At least 1.5 billion euros of 'clean' money is invested in illegal activities in Italy each year, farmers' association Coldiretti said Thursday.
'Money dirtying' - the opposite of money laundering, in which 'dirty' money deriving from illicit activities is 'laundered' through investment in the formal economy - accounts for investments worth 120 million euros a month or 4 million euros a day.
The phenomenon has its roots in the ongoing economic crisis and the associated difficulty of accessing credit and tendency to keep savings in the bank. "The agri-food sector, which has shown its ability not only to withstand the crisis but to grow and consolidate, has therefore become all the more appetising in terms of investment," said Coldiretti in its third Agromafia report published together with European statistics institute Eurispes and the Observatory on agricultural crime and the agricultural system.
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