Europe - Organised crime bosses back the EU

Europe's organised crims and mafiosi clearly believe that contrary to EUphile scare stories, they would be better off under the EU than under the security regimes of individual states. Sinn Fein's Remainer stance comes not only from legitimate political concerns but, one suspects, a certain sympathy for IRA members now deply involved in organised crime. Before the referendum, Irish courts seized €28m from ex-PIRA organised crime bosses, much of which, it is thought, originated from EU grant scams which are funded in part by UK taxpayers. The amount seized is only the tip of the iceburg - perhaps only 5% of the proceeds of ex-terrorist organised crime in Ireland.

We have posted before on the murder of journalists working on organised crime stories throughout Europe, many of which involved serious fraud and corruption of EU funds. From Veronica Guerin in 1996 to Daphne Caruana Galizia, blown apart by a mafia car bomb in Malta in 2017, dirty EU money attracts the worst and most vile criminal elements in our society. Unused airports and motorways going nowhere in the Mezzogiorno to the fouling of Loch Corrib in Galway with raw sewage from crooked developers snouting the EU grant trough all bear the hand of organised crime. And it's unstoppable by EU-wide security and police action.

Indeed, some professional UK police officers have deep suspicions as to the integrity of many of those working for both Europol and Frontex, and there have been persistent rumours of deep and embedded organised crime representation in both organisations. These suspicions also extend to the EU itself. Despite the most committed efforts of the governments of many member states, and of individual MEPs, the EU has failed over many years to introduce an effective set of measures to counter organised crime in Europe. Both in terms of a concerted pursuit of organised crime, and an agreed framework for confiscation of the proceeds of crime, the EU has failed to act. In a 2017 EU Observer article entitled "Mafia money pollutes the EU economy", the authors conclude

On 7 October 2016, the EU parliament approved the report on the fight against corruption, prepared by an Italian MEP, Laura Ferrara, which partially adopts the work of Alfano's special committee. The report's 35 pages echoes the same wish-list to the EU commission, that the offence of "criminal association regardless of consummation of criminal ends" should be punishable.

And yet, there has still been very little progress. It's like a broken record.

In the light of the evidence it seems that there is an almost symbiotic relationship between the capos of the EU and Europe's crime bosses. Make no mistake, the UK's fight against crime will be more effective, safer and more secure from criminal infiltration after Brexit than now - and that may also be part of the reason why some Irish factions are exhibiting such sustained opposition to Brexit.

Journalists murdered working on EU / mafia corruption investigations

June 1996, when Veronica Guerin was murdered by Ireland's drug barons, seems an age ago, but it shows just how long-lived have been the links between official corruption, EU money, organised crime and drugs.  

More recently, in February this year, Slovak investigative journalist Ján Kuciak, 27, together with his innocent partner, were gunned down in his home. At the time he was working on a story on the links between EU money, bent Slovak businessmen, and the Prime Minister's assistant's links to corruption and a mafia crime figure. 

And last month in Bulgaria Victoria Marinova ws found murdered in Ruse. She had been working on a story about corruption involving EU funds. The second Bulgarian journalist murdered in a decade, the gunning down in Sofia of radio presenter Bobi Tsankov in 2010 being a grisly precursor.

In 2010 Investigative journalist Sokratis Giolias was gunned down in Athens. And just over a year ago, in October 2017, Daphne Caruana Galizia was blown apart by a mafia car bomb in Malta. A 53 year old mother of three, her investigations into political and EU corruption on the island and the links between EU funding and crime figures offended scores of bent Maltese politicians. In Poland in 2015 Investigative journalist Łukasz Masiak was beaten to death in Mlawa.

Dead journalists make the news. But it's reasonable to suppose that for every stubborn and tenacious reporter who refused to be intimidated, a score or more will have been cowed into silence by a bullet in the post, a beating, their family or children approached, their windows broken, their cars dripping in bloody paint.

The EU uses money taken from Europe's taxpayers to buy political loyalty and to corrupt politicians across Europe, under the pretence of aid and development. But building up a cabal of loyal bent politicians comes at a price - they frequently come attached to organised crime gangs. And although the EU would rather play down the links between EU favour and funding and the mafias, at times the links are so blatant, the passage of cash from EU taxpayer purses to mafia pockets so conspicuous, that even the EU are forced to act;

In an unprecedented move, the EU has withheld funds from new member Bulgaria because the ineffective measures it’s taken against organized crime. Killings, frauds and corruption all seem to go unprosecuted and unpunished. The European Union’s (EU) dramatic action in suspending aid to Bulgaria came after ample warnings that mere commitment to judicial reform was not enough.

But of course the EU can't act too harshly; the foul and noisome compact between the EU, Europe's criminal mobs and her bent politicians is vital to Berlaymont's interests. And a carpet of journalists' corpses is the cost.