London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Thursday, Oct 02, 2025

Mafia clans jailed in landmark trial after pocketing millions in EU funds

Mafia clans jailed in landmark trial after pocketing millions in EU funds

The trial exposed a ‘land of dead souls’ dominated by the mafia hungry for EU cash.
Dozens of Sicilian mafiosi and their white collar accomplices were jailed in a landmark trial that showed how the mob defrauded the EU out of millions of euros.

The year-and-a-half-long maxi-trial of 101 defendants in a bunker-style courthouse in Messina, Sicily, came to an end early Tuesday, with 91 of the accused sentenced to a combined 660 years in prison for crimes including fraud, false statements, extortion, creating fake companies for illegal gain, and drug peddling. Two of the gang leaders will go to jail for 30 years and 23 years. The verdicts and sentences took more than a hour to read out.

The trial exposed for the first time a system of scams that drained at least €5 million in EU agricultural funds into the coffers of two mob clans based in the Nebrodi Mountains and their associates, including accountants, politicians and government employees.

“The trial showed that there is a modern mafia that has shifted from extortion and drugs to more sophisticated forms of revenue, using fraud to obtain public funds intended for the development of Sicily,” Prosecutor Maurizio De Lucia told POLITICO.

Italy has long struggled with corruption and the trial could raise concerns about the €191.5 billion Italy is set to receive as part of the EU’s post-pandemic economic recovery fund. But the successful prosecution could also highlight the country's ability to crack down on crime.

In 2020, after a four-year investigation, about 1,000 police officers swooped on the homes of dozens of suspected mafia members — with nicknames like Blondie, Banger and Vito Corleone (after Marlon Brando’s character in “The Godfather”).

The two clans fought a turf war in the 1980s and 1990s, which left more than 40 people dead. But they later put their differences aside in their joint effort to defraud the EU.

Bribing local officials, they identified plots of land where EU funds had not yet been claimed and appropriated them by threatening landowners or creating fake rental contracts in the names of front-men, said De Lucia.

Often they did not bother to farm the land, and even applied for funding on land not used for farms or land they didn't control, including a plot owned by the Catholic Church and another the U.S. Navy used to host satellite communications.

Authorities became aware that mafia clans were siphoning off EU subsidies around 2012, when Giuseppe Antoci, a former president of the Nebrodi region, tightened background checks for those applying for funds. Those checks are now part of national law.

That crackdown put Antoci in danger; he was the target of an assassination attempt in 2016, the most high-profile attack on an institutional figure since the 1990s. He now lives under 24-hour armed guard, but he was at the courthouse to see the verdicts read out.

“This territory was called ‘the land of dead souls,’ because it was so subjugated by the mob," he told POLITICO. "The clans were at war in the past, but in recent times, they no longer needed to kill each other because money arrived from the EU. They divided the land, humiliated people. It was small farmers that paid the price. No one could stand up to them or he would be set right, as they say, using the traditional mafia methods of extortion and intimidation.

“More than 600 years of prison time is a very strong signal. This territory has now been freed and can teach something to the country," he said.

The investigation and trial encouraged prosecutors in other regions and countries to carry out their own investigations, according to De Lucia.
Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
Trump Administration Launches “TrumpRx” Plan to Enable Direct Drug Sales at Deep Discounts
Trump Announces Intention to Impose 100 Percent Tariff on Foreign-Made Films
Altman Says GPT-5 Already Outpaces Him, Warns AI Could Automate 40% of Work
Singapore and Hong Kong Vie to Dominate Asia’s Rising Gold Trade
Trump Organization Teams with Saudi Developer on $1 Billion Trump Plaza in Jeddah
Manhattan Sees Surge in Office-to-Housing Conversions, Highest Since 2008
Switzerland and U.S. Issue Joint Assurance Against Currency Manipulation
Electronic Arts to Be Taken Private in Historic $55 Billion Buyout
Thomas Jacob Sanford Named as Suspect in Deadly Michigan Church Shooting and Arson
Russian Research Vessel 'Yantar' Tracked Mapping Europe’s Subsea Cables, Raising Security Alarms
New York Man Arrested After On-Air Confession to 2017 Parents’ Murders
U.S. Defense Chief Orders Sudden Summit of Hundreds of Generals and Admirals
Global Cruise Industry Posts Dramatic Comeback with 34.6 Million Passengers in 2024
Trump Claims FBI Planted 274 Agents at Capitol Riot, Citing Unverified Reports
India: Internet Suspended in Bareilly Amid Communal Clashes Between Muslims and Hindus
Supreme Court Extends Freeze on Nearly $5 Billion in U.S. Foreign Aid at Trump’s Request
Archaeologists Recover Statues and Temples from 2,000-Year-Old Sunken City off Alexandria
China Deploys 2,000 Workers to Spain to Build Major EV Battery Factory, Raising European Dependence
Speed Takes Over: How Drive-Through Coffee Chains Are Rewriting U.S. Coffee Culture
U.S. Demands Brussels Scrutinize Digital Rules to Prevent Bias Against American Tech
Ringo Starr Champions Enduring Beatles Legacy While Debuting Las Vegas Art Show
Private Equity’s Fundraising Surge Triggers Concern of European Market Shake-Out
Colombian President Petro Vows to Mobilize Volunteers for Gaza and Joins List of Fighters
FBI Removes Agents Who Kneeled at 2020 Protest, Citing Breach of Professional Conduct
Trump Alleges ‘Triple Sabotage’ at United Nations After Escalator and Teleprompter Failures
Shock in France: 5 Years in Prison for Former President Nicolas Sarkozy
Tokyo’s Jimbōchō Named World’s Coolest Neighbourhood for 2025
European Officials Fear Trump May Shift Blame for Ukraine War onto EU
BNP Paribas Abandons Ban on 'Controversial Weapons' Financing Amid Europe’s Defence Push
Typhoon Ragasa Leaves Trail of Destruction Across East Asia Before Making Landfall in China
The Personality Rights Challenge in India’s AI Era
Big Banks Rebuild in Hong Kong as Deal Volume Surges
Italy Considers Freezing Retirement Age at 67 to Avert Scheduled Hike
Italian City to Impose Tax on Visiting Dogs Starting in 2026
Arnault Denounces Proposed Wealth Tax as Threat to French Economy
Study Finds No Safe Level of Alcohol for Dementia Risk
Denmark Investigates Drone Incursion, Does Not Rule Out Russian Involvement
Lilly CEO Warns UK Is ‘Worst Country in Europe’ for Drug Prices, Pulls Back Investment
Nigel Farage Emerges as Central Force in British Politics with Reform UK Surge
Disney Reinstates ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’ after Six-Day Suspension over Charlie Kirk Comments
U.S. Prosecutors Move to Break Up Google’s Advertising Monopoly
Nvidia Pledges Up to $100 Billion Investment in OpenAI to Power Massive AI Data Center Build-Out
U.S. Signals ‘Large and Forceful’ Support for Argentina Amid Market Turmoil
Nvidia and Abu Dhabi’s TII Launch First AI-&-Robotics Lab in the Middle East
Vietnam Faces Up to $25 Billion Export Loss as U.S. Tariffs Bite
Europe Signals Stronger Support for Taiwan at Major Taipei Defence Show
Indonesia Court Upholds Military Law Amid Concerns Over Expanded Civilian Role
Larry Ellison, Michael Dell and Rupert Murdoch Join Trump-Backed Bid to Take Over TikTok
Trump and Musk Reunite Publicly for First Time Since Fallout at Kirk Memorial
Vietnam Closes 86 Million Untouched Bank Accounts Over Biometric ID Rules
×