The Italian shopkeepers’ association says that Mafia clans are increasingly preying on businesses that can’t get loans from banks. It says around 180,000 firms have already been forced to get the cash they need from organized crime groups.
You know it as extortion. In Palermo, Italy, it’s called “pizzo” — so-called ‘insurance’ from the Mafia. Now a group of shopkeepers have banded together to refuse payment. Nancy Greenleese reports from Palermo.
