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CRIME

Journalists an ‘easy target’ for mafia, says watchdog

Journalists in all countries are increasingly becoming easy targets for organised criminals.

Published: 29 November 2018 16:48 CET
Journalists an ‘easy target’ for mafia, says watchdog
People in Bratislava hold a vigil for murdered Slovak journalist Jan Kuciak and his partner Martina Kusnirova. Photo: Vladimir Simicek/AFP

More than 30 journalists have been killed worldwide in the last two years and countless more are at risk, according to Reporters Without Borders.

Italian mafia in particular are believed to target journalists looking into their activity, in Italy and beyond.

Both Daphne Caruana Galizia, killed last year by a car bomb in Malta, and Jan Kuciak, shot with his girlfriend in Slovakia in February, had been investigating the Italian mafia and its links with local politicians.

196 Italian journalists had some kind of police protection in 2017, with a dozen living under permanent police guard, including Roberto Saviano, the author of the bestselling book “Gomorra” about the Naples crime syndicate, the Camorra.

Gomorrah author Roberto Saviano. Photo: Christophe Simon/AFP

“The Mob has spread its tentacles around the globe faster than all the multinationals combined,” Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said in a new report on the dangers.

READ ALSO: Slovakia to extradite Italian suspect named by murdered journalist 

“From Beijing to Moscow, from Tijuana to Bogota, from Malta to Slovakia, investigative journalists who shed light on the deals that involve organised crime unleash the wrath of gangsters, whose common feature is an aversion to any publicity unless they control it,” said its author, French investigative journalist Frederic Ploquin. 

He said the only way to counter the threat was for reporters to work together to protect each other.

The biggest danger was in investigating corruption, Ploquin said, now that ruthless crime groups have “established a kind of pact with the state” in many countries, “to the point that you cannot tell where one stops and the other begins.”

READ ALSO: Press freedom in Italy: Key things to know

“How is it possible that Mexico's drug cartels sprout like mushrooms without the support of part of the state's apparatus?” asked RSF,

Nine of the 14 journalists murdered worldwide in 2017 by organised crime groups were killed there.

Eight more journalists have been killed so far in 2018.

Three reporters were also killed this year in Brazil and three more elsewhere in Latin America. And an Indian journalist who was investigating his country's “sand mafia” was run over by a truck.

Earlier this week, Italian mafia experts said that the 'Ndrangheta are now operating “on every continent, and are spreading.”

READ ALSO:

Gomorrah author Roberto Saviano. Photo: Christophe Simon/AFP

POLITICS

Italy’s Liguria regional president arrested in corruption probe

The president of Italy's northwest Liguria region and the ex-head of Genoa's port were among 10 arrested on Tuesday in a sweeping anti-corruption investigation which also targeted officials for alleged mafia ties.

Published: 7 May 2024 12:52 CEST
Italy's Liguria regional president arrested in corruption probe

Liguria President Giovanni Toti, a right-wing former MEP who was close to late prime minister Silvio Berlusconi but is no longer party aligned, was placed under house arrest, Genoa prosecutors said in a statement.

The 55-year-old is accused of having accepted 74,100 euros in funds for his election campaign between December 2021 and March 2023 from prominent local businessmen, Aldo Spinelli and his son Roberto Spinelli, in return for various favours.

These allegedly included seeking to privatise a public beach and speeding up the renewal for 30 years of the lease of a Genoa port terminal to a Spinelli family-controlled company, which was approved in December 2021.

A total of 10 people were targeted in the probe, also including Paolo Emilio Signorini, who stepped down last year as head of the Genoa Port Authority, one of the largest in Italy. He was being held in jail on Tuesday.

He is accused of having accepted from Aldo Spinelli benefits including cash, 22 stays in a luxury hotel in Monte Carlo – complete with casino chips, massages and beauty treatments – and luxury items including a 7,200-euro Cartier bracelet.

The ex-port boss, who went on to lead energy group Iren, was also promised a 300,000-euro-a-year job when his tenure expires, prosecutors said.

In return, Signorini was said to have granted Aldo Spinelli favours including also working to speed up the renewal of the family’s port concession.

The Spinellis are themselves accused of corruption, with Aldo – an ex-president of the Genoa and Livorno football clubs – placed under house arrest and his son Roberto temporarily banned from conducting business dealings.

In a separate strand of the investigation, Toti’s chief of staff, Matteo Cozzani, was placed under house arrest accused of “electoral corruption” which facilitated the activities of Sicily’s Cosa Nostra Mafia.

As regional coordinator during local elections in 2020, he was accused of promising jobs and public housing in return for the votes of at least 400 Sicilian residents of Genoa.

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