FLASH
Shkruar nga Alba Kepi
The year 2025 marks a significant intensification of the fight against organized crime in Italy, according to the official balance sheet published by the Guardia di Finanza. The data speak of a wide investigative and operational activity, which has aimed not only to strike at criminal structures, but above all to weaken them through the seizure of illegal assets and the interruption of financial flows.
During this year, a total of 1,351 investigations were conducted, involving 7,442 subjects among natural and legal persons. This high volume of activity confirms the scale of the phenomenon and the complexity of criminal structures, which increasingly use sophisticated schemes to hide assets through third parties and fictitious companies.
In this context, the Guardia di Finanza has placed particular emphasis on the aggression against illegally created assets. During 2025 alone, seizures of over 3.3 billion euros have been proposed, while the value of the seized and confiscated assets amounts to around 1.6 billion euros. These interventions are considered essential to strike at the heart of mafia organizations, depriving them of the financial resources that fuel criminal activity.
In parallel with repressive actions, an important dimension of the Guardia di Finanza's work remains the prevention of criminal infiltration into the legal economy.
During the year, around 66,000 administrative controls were carried out, both on construction sites and in procedures for issuing anti-mafia documentation. In addition, business assets worth around 29.6 million euros were placed under administration or judicial control, in an effort to protect honest entrepreneurship and the legal market.
A separate chapter is the fight against drug trafficking, where the results are equally significant. Over 33 tons of narcotic substances were seized during the year, mainly cocaine, hashish and marijuana, while more than 800 people were denounced. However, according to the authorities, the goal is not limited to seizing drugs, but to dismantling the entire criminal chain behind it, including financial networks. In this context, assets worth 8 million euros have been seized and confiscations exceeding 3.5 million euros have been carried out.
Among the most important operations of the year stands out the one carried out in Brescia against a powerful international drug trafficking organization, with strong ties to Albanian territory. The operation, coordinated by the Italian authorities in cooperation with structures such as Eurojust and Europol, led to the execution of 24 arrest warrants and the seizure of around 3 million euros.
The investigations revealed a well-organized network that transported cocaine from South America to Europe via maritime trade routes, then brought it into Italy in trucks disguised as ordinary cargo. The quantity of drugs trafficked amounted to over 1,300 kilograms of cocaine, which was distributed throughout the territory through a network of six logistics bases. The large profits were transferred to the leaders of the organization through money couriers, known as “money mules”, often disguised as bus drivers on international routes.
During the operation and investigation phases, significant amounts of drugs, cash, vehicles and weapons were also seized, while the investigations relied on modern techniques such as the decoding of encrypted communications and international interceptions.
Important results have also been recorded in other operations on Italian territory, including the confiscation of 140 million euros in Reggio Calabria against entities linked to the 'ndrangheta, a seizure of over 40 million euros in Catania in the online betting sector, as well as an operation in Trieste worth 92 million euros against illegal waste trafficking.
Guardia di Finanza Major Pablo Leccese states in his video statement that the fight against drug trafficking and organized crime cannot be limited to the seizure of illegal goods.
"Our objective is to dismantle criminal organizations and deprive them of the economic resources that keep them afloat," he informs about the growth of new phenomena in drug distribution through unwitting couriers.
The balance sheet for 2025 testifies to an increasingly advanced and coordinated approach by Italian authorities in confronting organized crime, a phenomenon that is taking on increasingly global dimensions and requires strong responses at the international level.
Guardia di Finanza Major Pablo Leccese states that "It is very important to hit the assets generated by illegal mafia activity and for this it is necessary to analyze the financial flow and identify their attempts and interventions in the legal economy. And for this reason in 2025 we carried out 1400 investigations and over 7000 people involved in them. This activity has led to seizure orders worth 3 billion and a half, financial shares and material assets worth 700 million euros have been seized and assets worth over 1 billion euros have been confiscated. And all of this has been made available to the state.
The Guardia di Finanza Major adds that "the fight against drug trafficking has yielded important results in 2025. There are over 33 tons of drugs seized by the Guardia di Finanza, mainly cocaine, hashish and marijuana, with over 800 people reported. However, we are not limited to seizing narcotics alone.
Our objective is to dismantle criminal organizations and deprive them of the economic resources derived from illegal activities. In 2025, we seized assets and valuables from criminal organizations in the amount of 8 million euros and carried out confiscations for over 3.5 million euros.
The Guardia di Finanza is also at the forefront of discovering new methods of trafficking and distributing narcotics. The phenomenon of drug distribution at home through unsuspecting couriers is on the rise. The latest cases discovered, just this month, are by the Guardia di Finanza of Sassari and La Spezia.”/ Syri.net
Lini një Përgjigje