The Magna Grecia Foundation presented the report on mafia and cyber-crime at the UN. The mafia makes its way on the net, but institutions are not equipped to counter it.

For the second time in almost a year, the Magna Grecia Foundation has offered important food for thought in the fight against organized crime in the age of social networks. And it did so in a place that epitomizes human rights protection: the United Nations. In fact, it is precisely at the UN Headquarters that the Magna Grecia Foundation presented the new Report on Cybercrime from which emerges the face of a mafia capable of quickly making its way on the dark web, creating real virtual empires (which correspond to real empires), as opposed to institutions that are still struggling to keep up in the fight against the use of new technologies.

The event, entitled "The challenges imposed by organized crime in the era of artificial intelligence and the internet", promoted by the Magna Grecia Foundation, in collaboration with the Permanent Mission of Italy to the UN, was attended by the President of the Foundation Nino Foti, Chief Prosecutor of Naples Nicola Gratteri; Professor Antonio Nicaso, an expert on organized crime at Queen's University in Canada; Ronald J. Clark, CEO of Spartan Strategy & Risk Management and also Deputy Under Secretary for the National Protection and Programs Directorate (NPPD) at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security; Arthur J. Gajarsa, Judge of the U.S. Federal Circuit Court of Appeals (R.E.T.); Antonello Colosimo, Chamber President at the Italian Supreme Audit Institution; Saverio Romano, Member of Parliament of the Italian Government and Chairman of the Bicameral Commission for Simplification and Giorgio Silli, Undersecretary for Foreign Affairs.

The Magna Grecia Foundation, which celebrates its 40th anniversary this year, has been carrying out numerous studies with the aim of investigating how mafia organizations are represented in the digital world and the subsequent impact on people, especially young generations. As part of this research activity, the Report on the influence of mafias and other forms of organized crime on social platforms such as Instagram, TikTok, Facebook was presented in May 2023.

"We felt the need to carry out a second report that would focus on mafias and cybercrime," said Nino Foti. "The study showed that mafias operate digitally in a structured, strategic and coordinated way, so much so that there are correlations between money laundering, cybercrime, crypto-assets and corruption." Foti added that "At present, cybersecurity must take into account not only military and geopolitical risks but also the threat posed by structured criminal organizations," Foti added.

After all, mafias move quickly while institutions lag behind in the fight against the use of new technologies. "Within the dark web, criminal organizations are able to conduct transactions for tons of cocaine, weapons, prostitution; they trade in gold, they buy islands...", said Nicola Gratteri, according to whom "In the last ten years, compared to countries such as Germany, Holland and Belgium, Italy has gone backwards and now must turn to these countries for support ". In fact, in the Italian police "there is a lack of young engineers capable of providing that much needed technological boost in the fight against the mafia; due to this, we are losing too much time and so much ground". The Chief Prosecutor of Naples explained that today crime no longer counts on the old fashioned “pizzo” (extorted protection money), a business that is now fading. He also gave some examples: "I witnessed an ‘Ndrangheta family hiring German and Romanian hackers to make financial transactions in the space of 20 minutes in banks located in three different continents. In Naples, the Camorra was able to build an online bank that laundered more than three billion Euros, of which we were only able to seize two," Gratteri said. According to him, there is no such thing as a serious fight against the mafia without the involvement of the UN, because the problem has a pandemic nature and therefore requires pandemic solutions.

Antonio Nicaso – who oversaw the report together with Walter Rauti – spoke of a "hybrid criminal organization, poised between analog reality and digital virtuality" and explained how "to fully understand organized crime today we must rejuvenate the idea we have of social capital. Which is no longer made up of lawyers, brokers, accountants, who have been functional to the investment logic of the mafias in the past, but by brokers, computer pirates and drug designers". Nicaso also warned of the danger that mafias will also be able to use "drones to kill".

It is essential for the Magna Grecia Foundation to provide tools to interpret and understand this new interaction between the real and virtual dimensions of organized crime and the amount of information produced on this topic in the media. Computer science, the rise of artificial intelligence, and the preponderance of algorithms have a major impact on society and the global economy, colonizing social activities, education, politics, health and justice. And influencing choices, actions, and relationships. As a result, the production of thoughts, opinions and ideas is strongly oriented by symbols linked to mafia narratives and the values they propagate, visible to the whole world, which contribute to the "repository of prejudice" especially towards Southern Italy. Those involved in the study and research of culture, its protection, regeneration and dissemination cannot fail to take this aspect into account. "It is essential to work tirelessly to restore the dynamic role of culture, as a catalyst for personal and collective development. By doing so, we will be able to safeguard our sons and daughters, preventing them from being preyed upon by criminal digital narratives. That's why we did our utmost to bring this research project to life," concluded Nino Foti.