ANAC reports 'devastating' mafia graft with COVID-19

(ANSA) - ROME, JUL 2 - Mafia corruption is having "devastating" effects on the COVID-hit Italian economy, national anti-corruption authority ANAC said Thursday.
    ANAC said the mafia's "corruption trend is continually increasing".
    "The data are particularly concerning because criminal organisations are increasingly resorting to corruption systems to reach their goals," it said.
    "They are taking advantage of the emergency situations like the current one, with devastating effects on the economic system and on healthy businesses, already hard hit by the crisis," said ANAC President Francesco Merloni.
    He added that ANAC had had to deal with "tacit resistance" from businesses and bodies who looked on anti-corruption controls as unnecessary hurdles. (ANSA).