The Maritime Executive
German logistics firm DB Schenker’s Italian subsidiary has landed in judicial administration after an investigation discovered that mafia members had infiltrated its subcontractor community.
In 2020, a truck operated by a DB Schenker contractor was caught on the Port of Dover with 30 kilos of cocaine hidden in a cargo of dairy merchandise. Italian investigators seemed into the truck’s possession and located that it was linked to Anna Fiuto, the associate of convicted mafia chief Nicola Bevilacqua. Their enterprise, Anna Fiuto Autotrasporti, had acquired contracts with DB Schenker value greater than $2 million over a five-year interval, prosecutors stated.
Bevilacqua has beforehand been discovered responsible of mafia affiliation and aggravated extortion, and he’s a identified member of the infamous ‘Ndrangheta felony group, which controls the vast majority of the cocaine commerce in Europe. He is on long-term probation.
“The extreme complacency shown by several representatives of Schenker Italia in relating with a person of this criminal depth and in facilitating his activity is impressive,” concluded a panel of investigating judges, who authorised prosecutors’ request for judicial administration.
Schenker Italia shall be topic to at the very least one 12 months of oversight from an administrator, who shall be tasked with rooting out any additional mafia infiltration within the firm’s Italian operations. In an announcement, DB Schenker stated that it might cooperate absolutely with the authorities. At current, prosecutors haven’t initiated any felony proceedings in reference to the case.
The ‘Ndrangheta is without doubt one of the strongest organized crime teams on the planet, and it pulls in tens of billions of {dollars} per 12 months in income from drug trafficking, gun-running, extortion and different criminal activity. Its operations have been as soon as estimated to quantity to roughly three % of the whole GDP of Italy, in line with the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, and it’s identified to infiltrate legit enterprise sectors for the aim of money-laundering.