Giovanni Falcone put it in writing in one of his memorable intuitions: to fight the mafia you have to follow the trail of the money. To understand what is really happening in Sardinia, in absolute silence, with the powers of Rome increasingly prone to the Italian and international energy lobbies, it is necessary to refer to the maxim of the anti-mafia judge: to find the money you have to follow the wind, the furious one that beats on the Nuraghi Island, from north to south, from the sea to the mountains.

The traces of the wind

The risk, in following the voluminous traces of state money and the never sober whirlwind of air, is that of running into the most dangerous vortex of organized crime, the one capable of insinuating itself into the ganglia of white-collar renewable energy. The map of the assault on Sardinia is much more than a chessboard of business and power, of political, financial and many other relations, which are not always clear and transparent. There are gray areas, companies registered in tax havens, Chinese boxes and intertwining that in the past have made the veins of the wrists tremble.

The energy boss

There are the "red light" relationships between the boss of the bosses, that eternal fugitive boss, Matteo Messina Denaro, and subjects who have raged in Sardinia and who continue to do so in disguise. All involved in the golden vortex of wind turbines, from Palermo to Southern Sardinia, passing through the wind farms seized in the north of the island and attributed to the "Eolo" circuit, the windy holding of the fugitive leader, Totò's heir in chief Riina, Provenzano and even the former Mayor of Palermo Vito Ciancimino. It was the Aeolus operation, led by the Palermo Anti-Mafia District Directorate, that laid bare the "mafia" operations also located in Sardinia, companies registered in northern Italy, but with strong ties in the two major islands, as if the business of the wind should be consumed first of all in the island regions.

Footprints on the Island

Facts and misdeeds linked to the first wind wave, the one that ten / fifteen years ago had upset entire portions of the island, from Meilogu to Campidano, passing through Logudoro and Cagliaritano. Now, what is taking place in Sardinia is a tenfold assault, planned by companies linked to powerful state apparatuses and beyond. One fact, in this scenario, is disturbing: some companies that have presented new projects, even included in the plan of the Pnrr procedures of the Draghi Government, have "connotations" attributable, in terms of names and companies, to those Antimafia investigations. In this story, however, two sudden episodes are candidates to undermine the gloom of this business. Both are revealed in these last days of July, the first in Rome, the second in Cagliari. The facts are mitigated by prudence and investigative precaution. In reality they, the protagonists, know what lies behind those two moves, all made on the threshold of the Augustan ardor.

The money trail

The first of the hidden past events takes place in the buildings of the capital. In Rome, two gentlemen sit opposite each other and, in their daily life, deal with issues apparently at opposite poles, one with energy services and the other with financial crimes. The first is Giandomenico Manzo, President of the Fund for Energy and Environmental Services, the one who distributes state money to the lords of the wind, the second is Gen. Francesco Greco, the Chief of Staff of the Guardia di Finanza himself. What to say will not be told from the four winds, but certainly the key words of the operation are limited to what little transpires: "prevent and counter conduct harmful to public economic and financial interests" connected to the activities carried out by the "State energy safe. "" Providing for communication flows, in favor of the Guardia di Finanza, of data, news, information, reports on subjects and / or contexts on which symptomatic elements of risk worthy of attention converge in terms of economic and financial security ".

Falcone's lesson

In practice, Giovanni Falcone's lesson: follow the money to find mafia deals. The action plan of the Guardia di Finanzia borders on a military set-up for what is not a normal routine activity. It is no coincidence, in fact, that "the Special Unit for Public Spending and Community Fraud Repression for the operational aspects relating to the irregular use of public resources destined for the incentive and development of alternative energy sources - and making use of the Departments of the Corps located throughout the territory ". As if to say, the money, those of wind power and solar power, must be traced from the first to the last cent, the cash flows must be reconstructed, from the whirlwind of billions of state to the myriad of Chinese companies and boxes that are already "smashing" public incentives destined to multiply thanks to the umpteenth "forage" strategy of the Government of Rome towards terrestrial and offshore wind power, passing through solar and agrifotovoltaics. In this operation there is the premise of the second fact, relevant as never before, but, apparently, attributed to the "malamovida" in Sardinian sauce. It was none other than the Minister of the Interior, Luciana Lamorgese, who landed in Cagliari the day before the signing of the memorandum of understanding between Finance and Cassa Energia.

Disembark the Dia

Not a random visit. The top of the police, armored in the rooms of Piazza Palazzo, in the historic “Viceregio” in Cagliari, had to receive a communication that in other times would have been counted among those by the red code. In reality it is, to all intents and purposes, with a gravity, perhaps, only overlooked due to the "general summer". The establishment in Cagliari of a Dia headquarters, the Anti-Mafia Investigation Department, starting from October, is much more than an encrypted message. There are at least three triggers behind that decision. The first: the decision of organized crime groups, especially the Camorra, to transform Sardinia into a hub for drug trafficking. The second: "an interest in undertaking criminal activities by the families of Mafia prisoners restricted to the penitentiary institutes of the island, who approach their relatives to avoid commuting for interview reasons". The third: to transform Sardinia into the beating heart of organized crime as regards the exploitation of renewable energy. Not suggestions, not simple utterances, but punctual feedback written in black and white by the Anti-Mafia Investigation Department which, in the last report just sent to the Minister of the Interior, wrote it bluntly in the "Sardinia chapter".

Anti-mafia alert

And it is precisely on the island that the attention of the Anti-Mafia focuses, an alert that knows as a warning: "Lastly, the investment project in renewable energy provided for by the Regional Environmental Energy Plan, which concerns the diversification of primary sources of energy, reducing the use of those connected with the use of fossil derivatives. An important role is entrusted to the development of wind resources, a sector to be monitored carefully, as it is exposed to the laundering of illicit capital and the diversion of public and community funding ». The note of the Dia examines a scenario still limited to the Sardinian Regional Plan alone, as the new colonial state project that multiplies the wind invasion in Sardinia to the nth degree is not yet known.

Multiplication of blades

In practice, 15 thousand megawatts of offshore wind and another 2100 megawatts of new land settlements would be added to the current approximately 2,000 megawatts, between wind and photovoltaic, already installed on the island. The extent of the investments, and above all of the incentives, which follows represents a real "attractor" of unclear business, all played on the head of Sardinia. It was, moreover, the Attorney General of the Court of Appeal of Cagliari, in the report of the judicial year 2020, to articulate it clearly: "Significant criminal initiatives have affected the alternative energy sector, which has found an area in Sardinia of election for the installation of wind turbines and photovoltaic systems ».

The wind attraction

The Attorney General clearly explains his appetites and interests: "These are initiatives attracted by the economic and fiscal benefits provided by the law to encourage the development of renewable energy and taking advantage of chaotic legislation, in which interventions by the State and the Region are intertwined that respond to the need to encourage investments but should also guarantee the protection of the territory and the landscape, well-organized criminal groups also widespread in other areas of the national territory, have built real industrial plants for the production of energy on the false premise that this was intended for the service of agricultural activities, in reality never undertaken ... ».

57 billion euros

The gigantic financial game that hovers over this invasion is punctuated by impressive figures: each megawatt of power is estimated to be worth a profit of 150,000 euros per year. The gentlemen of the wind and the sun, in just one year, in Sardinia, between the new and the old, would take home the beauty of two billion and 850 million euros, all to be multiplied for at least twenty years, as long as the state incentives. The Antimafia has to watch over it. In the next twenty years, on the Island of wind and sun, the Lords of incentives could pocket the gigantic figure of 57 billion euros, as much as you are financial to the Sardinian region. A deal with many shadows and infinite secrets, from tax havens to wind multinationals.

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