By Natasha Joseph
The Italian Mafia is a major player in Namibia's diamond mining industry, says a top investigative journalist.
His investigations apparently show that one of Italy's most powerful organised crime syndicates, also known as the Cosa Nostra, may be using its connections in Namibia to launder money generated by criminal activity.
John Grobler, a Namibian journalist, was in Cape Town on Monday to present the findings of an investigation that started seven years ago with a study on organised crime.
The investigation grew into a series of news features in major Namibian and South African newspapers which garnered him an international award.
Continues Below ↓
It has also seen him become embroiled in a lawsuit with one of the men named in his articles as having connections to the Italian Mafia.
Grobler was a guest of the Institute of Security Studies's (ISS) Organised Crime and Money Laundering Programme and outlined some of his findings about Namibia's diamond trade at a briefing on Monday.
He said that after Italian authorities cracked down on the Cosa Nostra's illicit trade in cigarettes, drugs and its involvement in prostitution in Italy several years ago, the organisation had to "find a way to make its money legitimate".
One way to do so was to become involved in the trade of minerals, including diamonds and possibly uranium, Grobler said.
By becoming involved in the diamond trade using "front" companies to disguise organised crime connections, the Cosa Nostra was able to "legitimise its cash flow".
He said that the Cosa Nostra and other organised crime groups focused their activities on countries that had "good legislation, but poor enforcement".
"(Organised crime groups) exploit enforcement weaknesses in Africa and Africa's poverty," Grobler said.
Although bribery, which was commonly used to win over government officials, was "a victimless crime", it became "malignant... it undermines (a country's) legal system", he said.
There was some evidence that the Cosa Nostra was becoming similarly involved in Angola's booming diamond trade, he said.
-
This article was originally published on page 4 of Cape Times on September 30, 2008
|
StumbleUpon
Reddit
Digg
Delicious
Newsvine
Facebook
muti
Twitter
