Members of the Italian mafia sell counterfeit and low-quality
food in Germany. For Italian organized crime structures, the
trade in substandard or incorrectly declared agricultural products
and food is, in fact, an area of activity in which high profits can
be made, the newspapers of the Funke media group quote the
response of the Federal Ministry of the Interior
(das Bundesinnenministerium) to the faction's request Party of
the Greens. In investigations against organized crime groups, police
sometimes find that criminal structures are distributing counterfeit
or substandard agricultural products or foodstuffs, such as fake
champagne. Then, as the response to the request says, they force
the gastronomic establishments to accept these products. Security
authorities attribute these crimes mainly to Italian mafia groups,
most notably the Ndrangheta from Kalabrien.
