Italian Government Paid Mob to Build Wind Turbines
May 6th, 2009Via: Financial Times:
Like giant sentinels, dozens of wind turbines straddle the mountain ridges near Sicily’s infamous mafia stronghold of Corleone. But despite a strong breeze rippling the leaves in groves of olive and fig trees, the soaring blades of the turbines have stood motionless for over a year.
Further west, near the port of Trapani and the ancient hill-top town of Salemi, two more wind farms are similarly frozen.
Just who approved, built and sold these renewable energy projects, which were developed on the basis of public subsidies, has become the subject of investigation for Sicily’s anti-Mafia magistrates, who are trying to keep track of organised crime’s latest bid to move into mainstream business.
As one official put it: “Sicily is blessed with sun and wind, but it is also cursed by the Mafia.”
Multinationals are starting to find out something that is well known to Italian investors: that concealed beneath Europe’s most generous system of incentives – supported by “green credits” that industrial polluters have to purchase – there exists a web of corruption and shady deals.
