Mafia: lost and found places

In memory of Pio la Torre killed by the Mafia in 1982

2021 signs the 25 years of the Italian Law 109/1996 on the use for social purposes of assets confiscated from criminal organizations, approved only after years of intense debate both within and outside Parliament.

In 1982 it was the Law Rognoni-La Torre the first to introduce in the Penal Code the crime of Mafia-type criminal association (Associazione a delinquere di stampo Mafioso -art. 416 bis) and to seize and confiscate assets connected with illicit economic activity.

The main purposes of the Law was to combat the Mafia (organized crime) and to undermine and expropriate the holdings collected in criminal business returning them to the society.

Villas, historical sites, economic activities. The accumulation of goods is often under coverage of legal business such as restaurants or hotels used as money launderings.

As a precautionary measure, the National Antimafia Direction (Direzione investigativa antimafia) can ask the court to order the seizure of the property when the value is disproportionate to the person’s of interest declared income or economic activity.

Meanwhile, the property are under the temporary administration of the National Agency for the Administration and Destination of Assets Seized or Confiscated (Ansbc-Agenzia nazionale per i beni sequestrati e confiscati alla criminalità organizzata).

When on the basis of sufficient evidence there is reason to believe that the estate is a result of illegal activities it is definitely confiscated and the management passes to local municipals.

They must allocate the assets selecting companies, organizations, communities or any other subjects interested in nonprofit social activities and in the promotion of educational projects of democratic legality like the ones promoted by Libera (Freed). Associations, Names and Numbers Against Mafia Organizations" created in 1995.

Today, one of the needs is to speed up the application of asset protection measure and to make the appointment of judicial administrators more transparent, avoiding the danger of mobsters infiltration or the abandon to decay.

The last requisition, the Villa of the Casamonica family close to Rome, is dated to June 2020.
It will become a children's home, a starting point to build up a future of legality and good practises.