Italian Mafia Jumps In To Help Struggling Citizens Amid Coronavirus Outbreak

During coronavirus outbreak Italians got them self a very unexpected ally.

Believe it or not, italian Mafia has jumped in to help citizens during very difficult times amid coronavirus pandemic that has hit Italy hard.

Members of Mafia are distributing free food to poor families in quarantine amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Across the poorest southern regions of Campania, Calabria, Sicily and Puglia in southern Italy, Mafia members have been pictured delivering essential goods to Italians.

Nicola Gratteri, one of the famous Italian antimafia investigator and head of the prosecutor’s office in Catanzaro spoke to the Guardian.

“For over a month, shops, cafés, restaurants and pubs have been closed. Millions of people work in the grey economy, which means that they haven’t received any income in more than a month and have no idea when they might return to work. The government is issuing so-called shopping vouchers to support people. If the state doesn’t step in soon to help these families, the mafia will provide its services, imposing their control over people’s lives.

Mafia bosses consider their cities as their own fiefdom. The bosses know very well that in order to govern, they need to take care of the people in their territory. And they do it by exploiting the situation to their advantage. In the people’s eyes, a boss who knocks on the door offering free food is a hero. And the boss knows that he can then count on the support of these families when necessary, when, for example, the mafia sponsors a politician for election who will further their criminal interests, Gratteri added.

Luciana Lamorgese, the Italian minister of the interior, warned about this issue:

“The mafia could take advantage of the rising poverty, swooping in to recruit people to its organisation”.

Federico Varese, professor of criminology at the University of Oxford, said:

“Mafias are not just criminal organisations. They are organisations that aspire to govern territories and markets. Commentators often focus on the financial aspect of mafias but they tend to forget that their strength comes from having a local base from which to operate”.

We are definitely living in strange times.