Borgo Vecchio, Palermo
And the fiscal paradises where the real crimes are committed
This February I was in Borgo Vecchio, the district in the centre of Palermo which lies between the port and the prison, not far from its most elegant quarter around the Politeama concert hall. It is a very small place, just a few streets, and I took a few photographs of the squalor and poverty, feeling a little guilty as I did so.
These photographs are not very good but I hope they convey the impression of the place. It was, I decided, the perfect spot for the home of one of the characters who will appear, all well, in a future novel.
Borgo Vecchio has been in the news. It seems the boss of the Porta Nuova mandamento, one Girolamo Ciresi, has been extorting money from the local shopkeepers. He is 76 years old, and, after a long legal process, the proceeds of his criminal activity have been confiscated. This amounts to the value of 700,000 euro, consisting of an apartment in Palermo, a small detached house with surrounding land at Carini, a town not far from the city, as well as eight current accounts.
The same report says that Salvatore Fiorentino, 42, a member of another Mafia family, has had 500,000 euro’s worth of goods confiscated, including a 15 room office in via Perpignano, a street far from the city centre, a car and a current account.
This report of a ‘success’ against the Mafia leaves me with several observations.
First of all, is it not remarkable that the boss should have been extorting money from shopkeepers in Borgo Vecchio, one of the poorest parts of the city? The only explanation for this is that this is the only place where the police have found evidence of extortion. But it serves one purpose, as it explodes the myth that the Mafia are the poor man’s friend. They are not. The poor are their victims.
Secondly, extracting 1.3 million euro from two well-established Mafiosi does not amount to much. Indeed, it is a mere pinprick, and it took years to do, as Italian court sentences can be appealed almost ad infinitum. It seemshardly worth it, though the principle counts for something. Given that extortion from shopkeepers is a very small part of the Mafia business, and done for reasons that are not primarily financial (as I have written here) and drugs remain its major source of revenue, one assumes that the fortunes of Ciresi and Fiorentino are largely intact. Of course there may be further confiscations to come.
Accountancy is a rather boring topic at the best of times, but the war against the Mafia is being fought by one set of accountants against another, one lot trying to hide it, and the other lot trying to find it. It is as much about white collar crime as blue collar crime. Ciresi and Fiorentino are in jail: are their dodgy accountants in jail with them, or are they sunning themselves in Panama, the Caymans or some other fiscal paradise? The police have siezed 1.3 million euro. But there are many more millions, possibly billions, that they have failed to get hold of. The accountants have their work cut out for them.