ROME, Nov. 11 (UPI) -- Mafia loan-sharking activities have exploded in Italy as the global financial crisis is prompting banks to curtail legitimate loans, analysts say.
The Italian retail services association Confesercenti says business owners are being forced more often to seek high-interest loans from mobsters because banks aren't lending, leading to an estimated 180,000 businesses holding high-interest loans owed to organized crime, the Italian news agency ANSA reported Tuesday.
A Confesercenti report says organized crime has become the biggest business in Italy, with revenues of $163 billion and profits of $87 billion. Much of those revenues are coming from loan-sharking.
"We are currently facing a loan sharking emergency which has exploded with the runaway economic crisis," Tano Grasso, head of the Italian Anti-Racket Federation, told ANSA. "The current economic crisis has forced banks to cut back on extending credit towards small businessmen and artisans forcing them to turn to loan sharks."
"The government is responding to this with a series of adequate measures … we are not being caught off guard," said Italian Interior Undersecretary Alfredo Mantovano.
