ROME: More than 100 bosses and members of the Calabrian-based 'Ndrangheta Mafia in southern Italy have been falsely claiming the government’s “citizenship wage” basic income for poor households and job seekers, Italian police said.
Among the claimants of the allowance — €600 ($660) a month given by the government to those who can show they live below minimum wage standards — were the sons of Roberto Pannunzi, a Mafia mobster nicknamed “the Italian Pablo Escobar.”
“They really do not need the state basic income — their family is doing too well with its illegal activities,” Reggio Calabria Chief Prosecutor Nicola Gratteri told Arab News.
“But mobsters never have enough, they always want more. It is in their nature. Even if it means taking money destined for the poorest, they just take it because they feel they can do whatever they like.”
Italian and US investigators say Pannunzi is one of the world’s biggest cocaine dealers, with a business worth billions.
He has been accused of using migrant boats crossing the Mediterranean to Sicily and Calabria to smuggle cocaine and other drugs from Africa to Europe.
Pannunzi, also known as “Bebe,” is fond of boasting that he weighs money instead of counting it when he receives payments for cocaine sales, police said.
His eldest son, Alessandro, is married to the daughter of one of Colombia’s biggest cocaine producers and has been found guilty of importing large amounts of the drug into Italy.
Finance police believe members of the crime syndicate collected more than €500,000 in government assistance, which is now being confiscated.
“Despite the immense fortunes they make from drug trafficking and other illegal activities, Mafia men show no respect to poverty and to what the government tries to do to provide people with financial help,” Gratteri said.
“The €600 ‘citizenship wage’ is peanuts to mobsters who make millions and can spend in half an hour what some poor people live on for an entire month.
“This will tell you clearly enough how terrible and bad the Mob is for the community. This is not only because of their criminal activities, but also because they show no respect for those who suffer. Money is all they want,” he said.
