Mafia (Cosa Nostra) Investing in Green Technology in Sicily

Italian police close in on wind energy farming scam.

Italian police are closing in on a scam involving wind farms in Sicily, Sardinia and the southern Naples region, a spokesman said Thursday.

The weekly Io Donna reported that more than 900 wind turbines, some more than 100 metres (330 feet) tall, have been erected in Sicily and thousands more are under construction "even where there is not enough wind to turn them."

Four arrest warrants have been issued in the probe codenamed "Gone With the Wind," begun in 2007, Commander Mario Imparato told AFP from Avellino, near Naples.

Seven wind farms worth more than 150 million euros (220 million dollars) have been placed under sequestration, he added. In all, 15 people are under investigation, Imparato said.

Oreste Vigorito, the head of the wind energy firm Italian Vento Power Corporation, is wanted along with three others for allegedly embezzling public subsidies for creating wind farms.

They are accused of falsifying documents such as property titles in order to receive more aid. Through a "complex mechanism" they have also allegedly inflated the amount of funds at their disposal for building the farms, Imparato said. Experts say suspicions of mafia links are strong.

"Italy has created an Eldorado for doing business with windmills by offering a price per kilowatt-hour that is three times higher than that in other European countries like France," said environmentalist Carlo Ripa di Meana.

"Thanks to regional and European subsidies, an installation becomes profitable by the second year," the head of environmental protection group National Landscape Committee told AFP.

"It's frightening. The prospect of profits like that attract huge investments from mafia organisations like Cosa Nostra in Sicily, 'Ndrangheta in (southern) Calabria and the Camorra in the region around Naples," he said.

The weekly Io Donna reported that more than 900 wind turbines, some more than 100 metres (330 feet) tall, have been erected in Sicily and thousands more are under construction "even where there is not enough wind to turn them."

These investments are the "new business plan of Cosa Nostra," which has become a leading player in Sicily's green economy, said the weekly, published by the group that owns Italy's leading daily Corriere della Sera.