Pisanu: Some Regions, 50 Pct Crimes of Illegal Immigrants
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AGI (Italy), May 13
Rome, Italy—“The arrivals of the last few days, organized by criminal gangs in Africa, Italy and Europe, turns our attention to a very serious problem. Not only because of the dramatic humanitarian aspects, but also because of its criminal effects,” said Interior Minister Giuseppe Pisanu in his speech at the 153rd anniversary of the constitution of State Police. “Considering that legal immigration is an important resource which our country must learn how to use in the best way,” Pisanu said, “I am obliged to underline the increasing risks depending on illegal immigration. Out of approximately 611,000 people arrested or reported to the police in 2004, 171,811 of them were non-EEC immigrants, all without a permit to stay. These numbers confirm an evident truth: those who rely on traffickers of human beings to violate our borders end up, in the best of cases, on the black labour market and, in the worst case, among the criminal gangs.” Pisanu underlined that in some regions “the incidence of crimes attributed to illegal immigrants exceeds 50 percent of the total number of crimes discovered.”
(Posted on May 17, 2005)