Mafia and immigration: analysis of the “illegal street workers” in southern Italy
| Date | 07 October 2014 |
| Published date | 07 October 2014 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/JMLC-01-2014-0002 |
| Pages | 395-401 |
| Author | Rita Duca |
| Subject Matter | Accounting & Finance,Financial risk/company failure,Financial compliance/regulation |
Maa and immigration: analysis
of the “illegal street workers” in
southern Italy
Rita Duca
Faculty of Political Science, University of Palermo, Palermo, Italy
Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate on the new forms of the “illegal street workers”
involving immigrants in southern Italy. This new concept may include, at least, two kinds of illegal
employment of immigrants which is, probably, managed by local criminal organizations; in particular,
it may refer to the so-called “posteggiatore abusivo” and “lavavetri”.
Design/methodology/approach – This is a new area of research. The methodology used has been
based on a collection of interviews with these migrants. Probably, this methodology should be rened,
but in this rst phase of research, it was helpful in order to understand the existence of a criminal
network that controls and manages these illegal street workers. For this reason, this paper could be,
simply, considered as a starting point for a new investigation in the near future.
Findings – The rst part of the paper will examine the main features of these three types of work; in
particular, in order to do it, we will try to nd out who are these workers, how they found this illegal
work and, above all, what kind of working relationship exists between them and the criminal
organizations. The second part will analyze what are the legal measures regulating this particular
category of illegal work and which could be the innovative solutions in order to ght against them.
Originality/value – This paper offers insights into the new forms of crime involving immigrants
managed by local criminal organizations and still inadequately studied.
Keywords Black labour market, Criminal organization, Immigration, Italian legal system
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
Trafcking, in both its forms, smuggling of migrants[1] and trafcking in human
beings[2], is the third criminal market, after weapons and drugs market, run by
transnational crime organizations. (Bhabha and Monette, 2006). Among the reasons that
boosted this phenomenon, we must highlight: globalization, encouraging free
movement on a large scale; new information technologies coming from the Internet or
from other instruments helping the communication within the crime organizations; the
implementation of restrictive policies by the States involved that, inevitably,
encouraged the illegal immigration (Bales, 2005).
Trafcking has found a fertile ground in Italy: maa,ndragheta, camorra and sacra
corona unita have always played an important role in some areas and in some activities
such as abetting prostitution, soft and synthetic drugs market, weapons market, and
they have found interesting this new kind of activity as well (Guild and Minderhoud,
2006).
Within the illegal immigration, we can nd at least three important components: a
supply and demand of illegal services, such as transport, daycare and fake documents;
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
www.emeraldinsight.com/1368-5201.htm
Maa and
immigration
395
Journal of Money Laundering Control
Vol. 17 No. 4, 2014
pp. 395-401
© Emerald Group Publishing Limited
1368-5201
DOI 10.1108/JMLC-01-2014-0002
To continue reading
Request your trial