As a young student activist in Italy, Michael Curto helped lead massive protests against wars in the Balkans and Afghanistan. Now at 28, he has taken on a cause somewhat closer to home: “crushing” the Mafia. To that end, he has become president of FLARE (Freedom, Legality and Rights in Europe) a network of 45 civil society organizations from 30 countries formed to combat transnational organized crime. NOW Lebanon recently caught up with Curto, who was in town to give a lecture at AUB titled “Season of Legality: Violence Against and the Trafficking of Women,” to talk with him about the phenomenon of organized crime, and what his network is doing to stop it.

Tell us about your background.

Curto: I was a student leader in Italy beginning in 1998. [It was a period] of strong student movements, mainly against the war in the Balkans, then in Afghanistan, and also for student rights… As student leaders, we set up a huge movement, and that period was the main student movement of the last 90 years. During the war in Afghanistan, we organized a protest and 1.5 million people joined us — it was huge and extremely independent… We set up an NGO, and this NGO joined a network of NGOs called Libera. Libera is now one of the main civil society actors…it is an umbrella organization composed of 1,300 NGOs, [ranging from] small local ones to big national trade unions. This group was created in 1995 after the mafia killed two famous judges… The civic reaction against what happened at the time was huge… Libera immediately wrote a petition and collected [millions of] signatures [in support of] new legislation for the confiscation and social use of property that belongs to organized crime… [The law passed] and in Italy… you can now go to the supermarket and buy olive oil, pasta, tomato juice under the trademark “Libera Terra,” [“Free Grounds”] that was made on confiscated property…You can go to Sicily and sleep in a youth hostel that once was the villa of Totò Riina, a famous mafia leader… Of course, this didn’t change the situation completely, but [it was] something organized crime could not accept, and that’s why they strongly oppose us… [Mafia members] can accept going to prison, it is even part of their code of honor, but they cannot accept somebody taking their money, because that money is a concrete sign of their power…

So I developed from a student leadership, and at the moment I am the president of FLARE network…It is mainly made up of young people, which is very important, since the new generation has to be committed to crushing organized crime.

How and when did FLARE Network start? Whose idea was it and why was it established?

Curto: When I was 24, the president of Libera [asked me to] become the international representative of these organizations… Also because Libera realized that the mafia has become a transnational phenomenon, we started to work to create a network in Europe [to bring together] organizations… committed to fighting organized crime. That’s how FLARE was born a year and a half ago. The founder [of FLARE] is Libera, but it is thanks to the 45 NGOs from 30 countries, which have stayed together, that the base of the network was created. We are present in the European Union, the Balkans, the Middle East and across the Mediterranean region…

How serious a problem is transnational organized crime?

Curto: The level of growth of organized crimes is extremely high. The World Bank estimates that the illegal part of the economy represents 10% of the world GDP. That is an enormous amount of money. [But it is] even worse when you realize [that the illegal element] is the more dynamic part of the economy. It the part of the economy that arrived first [and] it always wins the competition because it’s unfair. It is able to reorient the political system…They use the media and they change the base of our democracy… For example, just the smuggling of cocaine around the world is generating 500 billion Euros [annually, which makes it] the 21st largest economy in the world, immediately after Holland.

This monetary power [of organized crime networks] was extremely powerful in the past, but in this moment with the world crisis, when they launder money, they’re not just buying buildings or estates. Now on the market, for cheap prices, you can buy banks, geopolitical assets, transportation companies and energy companies. So they’re entering the real market… We have evidence of [the involvement of] the Italian mafia, the Bulgarian mafia and the Turkish mafia in the Nabucco project, which is an alternative gas pipeline from Azerbaijan to Europe and the US.

When [organized crime groups] have so much power, they start to change the habitat around them to make it as comfortable as possible. So they corrupt the political system, they corrupt information systems, and suddenly you see a new phenomenon… of mafia states… You have micro-nations that are complete black holes. [The corruption that results from organized crime groups is so bad] that for the first time, the European Union suspended 250 million Euros worth of structural support to a member state, Bulgaria…

In Guinea-Bissau, they killed the president of the country in the night… In Mexico, at this moment, you have 9,000 killed in the last year. And then you have countries like Lebanon, like Russia, where you can have the opposite process. So the state has come to generate organized crime…  

What is the purpose of FLARE and some of the most important works of the network?

Curto: If as a civil and responsible society with clean politics, a fair economy, and positive information and media, we are not able to connect ourselves through a common framework, the risk is extremely high… It is not that we are only risking 10% of our economy at the moment. It’s the whole system… FLARE is one of the possible hardware [tools] we should [use] against organized crime…

FLARE has a training system so we try to [improve] the ability and capacity of our staff. We created a scientific committee of experts on organized crime… But as for clear objectives we would like to achieve in the next few years, first of all, we are lobbying the EU for new legislation that [would allow] for the social use of [confiscated] goods, because at the moment, a common framework against organized crime does not exist. So we are lobbying the European Commission, and this year for the first time, the Commission for Justice and Crime published a note saying that confiscation [followed by public use or given to civil society] is the main tool against organized crime. [This is because confiscated goods are more often auctioned, and the mafia would buy the property back. No one would want to buy a car of a mafia leader or the house of a famous politician if they were confiscated and auctioned.] We lobbied the European Parliament and obtained its approval for a declaration on organized crime, and it’s the first time in Europe that something like this has happened. We are working on the national level with different national governments: Swedish, British, Serbian… And we are also working to raise public awareness on this topic. That’s why this time, in Beirut, we are running a general campaign, “Season of Legality.”

What is the purpose of the campaign in Beirut? Why is it one of only three cities in the Middle East that has been included in this campaign? What is your impression of organized crime in Lebanon?

Curto: First of all, the campaign is not just a way to act, but is also a way to understand and to hear… Anyone who wants to join is absolutely welcome. The next campaign will be absolutely bigger. And of course, I really don’t know how the system of organized crimes works in Lebanon, and that’s why having these events are helpful. We have in the afternoon with some other meetings. We met this morning with the widow of Samir Kassir [Giselle Khoury] as well as [former Telecommunications Minister Marwan Hamadeh], who was injured during an attack, because we wanted to understand and we want to connect in the future. I can say we found a lot of interest on the topic and a lot of interest in the tool of confiscation, because there is a feeling [among people] that there is a huge underground economy, and they want to understand how they can oppose this economy… Of Lebanese organizations, we have talked to the Progressive Youth Organization.

Because it’s usually out of sight, most of us assume that the issue of transnational organized crimes, including human trafficking, is far away. What can each of us do to help prevent and fight the phenomenon?

Curto: You should consider that the five centuries between 14th and 19th century were remembered as the centuries of slavery… But in those five centuries, it is estimated that 12 to 15 million people were [trafficked].  But between 1990 and 2000, the UN estimated that 30 million people were trafficked. How do you think history will judge us?

…To prevent organized crime, first of all, remember always that we are consumers. And with that consumption, we are financing organized crime. When we download illegal movies, when we buy drugs, even light drugs, when we buy sex, for example, all these actions – I’m not saying they are good or bad – I’m just saying, “please guys, especially young people, remember that you are a client of organized crime. Remember what criminals can do with this money, because the denial [of people’s rights] is extremely connected with organized crime.” You can buy sex here in Lebanon. And then you can have a war 500 kilometers from here, completely with the same money. This is the first thing everybody could do: priority and personal choice.

Second of all, of course, is information. [Perpetrators of organized crimes] don’t like the lights on them. They want to be in the shadow. If you pay a bit of attention, if you try to inform yourself, if you read, if you write, all these actions are completely against them.

Third of all, there are a lot of people who are really committed against organized crimes, and to be so committed, they risk their life and they play a difficult role. Not letting them stand alone is our responsibility…

Human proximity [toward victims of organized crimes] is also simple but important. In Italy, we work with a lot with relatives of mafia victims. Before Libera was born, nobody cared about them. They were humiliated. If you think about human trafficking [many victims who are women end up as prostitutes], they seem to be [victimized] twice. Once by the crime, and second by the public judgment. That’s something that everybody can crush, and it’s up to everybody.