Mafiosi in southern Italy trying to extort money from shopkeepers could soon be nabbed by a new network of video-cameras, Junior Interior Minister Marco Minniti said on Thursday.
Speaking on the TV finance program of Miaeconomia Week, to be aired this Sunday, he said the government was developing plans for a video-surveillance scheme across towns and cities in the south, where the mafia is traditionally rife.
"If these areas under active surveillance then it becomes more difficult for mafia representatives to go around asking for protection money," he said.
The new cameras should be up and running in the largest southern cities by the end of 2007, he said.
However, he underlined that a broader change in underlying attitudes was needed in order for the plans to work.
"We have to establish a relationship of credibility and trust between the state and victims of racketeering and loan sharks," he said.
"The government's idea is to set up some kind of alliance between the state and anti-racketeering associations, and to provide greater security to those who testify against the mafia".
The video surveillance is part of a series of ideas being considered by the new centre-left government as a way of tackling the widespread problems of racketeering and extortion.
It is also looking at setting up a register at local police stations that would list those anti-racketeering associations deemed credible and well-established. In addition, there will be a crackdown on revenue from organized crime, with a drive to seize more mafia assets.
"This will include speeding up the time it takes for such assets to be reutilised for the public benefit, as this currently takes too long," the undersecretary said.
According to a report published last month by national retailers' association Confesercenti, the mafia extorts 200 million euros a day from Italian businesses, 80 million of which from shopkeepers alone.
It said those operating in southern Italy were particularly vulnerable to criminal organizations, with 80% of shops in the Sicilian cities of Palermo and Catania forced to pay protection money and 50% in Naples and the surrounding area.
An estimated 450,000 shopkeepers are the victims of Mafia loan sharks, the report said, adding that there were at least 50,000 such criminal gangs operating in Italy, mainly in the three regions of Sicily, Campania and Lazio.
