3.

https: //www.inter.gov.it/press-e-comunication/interventions/mafiosi-e-terrorists- will not-have-to-take-all of the 17 gennaio 2023.

https: //www.inter.gov.it/print-e-comunicazione/comunicati-stampa/festa-liberazione-plantedosi-castelvetrano-tpcerimonia-memoria-nostra.

https: //www.inter.gov.it/press-e-comunication/communication-print/ministerial-planted statements on the operation-anti-ndrangheta-reggio-calabria-e-brescia- engagement-straordinary-magistrature-and-force-of the 13 dicembre 2022 order.

the activity carried out and the results achieved by Anti-Mafia Investigation Directorate

SEMETRAL REPORT TO PARLIAMENT Organized crime (transnational) undermines peace and security, violates human rights and compromises, worldwide, economic, social, political and civil development, as well as analytically treated in the SOCTA document 2021-254.

Organized criminal groups, of Italian or allogenous matrix, are now structures that constantly operate beyond national borders, determining "complex criminal phenomena and dynamics, increasingly projected on a transnational scale and therefore in need of intense international cooperation"5.

The investigative elements gathered so far confirm that the criminal organizations of the mafia type, in their incessant process of adaptation to the changing contexts, have implemented the relational capacities by replacing the use of violence, increasingly residual, with strategies of silent infiltration and with corrupt and intimidating actions.

Today, mafias prefer to pay their attention to business-entrepreneurship areas, taking advantage of the availability of large capital accumulated with traditional illegal activities.

This is "modi operandi" where it is sought both to strengthen the associative constraints through the pursuit of profit and the search for consent taking advantage of the strong economic suffering that characterizes some areas, and to stay ahead with the most advanced investment strategies, succeeding in seizing also the opportunities offered by the national and community public funds (Recovery Fund and PNRR).

It must also be pointed out that the threshold for the supervision of public procurement and distribution should be maximised, the only action for the contrast of the newborn European Procura (EPPO)6 will not be sufficient. It is necessary, in other words, an appropriate approach to the times if we do not want to give further advantage to organized crime.

It is necessary to overcome the idea that organized crime only detects in terms of public order or is confined within narrow national limits; it is an idea that is negatively affected by the effectiveness of contrast measures established in the various national orders.

An in-depth and shared knowledge of the criminal phenomenon that sustains the activities of contrast, enhancing synergies and "best practices", at least at European level, involving all actors of international police and judicial cooperation. 7 The European Parliament, already in the Resolution of the 25 ottobre 2016 on the fight against corruption, pointed out that "organized criminal groups have demonstrated the tendency and a great

As documented in the latest assessment of the threat posed by organised crime and the serious forms of crime of the European Union Serious and Organised Crime Threat Assessment, EU SOCTA) 2021-25.

Introductory intervention of the National Procurator Antimafia and Anti-terrorism, Giovanni MELILLO, at the Course of the Higher School of Magistrature, Roma 20 giugno 2022. "30 years of DNA, DDA and DIA. 30 years of legislation against organized crime: the origins and evolutions of the Antimafia system".

The European Public Prosecutor's Office (EPPO) is an independent body of the European Union responsible for investigating, prosecuting and judging crimes affecting EU financial interests, such as: fraud, corruption, money laundering, cross-border VAT fraud. The EPPO became operational on 1 June 2021.

Point of situation emerged in the work of the "Strategic meeting of the Chiefs of Police beneficiaries of the countering serious crime in the western balkans IPA 2019 project, Tirana (Albania) 2 and 3 novembre 2022, with the participation of the Director of the DIA.

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ease to diversify its activities, adapting itself to different territorial, economic and social areas to exploit its weaknesses and fragility, acting at the same time in different markets and taking advantage of the different normative forecasts of the legal orders of the individual Member States to prosper their activities and maximize profit".

From the analysis data of EUROPOL and the main Agencies of Law Enforcement, it is unanimously recognized the resilience of organized crime and the ability to grasp the technological transformations and economic-financial phenomena on a global scale, exploiting every opportunity of profit and achieving a remarkable speculative expansion.

The Executive Director of Europol, Catherine De Bolle, in presenting the edition 2022 of "SIRIUS European Union Digital Evidence Situation Report, the result of a joint activity between Europol, Eurojust and the European Judicial Network (European Judicial Network) said that "this report includes the result of large-scale research of the SIRIUS8 project to deepen the complexity of cross-border investigations affecting digital evidence.

Provides valuable information resulting from exclusive interviews and surveys conducted with the competent authorities of Member States as well as online service providers (OSP – Online Service Providers) on their experiences by accessing cross-border digital data. Our job doesn't stop here.

The current success of having an even stronger grip in the future requires us to observe, reflect and act on how online technologies are transformed (including the use of Artificial Intelligence - AI, Augmented Reality - AR and Reality Virtual - VR), and scenarios of continuous regulatory evolution, will affect how states Members handle digital evidence.

To do so, Europol will continue to work with its EU partners and Member States, as with the private sector to develop technologies, norms and skills for the community of security agencies. 9 We must therefore adapt the technological tools available to security agencies to the new challenges in contrast to organized crime, increase the penetration capabilities of metaverts, encrypted communications and in general of the web (both the internet network and the dark web) and in other sectors of the less known digital world, because the mafias are able to regenerate continuously, because they have at their disposal technologies and technicians of high specialization.

To stay at the pace of time, trying to prevent them, and maybe be a step ahead of them, because they work more and more on the web and in the metaverso.

Of particular help is the Observatory Report produced the 3 ottobre 2022 from the "Europol Innovation Laboratory - Europol Innovation Lab "Policing in the metaverse: what Law Enforcement needs to know"10. The study emphasizes that we must investigate the world of platforms

Project SIRIUS | Europol (europa.eu)

Europol publication "Sirius EU digital- Evidence situation Report 2022" of 22 dicembre 2022.

Start | Europol (europa.eu) "The metaverse has been described as the next Internet interaction.

This report provides a first perspective focusing on law enforcement forces on current developments on the subject, potential implications for law enforcement, and key recommendations on what the law enforcement community could do to prepare for the future.

This report aims to help police leaders, law enforcement and policy makers begin to understand this new environment so that they can adapt and prepare for the police in the metavert.

The Observatory's function monitors the technological developments relevant to the law and reports on the risks, threats and opportunities of these emerging technologies."

the activity carried out and the results achieved by Anti-Mafia Investigation Directorate

SEMESTRAL REPORT TO the virtual PARLIAMENT to "follow the flow of money", as Judge Giovanni Falcone said.

The future is already today, money is enlivened by crime in electronic form, quickly in new digital environments, such as that of the metaverso where objects and works of art are exchanged (Non Fungible Token).

Investigators must acquire new skills to be prepared for these new technologies, it is imperative to know them, learn to use them, especially develop investigative skills to intercept illicit patricians, in order to be able to block them and remove them from crime. 11 Europol and "Basel Institute on Governance" collected in the report "seizing the opportunity:

5 Recommendations for crypto assets-related crime and money loundering " 2022 Reccomandations of Joint Working Group on Criminal Finances and Cryptocurrencies - published the 7 dicembre 2022 - the best practices in crime related to cryptographic resources and the money laundering of money, to help public and private entities stay one step ahead of those seeking to abuse cryptographic goods and services to do, hide and recycle illicit money.

In highlighting the priority to be given to the contrast to the mafias, EUROPOL defines the panorama of organized crime "characterized by a network environment where the cooperation between criminals is fluid, systematic and guided by a focus oriented to profit"12.

In fact, among the mafia organizations we go increasingly affirming the tendency to borrow organizational models and business structures where "Networking" is systematically done (network work), involving in the illegal activities unscrupulous entrepreneurs who do not have full awareness of the criminal caliber of the subjects with whom they interact, even if they do not hesitate to seek their contact13.

As in the economic-entrepreneurship, in the absence of a hierarchical relationship and a leadership control, network relations, forms of collaboration and different skills prevail, which, put in common, reciprocity is reciprocal, even if it does not require relationships and relations with all partners of the criminal network.

The Anglo-Saxons would say that an additional process of transformation is taking place where "working - Networking" on the network of criminals is going to "collaborate - Coworking" (working together) in the network of criminal relations.

This is how, through the involvement of free professionals, unscrupulous entrepreneurs and cartier companies14, the money laundering is created or even seemingly lawful activities are pursued. It is a silent mafia that prefers camouflage (secretity) and hybridization with enterprises where

At the initiative of Europol and the Basel Institute, the annual global conference on criminal finances and cryptocurrencies "The 6th Global Conference on Criminal Finances and Cryptocurrencies 1-2 Settembre 2022 Europol".

Hosted this year by Europol at its headquarters in The Hague, the annual conference brought together experts from cryptocurrency, investigators and other representatives of law enforcement agencies around the world.

The goal was to increase the capabilities of all relevant actors to successfully investigate and pursue the money laundering of money based on virtual assets and other cryptocurrency-enabled crimes as well as manage the related risks for citizens, businesses and national/global financial systems.

The conference helped create a network of professionals and experts who can collectively establish best practices and provide assistance and recommendations in this rapidly evolving field.

"Evaluation of serious threats and organized crime in the European Union SOCTA– 2021-25" fired the 12 aprile 2021 from Europol.

As underlined by the Procurator DDA of Venice, Bruno CHERCHI, in informal interview.

See the Anti-Recycling Note No. 15 entitled "A synthetic indicator to identify so-called cartier companies" and 2020 of the Bank of Italy – UIF Financial Information Unit for Italy.

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It is rooted and establishes relationships and bonds by favouring the way of convenience to that of violence.

The configuration in "cluster" of companies allows to realize integrated and articulated chains, distributed on the international territory, that through the different location allows movements of resources that seemingly are the object of normal economic interactions, concealing allocations of money (the revenues and the provisions realized by the mafia companies based in a country, through a chain of mimicised passages, feed the liquidity and investments of the mafia companies located elsewhere).

The ability to adapt mafias, multiethnic interactions and the exploitation of technological capabilities has seen organized crime take on a global dimension, forming a growing and changing threat to all states and world society.

As stated in the past by the European Parliament "the criminal groups participate in the political-administrative life to access the financial resources available to the public administration and condition its activities with the connivence of politicians and officials and entrepreneurship" succeeding in in infiltrating each sector, and corruption and the money laundering of money constitute serious threats to the economy of the EU"15.

It is the context that the Prefect Vittorio RIZZI, former Deputy Chief of Police and Director of the DCPC, clearly outlined by stating that "The 'ndrangheta has become a criminal holding company: it no longer attacks the state....

It is a silent and pervasive mafia that pollutes legal economies, intoxicating them with corruption and the money laundering.

The time we live requires the maximum resilience of the Police Forces, which must quickly adapt to the criminal scenarios that quickly change to maximize profits, taking advantage of technological progress, from cryptocurrencies to metavert." 16 The current operational dynamics of organized crime are increasingly characterized by their strong entrepreneurial vocation, in a cross-border dimension, as already observed in 2013 by the European Parliament that in the Resolution of 23 October on organized crime, corruption and the money laundering of money when it pointed out that "organized crime is increasingly similar to a global economic subject, having a strong entrepreneurial vocation and specialized in the simultaneous supply of different types of assets and services increasingly significant – but also,

At present, "The radical change of business model is confirmed, which projects transnational criminal organizations in an entrepreneurial and financial dimension on a global scale, which favours the reinvestment of crime proceeds in multiple economic activities and in Hi Tech finance, having behind an endless reservoir of wealth deriving from drug trafficking". 17

Resolution of the European Parliament of the 25 ottobre 2016 on the fight against corruption, available on www. europarl. Europe.eu.

www. interno.gov.it. The Police Forces of 14 countries, under the auspices of Interpol, met in Rome to define together the strategy of contrast to the 'ndrangheta.

At the Police Forces Perfection School Rome (from 14 to 17 novembre 2022) was held the 1st Focal Point Conference of Project I-CAN (Interpol) Cooperation Against 'ndrangheta).

Filippo SPIEZIA, "EUROJUST- Report of the national member Year 2022".

the activity carried out and the results achieved by Anti-Mafia Investigation Directorate

SEMETRAL REPORT TO PARLIAMENT The use of technology has taken a decisive role in the illicit activity of criminal organizations, which use encrypted communication systems for internal communications, and multiple instant messaging and social media applications for external communication, illegal goods advertising, and web disinformation for lucrative purposes.

The appeal to the use of emerging technologies can today be reconstructed in a very reliable way by the decryption of thousands of conversations on encrypted communication platforms (Encrochat, Ski ECC and Anom) that have returned us a view on the level of infiltration and presence of organized crime, in European countries and in third countries, unprecedented (only for the SKY ECC Europol platform hosts in its databases over 500,000acre

The Web has therefore become the privileged environment to carry out lucrative activities of a criminal nature19 and the restricted appeal to violence in the territories beyond the border represents the evidence of the marked and chameleontic attitude of the sodalizi to insinuate itself in all those economic spheres able to offer the broadest margins of profit for the king of capital without generating social alarm and, therefore, without attracting the attention of police and magiture forces.20

In the common awareness that future challenges will be fought in the digital world (dark web, metaverso, cryptocurrencies, etc.), a supranational regulatory intervention that defines the activity of online service providers (OSP – Online Service Providers), making available to police forces encrypted services offered to users and disciplinary in a unitary and punctual manner within the EU "digital evidence". 21 This would also allow us to intervene in those countries which have progressively become territories of interest of the "mafia style" organizations, for the short norms of its anti-crime legislation, which are less stringent, especially in the money laundering.

For these reasons the "European Judicial Network for Computer Crime- EJCN"22 on 12 and 13 dicembre 2022, at EUROJUST, organized the 13th plenary session that focused on how to investigate and protect the victims of online fraud, access to encrypted digital evidence, sharing best practices and making recommendations.

Space has been given insights into online investment platforms and cooperation with third countries and

Europol publication "SIRIUS EU DIGITAL- EVIDENCE SITUATION REPORT 2022" of 22 dicembre 2022.

"Evaluation of serious threats and organized crime in the European Union SOCTA - 2021-25" fired the 12 aprile 2021 from Europol.

As it emerges from the analysis of the "EU strategy for the fight against organized crime 2021-2025".

With Sent. n. 32915 of the 7 settembre 2022, the Cassazione expressed itself on how to capture chats on "Sky-ECC", considering them relevant, for the purpose of evaluating the usability of the results of investigation activities performed on user conversations.

The parties must be guaranteed the possibility to know the documentation attesting to such methods, in order to be able to exercise control over the validity of the operations performed and on the actual correspondence of the textuality of the messages to the tenor of the intercepted conversations.

European judicial network for cybercrime | Eurojust | European Union Agency for Criminal Judicial Cooperation (europa.eu).

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virtual asset providers, such as legal access, jurisprudence and eligibility of encrypted digital evidence.

The EJCN since 2016 promotes contacts between specialists in countering the challenges posed by cyber crime and cyberspace investigations, as well as improving the efficiency of criminal investigations and actions.

"If so the action of the c.o. It weakens the democratic hold of States and puts in crisis the principle of the rule of law, in the opposite sense, States characterized by a situation of democratic instability or even involved in a military conflict, can represent the ideal place for the repeated commission not only of the core crimes but also for the development of organized crime and its illicit trafficking"23.

This last consideration finds, however, concreteness in the analysis of the scope of the current Russian-Ukrainian warfare, which has posed a new challenge for the global economy by jeopardizing not only human lives but also geopolitical and economic growth and balance.

But precisely "war is an extraordinary basin of technological experimentation: electronic weapons, drones, exoskeletals we hear about every day are concepts that will interweave the paths of terrorism and organized crime".

These are the words spoken recently by National Attorney Antimafia, Giovanni MELILLO24. In this regard, in a statement on cooperation with Ukraine, the Europol agency has placed, in particular, the issue of the spread of weapons, as it had happened in the past in the various war theatres.

In particular, the Agency has warned the risk that the proliferation of firearms and explosives in Ukraine could lead to an increase in traffic of firearms and ammunition in the EU through consolidated smuggling routes or online platforms.

This threat could also be greater once the conflict is finished.25

Illicit trafficking of firearms is one of the EU's priorities in the fight against serious crime and organized within the framework of EPACT 2022-2025, but the illicit trade of firearms remains only one of the means of financing organized crime whose fundamental feature, confirmed once again by Covid's pandemic 19, is the ability to adapt and capitalize the opportunities offered by the changes in the environment in which they operate26.

The greatest source of profitability of criminal cartels, on a transnational level, continues to be the traffic of narcotic substances, for the management of which organizational models have been developed, which encourage organized crime from the geographical area of origin and exploit the web for sales operations, making it more difficult both prevention and repression of such crimes27.

Filippo SPIEZIA, "The fight against organized crime outside national borders", www.systempenale.it.

Speaking at the training event organized by the High School of Magistrature and Eurojust, the European Union Agency for Criminal Judicial Cooperation. Bari 13 ottobre 2022.

Europol statement on the cooperation with Ukraine, 22 luglio 2022, www.europol.europa.eu.

"Evaluation of serious threats and organized crime in the European Union SOCTA - 2021-25" fired the 12 aprile 2021 from Europol.

Annual Report 2022 – Ministry of Interior – Department of Public Security - Central Directorate for Services Anti-drug, Report-Annual 2022.pdf (in.gov.it).

the activity carried out and the results achieved by Anti-Mafia Investigation Directorate

SEMETRAL REPORT TO PARLIAMENT The largest countries in South America have long been among the most interesting areas of Italian mafias, in virtue of contacts with local drug cartels: the international traffic of cocaine that is realized through Colombia and Mexico, exploiting the major ports, feeds criminal enterprises, which use the huge resources obtained to infiltrate and undermine the European economy, public institutions and society.

L' "European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addition" analizzando il mercato della cocaina in Europa, ricostruendone le principali rotte e modalità di trasporto, ci ricorda che "...la corruzione viene utilizzata dai trafficanti per entrare nei porti, per accedere alla droga nascosta nei container, per creare o garantire il controllo sulle imprese utilizzate come copertura per attività di contrabbando, come il noleggio di veicoli di trasporto o locali di stoccaggio, e anche per facilitare il riciclaggio di denaro ed altro...".28 Negli ultimi anni anche l'Africa occidentale è diventata una cruciale base logistica per i narcos: la Costa d'Avorio, la Guinea-Bissau e il Ghana sono stati i primi paesi a finire nel mirino delle organizzazioni criminali, come emerso dall'operazione "Kafo III" sostenuta dall'ONUUNODC29.

Similar considerations apply to the United States and Canada, where recent operations on international drug trafficking have demonstrated the successful infiltration of organized crime of Italian origin.

Other areas which have become very profitable means of financing for the disaster are the "cyber crime" sector with particular reference to gambling and betting, the production and marketing of counterfeit goods, works of art and other cultural goods, and fuels and energy products.

With regard to gaming and betting, game and betting entrepreneurs, which can be traced back to criminal organizations, have constituted "cartiere" companies, with registered office in tax havens, which allow to develop a market parallel to the legal one, with substantial gain opportunities and money laundering of significant sums of money30.

If the marketing of counterfeit goods allows for reinvestment of illicit capital through a market that generates proceeds even beyond borders31, recent investigations of character

Publication "Europol – European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addition" entitled "EU DRUG MARKET: COCAINE" and 6 maggio 2022.

From www.onuitalia.com:

"The operation backed to UNODC, codenamed KAFO, took place for the third consecutive year with the involvement of police, gendarmerie, customs, anti-treat airport cells, maritime authorities, as well as border and criminal prosecution units and aimed at interrupting illicit flows of traffic of firearms, drugs and trafficking of human beings.

Operation KAFO III was made possible with the support of Italy, Germany, France. The UNODC supported Operation KAFO III through its Global Firearms Programme, the Sahel Programme and AIRCOP.

The operation also received the support of the G5 Sahel, through its Rapid Action Groups – Monitoring and Intervention in the Sahel (GARSI)".

Among the various judicial activities, are the operations called "Galassia", "Revolutionbet - Gaming online" and "Scommessa, ", concluded at the same time, in 2018, by the DDA of Reggio Calabria, Catania and Bari, which have unveiled, in parallel, the interest of the various mafias in the lucrative compartment of online games.

This involvement was found more recently by the results of the operation "Double Game" of the DDA of Catania, performed in March 2021.

In October 2021 the results of the operation "Guasta Provvista" have allowed to identify an unlawful supply, from producers of Eastern Europe, of pellets with a counterfeit or falsely declared mark, intended for various commercial exercises of the Veneto.

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transnational have shed light on the market of illicit commercialization of fuels and the consequent money laundering of hundreds of millions of euros in oil companies intestate to lend and with headquarters in Italy.

Moreover, another market to which criminal organizations have widened their interests is that of energy products (lubricating oils and base oils), with forms of smuggling and of money laundering of money that develop through the introduction of products in the national territory with a circuit of false invoicing of companies also constituted ad hoc32.

More and more crucial is the role played by the "European Center for the fight against cybercrime - Europol's EC3 which, each year, publishes the report "IOCTA - Evaluation of the threat represented by organized crime on the Internet" which provides key recommendations to law enforcement, policy makers and regulatory authorities to enable them to respond to cybercrime effectively and concertedly.

The most recent IOCTA also examines a further criminal area, online criminal markets, both on the surface web and on Darknet.

It also addresses the convergence between cybernetics and terrorism, the transversal factors of crime that include: phishing/smishing/vishing, corporate email compromise, bulletproof Hosting, Anonymization Tools, criminal abuse of cryptocurrencies and money muling.33 In this context, it has also increased the commitment to train investigators specialized in financial investigation activities in the Internet network, an area in which the formation of investigators is curated by the European Union Agency for the Formation of the Forces of Police (CEPOL).

The Italian organized crime has distinguished itself for having been able to exploit the benefits offered by globalization, with flexible organizational structures that allow international exchanges and investments, which have confirmed its position as protagonist in the global financial panorama.

The economic vocation - transnational entrepreneurial, although always with an indissoluble link with the territory of origin, is more evident for the 'ndrangheta, which has cut out a role of "leadership" world in the field of drug trafficking, becoming a real criminal "holding" of very important international thickness, in virtue of the privileged relations established with the producers of narcotic substances in Latin America.

For international cooperation in contrast to 'ndrangheta, the I-CAN project continues to be the most useful tool for information exchange and expertise in the field of localisation and aggression of illegally acquired assets abroad.

In particular, the investigations carried out under the operation "Petrolmafie Spa", concluded in April 2021, brought out the interests of the 'ndrangheta, the Sicilian mafia and the Camorra in the management of the business of the trade of petroleum products, whose unlawful proceeds would also be reinvested on foreign current accounts attributable to companies of comfortable Romanian, Bulgarian, Croatian.

Internet Organised Crime Threat Assessment (IOCTA) | Europol (europa.eu).

the activity carried out and the results achieved by Anti-Mafia Investigation Directorate

SEMETRAL REPORT TO PARLIAMENT The DIA collaborates in analytical and operational terms to the above-mentioned design for which a hub was established at the Central Directorate of Criminal Police.

The hub has a strategic level component involving the leadership of the Police Forces, the DIA and the Central Directorate of Anti-Drug Services with the support of the Directorate National Antimafia and Antiterrorism and an operational component able to communicate on all channels of international police cooperation (Interpol, Europol and S.I.Re.N.E.), to have access to all national and international police data banks and to dialogue directly with the central offices of police forces dedicated to the fight against organized crime and with the National I CAN Units participating in the initiative.

If mafias gain an ever greater awareness of the importance of synergistic action among criminal organizations, sharing skills and tasks in the pursuit of illicit profit in every part of the world, determining in order to implement illegal business was the lack of rapidity in methods of contrast, due to the absence, in many countries, of adequate Antimafia legislation.

Wherever the awareness that international police and judicial cooperation should be increased with a "network" contrasting action that affects common legal instruments and regulations, as well as information sharing and the exchange of "best practices".

In this sense, the Europol Agency in the first place of the EMPACT 2022-2025 priorities has placed the High-risk criminal networks: identifying and dismantling high-risk crime networks active in the EU, such as mafia, ethnic and family organizations and other structured networks, and individuals with critical roles in such networks, with particular attention to criminal networks that undermine the rule of law, those who commit crimes

The DIA, on the occasion of international consultations, has always stressed the need for a shared action between the Police Forces of the States concerned by the mafia phenomenon and the homogeneization of the regulations of the European nations.

For the collaboration between police forces, the Antimafia @ON Operational Network Project was established and implemented, of which the DIA is Project Leader, which has become a useful tool for promoting rapid and effective information exchange and best practices in the context of the contrast of criminal organizations "mafia style", which constitute a serious threat to the social and economic security of the EU.

The procedure for approving the "Proposal for a Directive on the recovery of goods and confiscation"35, an initiative aimed at adapting the normative orders of the EU countries set on the so-called "Italian method", (already presented to the Director of the DIA from the EU Commission - DG Home, during the 2nd Core Group Meeting of the @ON Network, 14 giugno 2022 in Brussels).

The Committee

EU Policy Cycle - EMPACT 2022-2025, www.europol.europa.eu.

Brussels, 25 maggio 2022 COM(2022) 245 final 2022/0167 (COD) Proposal for European Parliament and Council Directive on the recovery and confiscation of goods {SEC(2022) 245 final} - {SWD(2022) 245 final} - {SWD(2022) 246 final}.

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European economic and social decision 14 dicembre 2022 adopted its opinion on the proposal, which currently lies at the European Parliament, Commission for Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs.36 The Directive will be applied to a broad spectrum of "free" crimes (European crimes and harmonised crimes at EU level) and all crimes related to organised crime (personal sequestration and armed robbery) as agreed by the EU/ GAI and will establish obligations regarding traceability and identification of activities, freezing, management and confiscation and crossborder and international cooperation in a single instrument.

From the point of view of international judicial cooperation, an advanced instrument reveals the SICs (common investigative frameworks) constituted by agreement between the competent authorities of two or more States, for a certain period, in order to carry out criminal investigations, supported operationally, legally and economically by Eurojust, which houses the Secretariat and promotes the development of the understanding of the instrument and its use.

In order to allow secure connections between the judiciary and the forces of the order, ensuring that their systems are as fast and efficient as possible and that all members of the team can connect and interact easily, regardless of their national systems the idea of creating a dedicated computer platform, in support of their operation is matured.

The 13 dicembre 2022, EU Member States have reached a political agreement on the text of the draft new European Parliament and Council Regulation, for the implementation of a collaborative platform to support the functioning of joint investigative teams and amending Regulation (EU) 2018/1726 (relative to the European Union Agency for the operational management of large-scale IT systems in the area of freedom, security and justice - euLISA).

The proposed Regulation aims to establish a regulatory framework that allows the establishment of a centralized computer platform at European level - "SIC collaboration platform" - to help Investigative teams Common to collaborate, communicate safely and share information and evidence.

It will be managed by the current European Union Agency for the operational management of large-scale IT systems in the area of freedom, security and justice - EU-LISA.37 Moreover, the first results of the investigations coordinated by the Procura European (EPPO)38, on crimes affecting the financial interests of the EU (frode, corruption, money laundering and cross-border VAT fraud), and is already applying the dictate of the 2018 European Regulation39 on the mutual recognition of freezing and confiscation measures issued by other Member States.

Review of EU rules on recovery and confiscation of assets [EU legislation in progress] | European Parliament.

Dr. Filippo SPIEZIA "EUROJUST- Report of the national member Year 2022".

Independent body of the European Union, operating by the 1 giugno 2021, at the central level is located in Luxembourg is made up of a European Chief Prosecutor and a College of Prosecutors, while at national level it is made up of European Prosecutors delegated to the 22 participating European Union countries, who, in full independence from their national authorities, are responsible for criminal investigations.

EU Regulation 2018/1805/EU of 14 novembre 2018.

the activity carried out and the results achieved by Anti-Mafia Investigation Directorate

SEMETRAL REPORT TO PARLIAMENT The aim is therefore to be pursued by the President of Eurojust Ladislav Hamran on the occasion of the Annual Report of Eurojust 2021, i.e. to continue "to strengthen and expand our cooperation with third countries, so that the fight against organized crime and terrorism evolved from a regional dimension to a global"40.

In continuity with the previous, also the second half of 2022 appears characterized, with the exception of some crunt episodes recorded in the Neapolitan territory41 and Apulia42, from a limited appeal to violence or anteposti eclarant acts, from the same mafiosi sodalizi, to a silent and more convenient penetration of the entrepreneurial economic fabric.

In line with the past, together with the ever-increasing and most visible criminal activities such as drug trafficking, extortion, exploitation of prostitution and clandestine labor, there are also more widespread illicit areas that cause less alarm and social reproduction but that generate substantial profits gradually entered into legal circuits with consequent distorsive effects of the regular dynamics of the many markets.

Tracts of those "satellite" crimes, often disputed in aggravated hypotheses ex art.

416 bis 1 c.p., represented by the traffic of waste, the increasing invoicing for non-existing operations, the scams, the false compensation of tax credits and the evasion of social and welfare contributions.

On these fronts, the investigations - preventive and repressive - are more ardent and complex since the criminal case of an associative nature and the subjective element of the crime are easily dissimulable.

Together with the lack of visibility of these "economic-financial crimes", repressive activity is even more complex because of the flerable social alarm mentioned above and the frequent convergence of interests between criminal organizations and certain social actors.

Ladislav Hamran, Preface to the Annual Report of Eurojust 2021, available on www.eurojust.europa.eu.int eu.

In the semester under review the total number of murders attributable to the Camorristic matrix amounted to 8, with greater incidence in contexts where a significant contrast between the different criminal groups has been recorded. In the same period 23 references were also recorded.

In particular, in the province of Foggia where, alongside the crimes related to spy crimes in the damage of operators in the various productive sectors subjected to extortion pressure, there are also attacks carried out by young people not always linked to mafia sodalizi (e.g. the murder occurred at 18 luglio 2022 in San Severo).

2nd semester 1. General

The above is not easy for the national economy, as evidenced in the account of the Bank of Italy published in October 202243 and as evidenced by the findings ISTAT on the national consumer price index at December 202244.

Evaluations confirmed also by the last SVIMEZ45 report that: "The 2022, which according to the premises should have characterized itself for a sustained growth, was a year of braking at international level.

There are several factors, among which a decisive role was played by the problems of the functioning of global value chains, new Covid waves, war, energy crisis and change of orientation of international monetary policies.

The evolution of the energy crisis, directly linked to the international political crisis, adding to other factors of uncertainty, has made more uncertain the prospects of 2023 for the Euro Area and Italy in particular".

In this context, however, "...the Italian industry has substantially rectified, highlighting the ability to reorganize its activity even in the phases of extreme difficulty and revealing an extraordinary ability to adapt".

Moreover, the effects of armed conflict in Ukraine, still in progress in the six months under review, on the national socio-economic landscape and the consequent exploitation of the singular situation by organized crime.

On the theme was expressed the National Procurator Antimafia and Antiterrorism, Giovanni MELILLO, during the intervention46 held on the occasion of the 5th edition of the "Festival della Pace47" organized by the Municipality of Brescia.

"...I am very concerned by the long wave that is generating from three destabilized areas close to Italy: North Africa, Ukraine and the Middle East. Mafias and organized crime grow through conflicts, which reduce the primacy of rules and laws.

I fear strong consequences from the set of those three crises." In addition: "...The resulting destabilization framework is intended to produce profound changes in the phenomenon of organised crime". According to the top Magistrate:

"...the main factor of transformation generated by the current conflict does not concern, as

Source: Economic Bulletin of the Bank of Italy n. 4/2022 of 21 ottobre 2022.

"In the third quarter the world economy continued to suffer from exceptionally high inflation, the worsening of financial conditions, the uncertainty linked to the conflict in Ukraine, the weakness of activity in China and, to a lesser extent than the beginning of the year, the difficulties of supplying along the chains of value.

The price of natural gas in Europe - which recorded new maximums in August - fell after the achievement of the storage objectives; the futures report however for the next year very high prices also because of the heavy risks on the security of supply.

Oil costs have declined due to the widespread conjunctural deterioration. World trade slowed down. The most recent forecasts prefigure a further weakening of global growth for the next year, with risks oriented to the down [...]"

Source: press release ISTAT - consumer prices December 2022 diffused the 5 gennaio 2023.

"[...] In 2022 consumer prices recorded an average year growth of +8.1%, recording the highest increase since 1985 (+9.2%), mainly due to the trend in energy prices (+50.9% in average year in 2022, compared with +14, 1% in 2021).

Net of these goods, in the year that closes, the growth of consumer prices is equal to +4.1% (from +0.8% of 2021).

According to the preliminary estimates, the inflation acquired or dragged by 2023 (i.e. the average growth that would occur in the year if the prices remained stable until next December) is +5, 1%, much wider than that observed for 2022, when it was +1, 8%.

Report Summary, Part One. Presented the 28 novembre 2022.

Conference on "The Mafias in Time of War - How organized crime exploits the socio-economic and geopolitical relapses of armed confiscations". 16 novembre 2022 Palazzo Loggia, Salone Vanvitelliano del Comune di Brescia.

11-26 novembre 2022, organized by the Bureau of the Council of the Municipality of Brescia.

the activity carried out and the results achieved by Anti-Mafia Investigation Directorate

SEMESTRAL REPORT TO PARLIAMENT in the past, the smuggling of light weapons, of which there is great availability on every illegal market, but rather technology.

Ukraine is an extraordinary basin of experimentation and I believe that the technologies developed in that context will neither cease nor exist, nor be used and will become part of the patrimony of know-how of organized crime, both terrorist and mafia...".

As usual and with the usual attention to the evolutions and transformations of the mafia organizations, this Report proposes below the description of the criminal framework - also schematized with the help of explanatory maps on the presence of the main sodalizis still active because of the investigations concluded by the DIA and the Police Forces - without neglecting the important additional information elements contained in the local measures.

In this regard, it is underlined that, in the second half of 2022, the municipalities of Neviano (LE) were dissolved for mafia infiltrations (ex art. 143 TUEL) with DPR of 5 August, Cosoleto (RC), Anzio and Neptune (RM) all with DPR of 23 November, Sparanise (CE) with DPR of 19 December.

In the same period, the dissolution of Municipalities of Rosarno (RC) with DPR of 29 December, Nocera Terinese and Simeri Crichi (CZ) with DPR, respectively, of 29 and 23 December, Villaricca (NA) with DPR of 12 December, Foggia with DPR of 2 December, as well as San Giuseppe Jato (PA) with DPR of 8 November, Marano di Napoli (NA) with DPR of 12 October and Barrafranca (EN) with DPR of 2 August.

In detail, chapter 2 of the current Half-Year Report is dedicated to the 'ndrangheta which, on the one hand, confirms its growing "globalization", on the other, continues in the colonization of permeable socio-productive fabrics, controlling its economy and progressively extending its projections throughout the national territory and also abroad.

Although the conflict between the mafia clans seems to have been substantially affected in the period under review, the 'ndrangheta is fully operational and is a constant threat.

In this context, its attempts to infiltration in public procurement and the monopoly maintained in drug trafficking, as documented, among other things, by the huge seizure of drugs carried out in the port of Gioia Tauro48.

With reference to the strategic harbour area, we recall briefly the results of the operation "Tre Croci-Cavalli di Gioia" concluded in the semester in examination (6 ottobre 2022) and that it has seen, among the subjects indagati, also 4 narcotrafficanti among which the cd.

"boss by Van Gogh" originally from Castellammare di Stabia (NA), already captured in Dubai in August 2021 and who, in December 2022, decided to start a path of collaboration with Justice.

Documented would, finally, be as read in the motivations of the sentence49 issued, from Court of Asti, 11 giugno 2022 and deposited the 7 dicembre 2022, the collaboration between men of 'ndrangheta and Cosa Nostra with reference to the Piedmontese territory.

According to the statements made by a state witness, some leaders of Cosa Nostra, including the same Matteo MESSINA DENARO, "...they had made a deal with the leaders of the 'ndrangheta to work together and become one family...".

In Reggio Calabria Metropolitan City Report: "In 2021... 67, 28% of the total of cocaine seized in this metropolitan city was intercepted at the port of Gioia Tauro.

In the same context 53, 59% of all cocaine seized at national level...", Report of the DCSA, 2022, p. 321.

In relation to the "Carminius" and "Fenice" operations of 2019.

2nd semester 1. General

In chapter 3, referring to the organized Sicilian crime, the important catch is highlighted, although carried out beyond the half-year-old disamina, of the well-known trapanese Matteo MESSINA DENARO tracked, with a cover name, inside a private clinic in Palermo along with a favorer.

The articulates, immediate investigations carried out by ROS of the Carabinieri have also allowed to identify additional bankers and its last refuge located in a street in the center of Campobello di Mazara (TP).

It is doubtful that such capture deprives Cosa Nostra of a historical and relevant reference figure, further increasing its continuing difficulties in finding authoritative leadership.

Tale circostanza, però, non inciderebbe sull'operatività dell'organizzazione nel suo complesso né si ritiene possa attenuare la pressione criminale nel territorio isolano; le organizzazioni siciliane, infatti, si confrontano con contesti ancora fortemente cedevoli alle intimidazioni mafiose, realizzando un "sotterraneo consensualismo"50 mediante il quale la vittima spesso intravede una sorta di corrispettivo per il servizio prestato in suo favore da cosa nostra.

In general, in addition to extortionive pressures towards traders and entrepreneurs, sometimes even in more or less dissimulated modes of taxation of labour and supplies, families continue to maintain an attitude marked by submerged cd, refusing, where possible, by carrying out violent actions even better to infiltrate the fabric of the regional economy, frequently availing of unfaithful public institutions and civil servants.

Significant in this regard the results of the operation "Sottwest" concluded, the 12 luglio 2022 from the Guardia di Finanza, which highlighted the activities leading to a palermitan, leader of the Pagliarelli mandate, whose entrepreneurial interests ranged from Brazil to Singapore, from Tunisia to the Arab Emirates.

If in Central-East Sicily the mafia structure is more articulated, due to the coexistence of consolidated families of Cosa Nostra, of constituents and other hierarchical partnerships subordinated to the most well-known and structured families, the propensity of all mafia organizations, even in western Sicily to more homogeneous formation of its companions, remains that of conditioning the more profitable and more profitable sector.

With regard to the organized crime of Campania or Camorra, described in Chapter 4, it continues to be characterized by a plurality of partnerships, each with its own territorial sphere of influence, mainly characterized by a marked propensity to ductility and close interaction with society, with politics and with institutions.

These peculiarities have also allowed the chamoristic organizations to camouflage smoothly and to acquire an increasing control of the economic-financial equipment by implementing

As defined by the then Prefect of Palermo, Giuseppe FORLANI, during the Interprovincial Conference of the Public Security Authorities called the 6 luglio 2022 to the local Prefettura.

As it emerges from the results of the investigations concluded by the Police Forces, sectors such as the collection and management of waste or the supply chains of agri-food markets are heavily affected by mafia infiltration.

the activity carried out and the results achieved by Anti-Mafia Investigation Directorate

Semestral Report To Parliament

Se, quindi, in alcune aree, come quelle della città di Napoli, si assiste ad una recrudescenza della contrapposizione violenta tra gruppi criminali52 (seppur talvolta limitata a gruppi subordinati alle consorterie più strutturate), in altre si registra una sorta di inabissamento dei clan, indotta anche dalla pressione degli organi investigativi documentata, da ultimo e tra gli altri, dall'arresto53, eseguito il 15 novembre 2022, dello stretto collaboratore di un noto narcotrafficante campano in rapporto d'affari con talune cosche di 'ndrangheta e clan di camorra tra cui quello degli AMATO-PAGANO.

Chapter 5 describes the dynamics of organized Apulian crime that manifests itself, in particular modes, in the provinces of Foggia, Bari and Salento in the traditional distinction between phony mafias, Camorra Barese and Sacra Corona Unita.

In this context, the resolute aspirations of rise by certain subjects, even young but determined and therefore more dangerous, are included in common for the many criminal expressions, which try to cut out new spaces in the areas of influence of other sodalizi or within the framework of those of reference.

From the examination carried out on the results of the recent investigations concluded, it is possible to affirm, also for Apulian crime, that the control of the territory exercised by the well-structured criminal associates takes place through the most often described infiltration in entrepreneurship and local administrations.

The organized crime therefore becomes economic crime by generating considerable misalignment of public interest and a serious distortion of the principle of free competition.

It also raises a strong propensity for the Apulian consorteries to the territorial expansion towards the regions of the Centre Italy economically more lively, such as Emilia Romagna and Lazio, as well as towards the near Abruzzo and the neighboring Molise.

With reference to the traditional sectors of interest, the traffic of narcotics, for its high remuneration, remains the main illicit activity persecuted by the Apulian consorteries very often availing of the relations with the traditional mafias of our Country but also with foreign criminal organizations, first of all Albanian.

In this respect, it is stated that the 8 novembre 2022, at the outcome of a meeting, coordinated by EUROPOL, between the Centre Operational DIA of Bari and representatives of the Federal Office of Criminal Police German - BKA, the DIA has advanced a request for cooperation aimed at the exchange of information between investigators of Germany, Belgium, Romania, Lithuania and Hungary, because of substantial