Collecting information to follow their tracks and find their hiding places
Go to the mapCollecting information to follow their tracks and find their hiding places
Go to the map
The mafias leave traces. We follow them.
Organized crime takes root even where you wouldn’t expect it: in Emilia-Romagna, in Tuscany, in the very heart of Northern Italy. This map shows how the mafias operate in our territory, through judicial acts, investigations, and local reports. To open our eyes, without prejudice.
Legend
Click on a topic and read more
Murders and violent crimes
Some might say that in Emilia-Romagna there are no murders committed by the mafia but this isn’t true at all. When the mafia shoot, they rarely miss.
Operations and arrests
Arrests for mafia related crimes are now very common. Emilia-Romagna has become used to being awoken by the sound of police sirens.
Court trials
They’re only a few but they are remarkable. In Emilia-Romagna we’re currently hosting many ongoing major trials because of the mafia.
Compulsorily residing individuals
Coerced stay was a way to keep a dangerous subject away from his territory, in order to restrict his contacts with his fellows. they were forced to live in another Italian region, controlled by the forces of law and order. This preventative measure was abolished in 1995.
Investigations into environmental crimes
Mafia related crimes often have a strong impact on the environment. Mafia operates in many fields like waste management, disposal of inert material, construction, agricultural production and renewable energies.
Companies involved in mafia-related activities
Many companies in Emilia-Romagna have been excluded from the White list, which is a list of suppliers and companies which are not involved in crimes or influenced by mafia issues and are eligible to enter into public contracts.
Municipalities dissolved or under investigation
This happens when the Council’s decisions and actions might be or have been strongly influenced by criminal organizations, In these cases, the Prefecture considers the option of dismissing the local government, replacing the administrators with a team of commissioners who must restore the order.
Threats to journalists and local officials
Too often journalists and local administrators are threaten by the mafia if they refuse to submit to them. The Mafia’s favourite ways to warn them are aggression, damage to property, legal action against them, blackmailing etc.
Special surveillance individuals
Special surveillance is a preventative measure for those who have been declared a danger to public safety, even if they haven’t been convicted yet or at all. For this reason they are constantly supervised by a judicial authority.
Arson attacks
This is one of the mafia’s favourite ways of intimidating and warning people. They usually set fire to construction sites, earth-moving machinery, vehicles.
Confiscated assets
What are they? They’re apartments, lands, bank accounts. In other words, confiscated property is any kind of movable or immovable asset, confiscated after a final sentence. Those properties must be given back to the community.
The mafias move, invest, and forge alliances across borders. The international map traces the routes of Italian mafias abroad: to understand that this is a global phenomenon, one that concerns us all.
The project
The mafias are not invisible.
They make themselves felt.
You just need to know how to read the signals the territory sends.
This website monitors the different ways in which criminal organizations make themselves visible in our territory.
A grassroots map, built from judicial documents, press reviews, and your reports.
To connect the dots and reveal the face of the mafias.
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hand!
This portal is solely the result of the voluntary work of those who created it: technicians, webmasters, illustrators, graphic designers, and ‘journalists’. We have no funders or sponsors.
If you would like to give us a hand, click the ‘Support us’ button.
Latest news
Mob Boss Nicola Femia Sentenced for Running $65 Million Illegal Poker Network
By Daniel Smyth. Published on February 26th, 2017. Mafia boss Nicola Femia has been sentenced to 26 years in prison after a judge found him guilty of running an illegal…
Malta a ‘transit point’ for weapons trafficking from Southern Europe to North Africa
di Karl Azzopardi. Pubblicato su Malta Today il 1 ottobre 2023. Global Organised Crime Index report says Libyan revolution provided opportunities for criminals to escalate and internationalise their illegal enterprises…
Documents
In this section you will find many documents, which will be useful to go deeper into the topics we introduce through the map.
Data, numbers, concepts, relationships, and dynamics: everything you need to understand how the mafias operate in our territory.
Threats to Local Officials
Pressure, intimidation, violence. The mafias attempt to influence politics at the local level. Here we document the incidents, but also the responses.
Mafias, Agromafias, and Caporalato
The control of agricultural supply chains is an active front of mafia power. In this section, we analyze the link between organized crime, labor exploitation, and food.
Money Laundering and Cybercrime
The mafias also operate in the digital sphere. We trace dirty money and the new forms of crime that emerge between technology and finance.
