From the FT:
Italian anti-mafia police have made their largest seizure of assets as part of an investigation into windfarm contracts in Sicily. Officers confiscated property and accounts valued at €1.5bn belonging to a businessman suspected of having links with the mafia...
The article continues in this vein for several paragraphs, and at no stage is it made clear whether any actual crimes have been committed and if so which. The only clues are:
Some projects were sold through intermediaries to foreign renewable energy companies attracted to Italy by generous subsidy schemes.
Easily fixed. Scrap the subsidies. And:
The renewable energy sector is under scrutiny across much of southern Italy. Some windfarms, built with official subsidies, have never functioned.
Again, scrap the subsidies, and whoever built them will have little choice but to cut his losses and finally get them hooked up. However little electricity they generate, it's got to be more than nothing (unless the cost of hooking them up is greater than the potential revenue). And:
A separate probe in Sardinia has involved political allies of Silvio Berlusconi, prime minister. They have denied bribing officials to win tenders.
And:
Mr Berlusconi's government is proud of its record of cracking down on the mafia, seizing more than €10bn in assets and arresting more than 5,800 suspects since taking office in May 2008.
So maybe this all just boils down to a bit of political tit-for-tat and showboating?
