November 2024
JEL Classification: D21, D22, K14, K42, L25
Keywords: firms, organized crime, economic crime, infiltration, collusion
The motives driving infiltration of the legal economy by the criminal organizations (OCGs) are quite diversified. This paper introduces a conceptual framework to differentiate between OCGs' motives for infiltrating legal firms and validates it using new data from the Italian Financial Intelligence Unit. Firms established by OCGs are predominantly used to support criminal activities (functional motive). Medium-sized firms, often infiltrated post-creation, primarily reflect a competitive motive, wherein criminal activities benefit the firm. Lastly, large, well-established infiltrated (or colluding) firms remain separate from criminal activities and are presumably used by OCGs to establish connections with the main economic players, thus accumulating 'relational capital' (relational motive). This so far unnoticed motive accounts for a substantial share of OCGs' infiltration.
