Italian court seizes €3 million in suspected mafia assets of Malta-linked company

An Italian court has ordered the seizure of around €3 million in assets as a preventative measure against two Reggio Calabria entrepreneurs with betting and gambling operations spanning different regions in Italy with branches abroad, including Malta.

The unnamed entrepreneurs’ “sophisticated and highly profitable system” was discovered as part of the ‘Galaxy’ operation conducted by Reggio Calabria’s Guardia Di Finanza and the Central Organized Crime Investigative Service (SCICO).

The Maltese branch of the company was allegedly being funnelled funds collected through illegal betting and gambling to avoid paying due taxes in Italy, with suspects linked to the Calabria-based Mafia clan which has been accused of conducting several illegal operations in Italy and abroad

As reported by ilmeridio.it, the investigation established that these companies would make a profit using a pyramid scheme.

The two suspects at the top of the pyramid allegedly acted as managers and promoters of illegal betting and gambling points spanning Tuscany, Lazio, Calabria in Italy and Malta, Romania, Austria and Spain.

In return for a cut of the earnings, the investigation concluded the ‘Ndrangheta would offer protection and advertising for the suspects’ brands online and in local businesses with which it was affiliated.

The satellite companies in Malta and Austria were being operated remotely from Italy, according to the investigation, where the suspects had set up a network of points from which they could collect proceeds from illegal betting and gambling.

The Prevention Measures section of the Reggio Calabria Court ordered the seizure of four related companies operating in the recreational and real estate sectors, 11 buildings, land and other financial assets amounting to over €3 million.

A December 2022 study commissioned and published by the European Parliament’s co-chair of The Left in the European Parliament (GUE/NGL), Martin Schirdewan, showed how Italian Mafia clans laundered billions of euros of ill-gotten, illicit funds through online gaming platforms in Malta between 2015 and 2022.

From the €6.7 billion in total assets confiscated across some 100 investigations examined by the study, €4 billion alone came from investigations into online gaming related to Malta.

When describing why Malta’s gaming sector was so attractive to Italian organised crime, the study concluded, “The lax controls, the lack of interest in investigating and the close political ties in the country are the reasons why Malta became the mafia’s El Dorado.”

On Thursday, TheShift reported how the same Reggio Calabria court found that the ‘Ndrangheta was also being investigated for links to Italian low-cost supermarket chain Eurospin, which is set to open its first of 12 locations in Malta.

The Shift also reported how a Malta-based company had been selling encrypted secure phones and communications systems to the Italian mafia, as revealed by an Italian collaborative investigation.

The ‘Ndrangheta stands accused of various international illicit operations, which include South American cocaine smuggling, weapons smuggling out of Pakistan and laundering illegal proceeds within Europe, according to Europol.