Green Energy Goes “Gang Green”
Nicolas Loris /
“Anti-Mafia magistrates in Sicily have opened a sweeping investigation into the wind power sector where local officials, entrepreneurs and crime gangs are suspected of collusion in the construction of lucrative wind farms before their eventual sale to multinational companies.
Italian and EU subsidies for the building of wind farms and the world’s highest guaranteed rates, ($240 per kwh), for the electricity they produce have turned southern Italy into a highly attractive market exploited by organised crime.
Prosecutors suspect the hand of the Mafia in fixing permits and building wind farms that are then sold on to Italian and eventually foreign companies.