Page 170 - Supplemento 2-2016 (ENG)

Franco roBerti

Administrators; on the other hand, the trafficking needed to be covered with
false documents certifying, for example, certain waste as not harmful compared
to their actual and often high risk.

Later we realised - this is something we have pointed out and keep on
pointing out in our report - that a better specialisation of the investigating
bodies was necessary, in particular as far are Judges are concerned. The effect
of this would have been a higher awareness for the illegal waste trafficking:
something that has not happened yet or has only partially happened. Nowadays,
for example, there is a general discussion on the modification of the list of
mafia crimes as provided for in article 51subsection 3 bis of the code of crimi-
nal procedure.

One of the issues currently under discussion, even at a ministerial level, is
the possibility to keep or remove from the list of offences within the compe-
tence of “Distretto Antimafia”the crime related to organised illegal waste traf-
ficking. Taking into account what I said earlier with regard to the fact that this
crime is not typically committed by mafia organisations but rather by enterpri-
ses often associated with mafia criminality, a possible solution could be to keep
the crime within the competence of local District Prosecutor and remove it
from the competence of Anti-mafia Directorate. Of course, in all this what
really matters is the specialisation.

What counts is the awareness for this kind of crimes. On our account, i.e.
National Prosecutor’s Office, we can guarantee our absolute willingness to con-
tinue to give a boost to such investigations thanks also to the interaction, which
has been articulated since 2010, both with the State Forestry Department and
with the Customs Agency. Thanks to the cooperation between these two
important Institutions, we have been able to produce a series of impulses on
District Prosecutor which have resulted in well-time, prompt and effective inve-
stigations against the organisations involved in the trafficking.

In this process, we can rely on the support of the recent legislative amen-
dment, which was introduced with the antiterrorism law, article 117 subsection
2 bis of the criminal procedure code.

The amendment gives power to the National Anti-Mafia Prosecutor to
access criminal records available within all the local Prosecutor’s Offices of the

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