In Sicily the air smells like lemon trees, the sun sparkles down on the Mediterranean Sea, the Sirocco winds warm the island and the Mafia is infiltrating the alternative energy market.
Ample sunlight and strong winds make Sicily a prime location for wind farms and solar parks, and a chance to provide an economical boost to Sicily’s struggling economy and daunting unemployment rates. The green energy opportunity might have gone unnoticed by the Mafia if it weren't for the billions of euros in subsidies the Italian government turns out to wind and solar companies.
In 2013, after an ongoing series of sting operations against the Mafia by the Direzione Investigativa Antimafia (known as the DIA), government authorities seized over £1 billion of Mafia-related assets, including 43 wind and solar energy companies from one man: Vito Nicastri, known as "Lord of the Wind."
Nobody knew how Nicastri went from a humble electrician to a renewable energy tycoon, known for winning licenses, leasing land and arranging funding for green energy projects. This was until he was linked to the Sicilian Mafia Cosa Nostra's bosses of bosses, Messina Denaro.
Idolized by younger Cosa Nostra members, Denaro has challenged the conservative image of mafia heads through his playboy demeanor and ruthless violent deeds. The father of numerous illegitimate children, Denaro sealed his reputation as a feared man after strangling the three month pregnant girlfriend of a Trapani rival.
For Denaro, green energy is a perfect business to invest dirty money. In a tapped phone conversation between businessman Angelo Salvatore and Sicilian crime mogul Vincenzo Funari of Gibellina, Salvatore said, “Uncle Vincenzo, for the love of our sons, renewable energy is important. It’s a business we can live on.”
According to Europol, the Mafia invests money made by drug trafficking, illegal waste disposal, prostitution, and human trafficking into alternative energy schemes with the goal of infiltrating the legal economy. They not only "attempt to justify their immense wealth, but present themselves on the market as strong competitors who can afford to operate ‘at a loss,’ creating in the long run a situation of quasi-monopoly that undermines the basic principles of free market.”
In some cases, land is bought, solar panels are installed, subsidies are collected, but the panels are never connected to a grid, and the sun's energy never harvested.
One of the reasons the Mafia has survived for so many hundreds of years is because, despite the violence and the criminal activity, the Mafia have also provided the people in their community with a certain amount of protection and support. But, in the case of alternative energy, the Mafia's involvement is hurting its community, corrupting its officials, weakening its economy, and sullying the reputation of important green markets. The only thing green about the Mafia’s alternative energy dealings is the cash they’re taking from Sicily's citizens.
