Organised crime in Italy "yields equivalent to 15 per cent of GDP

Criminal groups control one out of every five retail businesses and 15 per cent per cent of all manufacturing, Confcommercio said.

The study, presented in Milan at a conference on Monday, estimated that criminal organisations such as the Sicilian Mafia and the Neapolitan Camorra can draw from a total capital base of 2,000 trillion lira - roughly equivalent to Italy's overall debt.

Criminal organisations made most of their money from loan-sharking and extortion (45 trillion lira), followed by prostitution (40 trillion), gambling (35 trillion lira) and the sale of counterfeit goods (35 trillion lira), the report said.

Smuggling immigrants from outside the European Union was a rapidly growing business now estimated at 15 trillion lira a year, the study added.

(la/dpa)