AN ITALIAN television presenter has infuriated government ministers by telling viewers to boycott one of Italy’s most famous varieties of tomatoes, claiming the Mafia has taken over the trade and pushed up prices.
Alessandro Di Pietro, who appears on consumer shows on state network RAI, called for the boycott of the Pachino tomato, the small, sweet variety grown around the Sicilian town of the same name. By controlling the distribution of the tomatoes to shops up and down Italy, Mafia clans are ensuring Italians pay up to 11 times what growers sell for, and pocketing the difference, he said.
Environment minister Stefania Prestigiacomo asked RAI to “retract this absurd and damaging accusation”, warning that it risked destroying the livelihoods of 5,000 producers.
Di Pietro’s claim is backed by police investigations into Mafia-backed freight companies that dominate the distribution of fruit and vegetables in Italy and unnecessarily send crates up and down the country repeatedly before delivery, in order to ramp up costs.
Investigators who arrested suspected mobsters in the fruit trade last year said that the Sicilian, Neapolitan and Calabrian Mafias who had teamed up to control the business were also using produce trucks to smuggle weaponry.– ( Guardianservice)