Corruption and Organized Crime: Some Lessons from the Italian Concept of “External Conspiracy in Mafia Association”

Les liens entre le crime organisé et la corruption méritent une méthodique exploration, afin d’en souligner les conséquences et de peser les défis d’une lutte réellement efficace vis-à-vis de ces phénomènes. Cette idée maitresse oriente le présent papier qui souligne ainsi le besoin de réviser la vision du phénomène de corruption. L’autrice s’appuie sur des illustrations précises et étayées de la facilitation majeure que génère la corruption au bénéfice du crime organisé. Le papier interroge ensuite la législation italienne anti-mafia et envisage les axes d’effort à privilégier pour mieux lutter contre la corruption.

Clotilde CHAMPEYRACHE

It is often said that there can be no organized crime and trafficking without corruption—and that is true. At the same time, all too often, especially among economists, the vision of corruption is marginal and caricatured: corruption is usually thought to be outside the logic of the market and therefore generated by the public sector. Moreover, many economists think of the world in a rather binary way: the illegal on one side, the legal on the other, with a boundary thought to be watertight. There is “them,” the bad guys, and “us,” the good guys. In this logic, it is hard to understand what corruption really means in relation to organized crime. It is even more complicated to fight it, since it fundamentally does not “fit” into the model.

My key to enter the subject of the interrelations between organized crime and corruption will be the law and, more specifically, an Italian concept that seems to me fundamental for a more global comprehension of what is really at stake. This concept is labelled “external conspiracy in Mafia association” (concorso esterno in associazione mafiosa). Before presenting this offence, it is necessary to briefly review the offence of Mafia association under Italian law. This offence has been defined in article 416 bis of the Penal Code since 1982. It supplements the offence of criminal association. The definition sets out the characteristics needed to identify a mafia precisely. Very briefly, these are:

• The strength of the associative link, which produces subjection and omerta. In concrete terms, we are dealing with a strong form of criminal organization, which has a qualitative impact on the type of corruption used.
• The fact of committing crimes with the specificity that none is specified in particular. A mafia does not identify itself with any particular type of trafficking, especially drug trafficking.
• Above all, and this is crucial for the topic of corruption and organized crime, a mafia always interacts with the legal sphere. This applies to the economic sphere, with the capture of tenders and therefore of public money. It also concerns the political sphere, with the conditioning of elections. This is what the Italians call the “vote exchange” (voto di scambio): control over packets of votes is exchanged with the corrupt politician. Once elected, the politician returns the favor by rigging tenders, opportunistically changing town-planning  schemes, granting concessions, authorizing the construction of shopping malls, arbitrarily allocating social benefits, and so on.

Mafias: The Forgotten Link between Organized Crime and the Legal Sphere

As soon as we define what a mafia is, the question of corruption arises. The exchange vote is highly representative of the qualitative rise of the corruptive pact as soon as the criminal organization relies on a strong associative link.

In this configuration, the corruptive link is not person-to-person and therefore must not be renewed for each operation. With the exchange vote, the politician links his fate to that of the criminal organization in a give-and-take logic. The pact is not so much with one specific Mafia member as with the Mafia organization as a whole. There is a logic of conditioning and reciprocity.

But Italian judges have gone further in the fight against this connection between organized crime and society. They have done so through the jurisprudential construction of the offence of external conspiracy in a mafia association in order to take into account the wide range of corruptive links between mafias and the legal sphere.

From a historical point of view, organized crime is surprisingly a very recent term. It first appeared in the United States at the end of the 19th century. More precisely, in 1896, in the Annual Report of the New York Society for the Prevention of Crime. This document refers in particular to illegal gambling and prostitution. The striking point is that it emphasizes that these activities take place under the protection of public officials. Afterwards, in the 20s and 30s, Prohibition was to shape the way the United States thought about crime. The first efforts to define organized crime were linked to racketeering, narcotics, prohibited alcohol, illegal gambling and false papers. But each time, the connection with the upperworld was emphasized in the descriptions made of these illegal activities.

This connection between the legal and the illegal was gradually lost, even though it could have been a powerful tool on which to build a crime containment policy. From the 50s onwards, the United States focused on the Italian-American mafia. The alien conspiracy thesis took over. However, logically, if the enemy was designated as external, the internal connections had to be ignored … From then on, the connections between the upperworld and the underworld faded into the background or were even denied. As a result, the fight against corruption suffered. So did the ability to understand what corruption is. Yet the way in which organized crime is defined determines the way we decide to fight it.

The experience gathered by Italian judges during anti-mafia trials puts the Corruption and Organized Crime 77 issue of the connections between the upper- and under-worlds, that is corruption back at the heart of their case. Indeed, Italian judges have understood at least three things during anti-Mafia trials:

• that they were up against not only mafiosi but also non-affiliates;
• that these non-affiliates were sometimes decisive in the Mafia’s expansion;
• finally, that this veritable grey zone was clearly expanding.

In response to this challenge, Italian judges have developed a new offence called “external conspiracy in a mafia association.” In concrete terms, who is targeted? According to a decision of an Italian Court of Cassation, “On the subject of mafia-type association, a person who, although not permanently included in the organizational structure of the association, nevertheless makes a concrete, specific, conscious and voluntary contribution, of a material or moral nature, assumes the role of an “external” current, as long as this has an actual causal relevance in the preservation or strengthening of the operational capabilities of the association” (Court of Cassation, Sec. 6, No. 8674 of 24/01/2014, Imbalsamo, Rv. 258807). Concretely, it means that this offence is designed to punish more severely those economic agents who are not affiliated to the criminal organization, but who knowingly provide it with active and voluntary assistance. Specifically targeted are company directors, judges, accountants, notaries and other professionals who enter into a relationship of complicity with the mafia because the latter enables them to increase their profits and reduce their costs.

For instance, in 2021, the police operation labelled Rinascita Scott was held in Calabria. It resulted in a maxi-trial that lasted three years with 355 defendants. Among the accused are obviously mafia members, but also a wide variety of “accomplices” suspected of having contributed to the mafia activities without actually being part of the criminal association. The variety of profiles of those involved shows that many preconceived ideas about corruption need to be revised. It also provides an insight into the corruptive and facilitating dimension of organized crime.

The Urgent Need to Revise Preconceived Ideas about Corruption

The implementation of the offence of external conspiracy in a mafia association allows us to take a new look at what corruption really is (Champeyrache, 2025). In particular, the use of this offence shows that

• corruption can be private as well as public,
• it can be voluntarily search for by agents from the legal sphere,
• it is often justified by personal interest and by a neglect for the common good,
• and it is deeply endemic.

All too often, corruption is associated with the public sector. When economists take corruption into account, it is indeed almost always in connection with the public sphere.

The belief in the superiority of the market explains this point of view. Corruption is analyzed in terms of unproductive expenditure: the corrupting agent mobilizes resources (e.g., bribes) in order to obtain an undue advantage, to capture a rent. These resources could have been mobilized more efficiently by being invested in the productive private sphere. In this sense, corruption is supposed to be incompatible with the market, which is believed to be driven exclusively by the quest for efficiency. The source of corruption must therefore be found outside the market, in the state and the public sphere. The liberal logic currently dominant in economics sees public intervention as a disruptive element in self-regulating, naturally efficient markets. For Gary Becker, winner of the 1992 Nobel Prize in Economics, “if we abolish government, we abolish corruption” (Business Week, 1998, pp. 565-566). Conversely, the market is necessarily virtuous.

The implementation of the external conspiracy in a mafia association puts an end to this arbitrary association between the public sphere and the origin of corruption. Of course, the people charged include politicians, members of law enforcement agencies, customs officers, municipal staff and administrative officials. But they also include lawyers, accountants, tax specialists, doctors and entrepreneurs. Corruption between private agents is a reality that must be taken into account.

All too often too, corruption in the private sector is seen as a victim relationship: the private entrepreneur is forced to submit to corruption. ^[1] If he does so, it is because others are corrupt, and he must do the same to resist competition. These situations do exist, of course, but they do not describe all corruptive phenomena. External conspiracy in a mafia association underlines the voluntary dimension of association with organized crime on the part of a private actor in the legal sphere. Moreover, this relationship of sought-after complicity is often seen not as a way of re-establishing competition distorted by pre-existing and wide-spread corruption but, on the contrary, as a way of creating a competitive advantage to the detriment of those who refuse the mafia pact.

There is another lesson to be learned from the external conspiracy in a mafia association. This lesson is problematic for the medium and long term. It has to do with the motivations of people entering into a relationship of complicity with the criminal organization. It also reflects the importance of economic reasoning and values in our social organizations, and the progressive obliteration of the legal foundations of our economic systems. When defendants are called upon to justify their actions, the argument they invoke is traditionally that of self-interest and the quest for profit. The option chosen—that of complicity with criminal groups—is thought to be the one that “pays the most.” It’s a purely accounting, short-term cost-benefit calculation. It takes no account of the general interest or of mediumand long-term consequences. This is at the heart of the problem of corruption. At least corruption in its original, general sense. Corruption—differently from organized crime—is an ancient term. It was already mentioned in ancient Greece. In those days, corruption meant any abuse of a position of power to the detriment of the common good. Ancient Greece therefore assumed that there could be an antagonism between a personal, private interest and the common good, that of society. Liberal thinking tends to deny this conflict. The idea is that the sum of individual interests produces the general good. It is illustrated by the well-known image of the “invisible hand” described by Adam Smith: if each individual is free to maximize his or her profit, then the nation’s wealth will be maximized. However, there is no guarantee that interests will converge, and the common good cannot be defined solely in terms of maximizing wealth. Particularly if we move beyond the immediate situation in order to take account of the long-term effects of some activities. Environmental crime is a perfect illustration of this configuration.

Finally, the use of the external conspiracy in a mafia association highlights the endemic nature of corruption, even its trivialization. Corruption is not external to economic activity; relations between private actors are not free from corruption, in the sense that potentially anyone is likely to give in to the siren calls of corruption. This endogenous character is accentuated by an economic discourse that values private enrichment while disconnecting it from legal and moral dimensions. Corruption as practiced and highlighted in particular through external conspiracy in a mafia association shows that it is not a defect brought about by the public sector to the detriment of the smooth running of the market. Corruption also accompanies the market and is often seen as an economic advantage, an additional opportunity for profit. It is therefore essential to understand the corrupt relationships established by organized crime with various professions.

Many actors in the legal economy who accept corruption often do so in the name of a short-term economic calculation. This calculation is particularly short-sighted, and all the more so when the criminal organization behind it is powerful. Frequently, entry into the corrupt cycle is experienced as a “here and now” opportunity, to be exploited quickly for equally rapid gain. In the legal sphere, this logic is referred to as a “hit and run” operation: you exploit a new profit opportunity, then pull out as soon as the potential gains dwindle. The difference is that entering into a relationship of complicity with a criminal organization does not allow for unilateral withdrawal from the game. Economic actors do not always understand this spider’s web logic. Those who accept once will be asked again. This also explains why, in some cases, criminals use a mixture of greed and violence to make non-affiliates cooperate with them.

The stronger and more enduring the criminal organization, the more enduring the corrupt relationship. This is typically the case with mafia-type criminal organizations. This is a relationship where it becomes difficult to distinguish between the corrupt and the corrupted because both parties benefit from the corrupt relationship. Corruption is not associated anymore to the unproductive use of resources. In this case, we reach the extreme configuration where corruption produces forms of criminal allegiance among non-affiliates.

In such a context, criminal affiliation is no longer the only way to benefit from the criminal organization. Even non-affiliates can see the complacent relationship with criminals as an opportunity. This is because mafias (and some other powerful criminal organizations) are able to segment the population within the legal economy. This works because these criminal groups already have a strong hold on the legal economy, they have infiltrated a number of activities.

Let’s take a very simple example. One of the mafias’ favorite targets when infiltrating the legal economy is the building industry. It is a sector that allows them to employ large numbers of often unskilled workers, which strengthens the territorial control exercised by crime. Moreover, it is a sector in which public money can be collected and local politicians brought into contact. A first level of corruption is put in place via the aforementioned “vote exchange.” But it can go much further. By targeting certain stages in the production process, the mafia can succeed in conditioning the entire sector. A second level of corruption is then reached.

Italian investigations have highlighted the targeting of concrete production and sale, as well as the supply of earthmoving equipment. By choosing to invest in these key activities, mafiosi can bring a construction site to a standstill if they so wish. All they have to do is fail to deliver the materials or fail to deliver them on time. Officially, they can claim a technical problem beyond their control. In reality, this enables them to impose their conditions as a prerequisite for resuming activity. These conditions concern the choice of suppliers, the placement of labor, the obtainment of subcontracts, etc. Eventually, this power relationship ^[2] is integrated and accepted by part of the contractors. It leads to the segmentation stage: those who accept the mafia’s conditioning will gain access to economic resources; those who refuse will lose markets. The mafia’s ability to segment the population, i.e., to discriminate in terms of access to economic resources and opportunities, facilitates the transition from subjugation to desired complicity. Economic actors therefore choose to enter into complicit relationships with organized crime. They may even be the ones seeking to establish relations with criminals.

Corruption and Organized Crime 81 At least two major implications follow. The first is that the relationship between the criminal organization and its accomplices in the legal sphere is, in this case, fundamentally a pacified one. Violence is no longer necessary to coerce. It means that we lose one of the indicators traditionally associated with organized crime: the violence that presumably accompanies crime. We end up with a criminal infiltration of the legal economy that goes unreported and unnoticed. Sometimes, in the absence of visible violence, it is even denied. The second implication concerns the erosion of the belief that there are legal foundations to our economies. Mainstream economic theory tends to say that if entrepreneurs agree to pay bribes (to corrupt officials) it is to re-establish a lost competitive advantage. If they did not, they would be excluded from the market. It is the victim mentality mentioned earlier. In the case of voluntary complicity, the dynamic is reversed: entrepreneurs will themselves enter into contact with the mafia in order to obtain contracts, sometimes even creating grey schemes and grey markets. As a consequence, the boundary between what is legal and what is illegal becomes increasingly fragile. Breaking the law becomes an option like any other.

Insights into the Corruptive and Facilitating Dimension of Organized Crime

There are various ways in which corruption facilitates organized crime. Some aspects are well known. Others are frequently underestimated and therefore merit further development.

The kind of corruption most traditionally associated with criminal organizations is corruption necessary to the operation of illegal markets. Corruption thus accompanies trafficking in drugs, weapons, human beings, protected species of flora and fauna, etc. Ultimately, especially in Europe, the port issue has been many times in the news. The massive influx of illegal goods—and cocaine in particular—can be explained by the sheer size of port infrastructures and the tremendous volume of containers in circulation. It is easy to conceal prohibited products in the mass of circulating goods. However, concealment alone is not enough. Corruption also facilitates these flows of illegal goods. This is where some professions are particularly at risk: dockworkers, of course, but also customs officers, crane operators, cargo handlers, and other personnel with access to information on port activity.

The reason why these professions are specifically targeted by criminal organizations is obvious. But corruption can encompass other behaviors that endanger the common good. It is the case with professions such as service providers who may claim to be acting in good faith, but who offer services that may well be legal, but are clearly attractive to organized crime. In the legal economy, there are real “facilitators” of crime.

Generally speaking, it should be noted that, empirically, the configuration of market economies bears little resemblance to mainstream economic theory. In the theoretical world, supply and demand meet directly in a competitive market. What we observe in real life is a growing reliance on intermediation, which is generally unregulated or insufficiently regulated. This intermediation can represent a weakness in the ability of economies to resist criminal influence. It can also be an opportunity for a grey market to develop. The term “grey market” refers to a hybrid form in which legal channels are used for illegal purposes by exploiting legal loopholes or circumventing legal obligations, sometimes with the backing of government officials. In this way, for instance, the lack of regulation of the arms broker profession enables arms trafficking to be grafted onto the arms trade. An insufficiently regulated gaming and betting sector allows for money-laundering operations. Intermediation opens the way for a transaction that avoids compromising buyer and seller.

Financial intermediation also creates facilitation spaces for the criminal economy at a minimum, by offering layers of interactions that contribute to the opacification of money circulation circuits. In addition to increasing opaqueness, intermediation also dilutes responsibilities, until the courts can rule on the criminal liability of the various parties involved. The international expansion of banking activities in a context of cost-cutting processes has encouraged the use of correspondent banks. Rather than maintaining a vast but costly network of subsidiaries and branches around the world, banks can open accounts with banks operating in specific currencies/geographical areas. The correspondent bank and the other bank then enter into a contract, with one bank performing banking services on behalf of a local bank, usually in a foreign country. The choice of banking partners is therefore crucial, especially when the banking institute is a local bank in a country considered to be at risk (high criminal density and/or poor compliance).

The legal economy also offers tools whose features are clearly appreciated by criminal organizations. Such is the case with offshore locations, where companies such as Limited Liability Companies (LLCs) can be domiciled. It guarantees anonymity of the beneficial owner thanks to the possibility of registering the company with a nominee director, that is to say a person who may well be nothing more than a front man. These services are legal and correspond to recognized legal structures. Equally legal are TCSPs (Trust and Company Service Providers), who can simplify the process of setting up an offshore company. With just a few clicks of the mouse, these online companies can offer you more or less elaborate packages, depending on the price you’re prepared to pay, to help you set up a company that may, in fact, be no more than a shell company. Once again, intermediation plays on disempowerment: the service provider provides a legal service (assistance in setting up a legal structure) and can plead good faith if it turns out that the Corruption and Organized Crime 83 service is being provided for a criminal who will use the said structure to launder money via fictitious financial movements.

On a completely different front, some encrypted telephony operators are lending their support to criminal organizations. The infiltration of the Encrochat and then Sky ECC encrypted communications services by investigation forces has been widely commented on in the news. Mainly because of the incredible wealth of exchanges between criminal organizations it reveals. But beyond this major police success, it should not be forgotten that the encryption applications and other services, such as the remote clearing of all data or the provision of a dual interface to track down investigators, were sold by legitimate telephone companies: the Canadian company Sky Global for Sky ECC and the Dutch company Encrochat. Sky Global’s CEO was the subject of an arrest warrant by the U.S. Justice Department in March 2021 for offering services to prevent law enforcement agencies from combating drug trafficking and money laundering. The company defends itself by invoking “the fundamental right to privacy” and arguing that these services were aimed at journalists and activists, not criminals. Encrochat ceased operations in June 2020 following investigations and the compromise of its services. The line of defense is also that of the right to data protection, particularly for sensitive but legal professions. However, decryption of the messages showed that almost all users were criminals.

Corruption can also facilitate mafia infiltration of the legal economy. This aspect is less frequently mentioned and understood although this type of corruption marks a worrying point of convergence between the interests of criminal actors and the interests of legal actors. In the long term, it contributes fully to the assertion of criminal power in some territories. Two examples of current cases in Italy can illustrate this point. They have not yet gone to trial, but arrests have been made, charges brought, and the systems denounced described. One refers to the vicious management of social housing management on the one hand, and the other to the so-called zoo-mafia issue.

In some areas under mafia control, the criminal organization has de facto taken over the management of low-income housing. ^[3], p. 123, with regard to the camorra. It was at the heart of the arrests made on February 14, 2024, in Reggio Calabria (see, for example, the article in the Italian daily La Repubblica: Reggio Calabria: anche sulle case popolari comandano i clan, 9 arresti. L’ex assessore, pentito di ‘ndrangheta: “Significano voti” – la Repubblica))) Theoretically, the mafia has nothing to do with the allocation of low-income housing, but empirically it is able to exploit the inefficiency of public services (fueled by a demand for social housing that outstrips the supply, and by excessively slow allocation procedures) to graft itself onto the system and select who will or will not have access to this housing. In order to artificially speed up the procedure, the population is then forced to turn to the local mafia families. In the case of Calabria, the payment of 5,000 to 8,000 euros to the clan enabled families to occupy an apartment, an occupation which was then quickly regularized by the corrupt administration. Mafiosi also used the system to their advantage, taking over apartments that were sometimes left empty but made available in case they went on the run. The mechanisms of artificial scarcity, grafted onto an initial objective scarcity (the lack of social housing in deprived areas) and networks of corruption, clearly operate and enable mafia families to discriminate between those who do and those who do not have access to resources, by favoring affiliated members and those of the population willing to compromise. The particularity of this situation lies in the fact that the mafia is able to condition access to a service over which it has no property rights. It gives criminals power over the population and over politics, since the objective pursued—and emphasized by one repentant member—is not so much enrichment as control over votes. Indeed, the “beneficiaries” of the system also receive voting instructions in addition to the apartment.

Another example of how corruption may help the criminal infiltration of legitimate businesses is what the Italians call zoo-mafia. ^[4] The problem affects several Italian regions, both north and south. Sicily is particularly hard hit by this plague. Between 2016 and 2023, almost 900,000 head of livestock (sheep, goats, calves, and cows) disappeared in Sicily. In the first five months of 2024, 30,000 head of cattle disappeared. Animal trafficking is in the hands of Sicilian mafia families but relies on a whole network of accomplices and the conditioning of resistant breeders and farmers. Among the professionals to be indicted for external conspiracy in a mafia association are veterinarians, administrative staff, industry operators and, occasionally but less markedly, breeders. Fraud is deployed in a variety of ways, all of which potentially jeopardize food safety. Breeders are forced to sell their animals to (legal or illegal) slaughterhouses recommended and/or owned by the mafia. At the same time, animals that may be ill are introduced into the legal circuit, either through clandestine slaughterhouses, or because they are sold without health controls, or because they obtain false health certifications. The investigators have uncovered that the meat industry has made deals with organized crime (even if it has to be confirmed at trial). The motivation for the meat industry is purely financial: to buy infected animals at a lower price than healthy ones, then to introduce this meat, obtained at lower cost and without respecting health standards, into the legal meat chain and, of course, to sell it at the price of healthy meat.

Zoo-mafia is an example among others. This convergence between organized crime and industry is not an exception or a Sicilian-Italian specificity. But it is a convergence that is often underestimated or even denied. Yet a look at the trafficking of industrial waste shows a similar pattern. Forced labor, or what the Italians call caporalat (caporalato) is another illustration: criminal groups offer themselves as service providers, offering legal companies with a labor force that can be exploited at will. The agricultural and construction sectors are particularly sensitive to this problem. Here again, contractors identified with this form of modern slavery justify themselves in terms of competitiveness.

So What’s to Be Done?

The problem of “external conspiracy in Mafia associations” or, more generally, in criminal associations is, most likely, set to intensify over the next few years. There are two major and intertwined reasons for this. It seems that we are witnessing the establishment of a genuine “transgression market,” which is trivializing offences. At the same time, the boundary between the legal and the illegal is weakening, with serious consequences for the stability of our institutions. All too often, corruption is trivialized, tolerated and even justified especially when the criteria of acceptability are exclusively economic.

It is therefore essential to fight corruption preventively, by attacking the temptation of collective entities to abuse their powers for personal ends. This is all the more urgent given that some economists claim to be in favor of what they call “economic hegemony.” Very concretely, economic hegemony is defined as the desire of certain economists to appropriate all areas of thought and to have economic tools adopted by the other social sciences (Lazear, 2000). This position leads to the creation of a market for transgression, institutionalizing fraud and corruption. Such a market attributes a price to any infraction. The economic agent then assesses whether this price is acceptable in relation to the expected gain from the offence. If corruption (especially that which accompanies criminal infiltration of the legal economy) is insufficiently identified and punished, then it brings in more than it costs. Therefore, corruption is economically acceptable and the right option in terms of economic rationality.

This logic deconstructs the legal foundations of our economies, shatters the idea of the common good and carries a real democratic risk. Acemoglu and Robinson in The Narrow Corridor (2019) invited us to consider that democracy is not the final stage in a process of economic and political progress. Therefore, democracy is not an immutable achievement. On the contrary, we find ourselves in a “narrow corridor”: the road to preserving our democratic systems is still to be pursued, and it is constrained and fragile. Tackling corruption in all its forms, whoever the perpetrators, is part and parcel of an effort to “widen the corridor.”

Fighting corruption in all its forms also means re-establishing the visibility of the boundary between legality and illegality. The real issue at stake is not economic efficiency, but the corrosion and destruction of the moral and political cement of civil society. This brings to mind Edwin Sutherland’s concept of “white-collar crime.” When he wrote in 1939, crime was traditionally associated with poverty and marginality. Sutherland highlighted the capacity of the legal sphere to commit offences. This type of crime, he stressed, is particularly serious, as it contributes to the breakdown of society and the loss of confidence in institutions. One may wonder what Sutherland would have said had he also considered the convergence between elite delinquency and organized crime.

More concretely, what lessons can be drawn from these reflections for the fight against mafias and organized crime groups? First of all, it is necessary to reassess the scope and risk of corruption in all its various forms. In this respect, it is urgent to stop thinking in silos (e.g., by only incriminating the public sphere, or by limiting corruption to illegal trafficking) and to take into account that organized crime’s relationship with the legal sphere is not always one of subjugation. Rather, it can also involve voluntary and deliberate complicity. This makes the task of judges extremely complex. They have to detect the different degrees of complicity. They also need tools such as the external conspiracy in mafia associations to do this properly. Finally, we also need to think more broadly about the risks that the cult of economic rationality poses to the sovereignty of our States. This has already begun to emerge in relation to ports and the lack of control over incoming goods. Such an awareness ought to be extended to the criminal infiltration of the legal economy. Infiltration is not just about laundering dirty money. The aim is also to assert a criminal power that is incompatible with the rule of law.