Italian police have dismantled an underground bank that drug traffickers used to move several hundred million euros over at least three years - because sometimes even criminals need a reliable financial institution.
The clandestine bank, operating out of Prato, northwest of Florence, has been run since 2021 by a Chinese national, authorities said. The operation acted as a "global broker at the service of organised crime," offering secure channels for paying for huge drug consignments without the messy inconvenience of physically moving cash, police announced Monday with the kind of understatement usually reserved for describing a minor accounting irregularity.
The circuit allowed virtual transfers between Italy, Spain, France, Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands through a network of intermediaries who kept a commission, moving €80-100 million per year for at least three years. Drug cartels, including Albanian trafficking organisations active in Italy and the Italian mafia, were apparently loyal customers.
The system, known as Fei Chien or "flying money," is run by the Chinese mafia and allows someone to pay a broker in Italy who has an agent elsewhere who pays the same amount to the intended recipient - essentially a peer-to-peer payment system, minus the user agreement and customer service.
Police arrested 41 individuals in Italy and Spain on charges ranging from criminal conspiracy and drug trafficking to money laundering and aiding illegal immigration. A branch of the organisation also managed a "lucrative illegal immigration network from China," flying migrants to Belgrade before marching them through mountainous terrain to the Hungarian border and eventually to Italy. Migrants were charged up to €9,500 (£8,200) for the journey to Prato, Turin, or Verona province.
Prato, heart of Italy's textile industry and home to one of Europe's largest Chinese communities, has become a battleground for rival Chinese mafia groups warring over clothes hangers and freight transport. The Chinese mafia also supplies Prato's fast-fashion industry with exploited workers, paying them about €3 an hour for 13-hour shifts, seven days a week - which is somehow even more depressing than the drug trafficking.