Italy finally did something useful. In a move that would make Marcus Aurelius nod with grim approval, authorities have seized the ill-gotten millions of a deceased Mafia boss — a posthumous punch to the very soul of organised crime. The UK, ever the flattering chorus, has applauded this asset recovery as a triumph of justice.
But let us be sober: this is not a victory. It is a late, lumbering gesture in a war that the state has been losing for centuries. We are celebrating the confiscation of funds from a man who died with his boots off, his crimes mouldering in the archives.
Meanwhile, the hydra of the ‘Ndrangheta has already sprouted new heads in London, Berlin and beyond. The applause from Whitehall is a pleasing sound, but it is the sound of a marionette clapping for its puppeteer. The real lesson?
That the state can only win when the mobster is dead. That is less a triumph of law and more an admission of impotence. The money is gone; the structure remains.
The ghost of the Mafia laughs, and we, in our self-congratulatory fog, fail to hear it.
