Are the 39 dead in Genoa paying the price of years of collusion between Italian officials and mafia?

Just a few months ago, I was hurrying to a meeting in Genoa. As I came out of Brin metro station and skirted along the footpath overlooking the Polcevera valley, I was suddenly confronted by the Morandi Bridge.

It wasn’t just the scale of the concrete monstrosity – almost a mile long – that shocked me, but the setting.

Chaotic urban development covered every inch of the valley – dozens of railway lines, blocks of flats, an endless tangle of warehouses and roads. It was far removed from what the Italians call ‘a misura d’uomo’ – shaped for mankind. Instead, it screamed hubris.

The bridge pictured weeks before its collapse shows it looking dilapidated with cables hanging from the sides

Tobias Jones details the sordid history of dodgy deals between Italian local governments and the mafia to provide lucrative buildings contracts, done on the cheap, in exchange for votes

Tobias Jones details the sordid history of dodgy deals between Italian local governments and the mafia to provide lucrative buildings contracts, done on the cheap, in exchange for votes

Today, millions of people around the world are familiar with that setting, from news footage and newspaper photographs, now made apocalyptic following the collapse of the bridge on Tuesday, The death toll so far stands at 39.

Unlike other recent Italian disasters – earthquakes and floods – this wasn’t an ‘act of God’ despite initial claims that the bridge had been hit by lightning during a violent storm, It was recognised almost immediately as a man-made disaster.

With public anger high, Genovese magistrates have already opened a manslaughter investigation.

Many Italians blame organised crime. Planning for the Morandi Bridge, along the route connecting Italy with France, began in the early 1960s, and it opened in 1967.

Although there’s no evidence of any criminal involvement in its construction, Italy’s First Republic, from 1948-1992, was infamous for the collusion between Christian Democrats and organised crime.

The former were guaranteed votes and lucrative backhanders, in return for awarding public contracts to the latter.

Photos from Google Maps showed the bridge with what appeared to be spot repairs in the months leading up to the collapse, as it had been under repair since 2016.

Photos from Google Maps showed the bridge with what appeared to be spot repairs in the months leading up to the collapse, as it had been under repair since 2016.

Engineers said they were most likely patches to replace spalling concrete and ensure that reinforcement was covered to avoid long term corrosion

Engineers said they were most likely patches to replace spalling concrete and ensure that reinforcement was covered to avoid long term corrosion

They likely were unrelated to the collapse, which was caused by much more fundamental structural errors

They likely were unrelated to the collapse, which was caused by much more fundamental structural errors

Sometimes the cost of that collusion only became apparent decades later. In the past five years, nine other bridges have collapsed throughout Italy. It’s well-established that appalti (public contracts) are one of the biggest earners for the country’s various mafias. 

Appalti can involve all sectors of public work, from contracts for cleaning and rubbish collection to medical and construction deals.

During the ‘Sack of Palermo’ in the late 1950s and early 60s, the name given to the construction boom that resulted in thousands of shoddy apartment buildings, more than a third of all the 4,000 building permits issued in the Sicilian capital were granted to just three bosses of Cosa Nostra, the island’s mafia. 

Indeed, nationwide, the mafia generally is so intertwined with big construction projects that in 2001 the then Minister for Infrastructure, Pietro Lunardi, shocked law-abiding Italians by declaring ‘the problems of the mafia have always been present and always will be… we need to learn to live with this reality’.

The reality is that appalti are often the motive for murder as people who interfere or ask too many questions in rigged tender processes are gunned down.

As night fell on the city of Genoa, the massive pile of rubble was illuminated on the skyline in the nearby neighbourhood

As night fell on the city of Genoa, the massive pile of rubble was illuminated on the skyline in the nearby neighbourhood

Construction budgets are so large that they provide the perfect opportunity for organised crime to launder money. Sub-contracts then enable crime bosses to determine, in a country with over 30 per cent youth unemployment, who works and who doesn’t.

Anti-mafia organisations frequently allege that inspectors of works are often, themselves, subject to intimidation or sweeteners, meaning there’s little objectivity in safety assessments.

This is particularly dangerous because of another notorious scam favoured by criminal gangs, the use of ‘impoverished cement’, deploying a weaker mixture which saves money but can cost lives.

Cement, an ingredient of concrete, is laborious to produce (it requires sourcing of high-quality lime or calcium silicate) and expensive to buy, Much better to ‘cut it’ with something far less costly, such as sand, to make it go further. 

Back in 2009, police were investigating as many as 20 cases of ‘impoverished cement’, and according to Legambiente, an environmental pressure group, mafia organisations had even printed lists of ingredients for the most convincing mixes.

The list of buildings nationally at risk of collapse because of the false cement runs into the hundreds, and includes hospitals, schools and airports.

Earthquake reconstruction offers some of the most lucrative public contracts with whole suburbs often needing to be reconstructed. 

 Many Italians blame organised crime. Planning for the Morandi Bridge, along the route connecting Italy with France, began in the early 1960s, and it opened in 1967 before collapsing 50 years later

 Many Italians blame organised crime. Planning for the Morandi Bridge, along the route connecting Italy with France, began in the early 1960s, and it opened in 1967 before collapsing 50 years later

After both the Aquila and Amatrice earthquakes in 2009 and 2016 respectively, construction bosses were wiretapped chuckling about the amount of money to be made.

That, coincidentally, is how the late Riccardo Morandi, the architect of the Genoa bridge, began his sorry career.

He moved to the region of Calabria in south-west Italy in the aftermath of the devastating 1908 earthquake which killed more than 100,000 people. 

Back then, and for much of the 20th century, there wasn’t much meritocracy in Italy, meaning that the most competent were often elbowed out by the best-connected. And Riccardo Morandi, it’s clear, was far from competent.

He was also a ‘concrete innovator’, favouring pre-stressed reinforced concrete that was later shown to be subject to serious corrosion problems, according to professor of construction, Antonio Brencich, from Genoa University.

Until this week, Morandi’s bridge seemed to be an example not of style over substance – one of the stereotypes of Italian design – but of its exact opposite: it was pig-ugly, but it seemed to do the job.

There had been alarm bells if only they’d been noted. Morandi had built similar bridges in Venezuela and Libya.

A large section of the first collapsed in 1964 when it was hit by an oil-tanker, and his Wadi el Kuf bridge in Libya was closed last year because of potential fractures. 

Another of his bridges, over the River Arno in central Italy, was demolished in 2011, and his four-kilometre Akragas viaduct in Sicily was closed in 2015.

Such was the pessimism regarding his bridge in Genoa that its collapse was, in many ways, a disaster foretold. In recent years many voices, from the country’s motorway authority in 2011 to Professor Brencich in 2016, have warned that it wasn’t fit for purpose.

The construction of a parallel bridge, called La Gronda, to relieve the load on the Morandi Bridge, was discussed and shelved.

In April, repair work to retro-fit steel for structural support was commissioned but had yet to start. In the treacle of Italian politics, there was a lot of talk, but not much action. 

Part of the problem is the topography of Genoa. An important petrol port, it’s the source of much of Italy’s forecourt fuel. But within metres of the sea are steep valleys, densely populated but prone to flash flooding.

There’s no exit from Genoa other than via vertiginous bridges, all of which are ageing and subject to loads which increase year on year.

Rescuers work among the rubble of the collapsed Morandi highway bridge in Genoa, northern Italy

Rescuers work among the rubble of the collapsed Morandi highway bridge in Genoa, northern Italy

Firefighters pick through the remains of completely flattened cars as they look for survivors on the ground below the bridge where falling pieces smashed everything in their path

Firefighters pick through the remains of completely flattened cars as they look for survivors on the ground below the bridge where falling pieces smashed everything in their path

To replace them, or even repair them, entails the evacuation and rehousing of thousands of citizens.

Since Tuesday, recriminations have been incessant, One of Italy’s ruling parties, the 5 Star Movement, had opposed the new relief bridge as an unnecessary expense because it was a ‘fairy tale’ to suggest that the Morandi Bridge would collapse.

Ridiculed by Italians for this claim, the party has turned its ire on Autostrade per l’Italia, the motorway authority controlled by the Benetton clothing empire through its holding company Atlantia. 

Luigi Di Maio, the deputy prime minister and leader of the 5 Star Movement, has threatened to fine and re-nationalise the company.

Meanwhile, the interior minister, Matteo Salvini, has blamed the European Union’s budgetary controls for impeding Italian investment in infrastructure.

It has fallen from a total of 14billion euros per annum in 2007 to just five billion in 2015.

The notion that infrastructure spending might now increase exponentially in the aftermath of the Morandi Bridge disaster may hearten some Italians – but others will despair.

Threatened re-nationalisations will once again make contracts the gift of politicians – just as they were in the post-war building boom.

That must be music to the ears of the country’s mafiosi.

Tobias Jones lives in Parma and is the author of The Dark Heart of Italy

The blame game: Who is responsible for the deadly Genoa bridge collapse?

The exact cause of Tuesday’s disaster in Genoa, the latest in a string of bridge collapses in Italy, is not yet clear but Transport Minister Danilo Toninelli has sworn that ‘those responsible will have to pay.’

The finger has been pointed in several directions, namely Autostrade Per Italia, the private company that operates many of Italy’s toll highways.

Italy’s deputy premier, Luigi Di Maio accused the Benetton group, which through its £6million holding company Atlantia controls Autostrade Per Italia, of pocketing profits instead of investing money for maintenance. 

No fairy story now: Italian Deputy Premier Luigi Di Maio, center right, and Italian Transport and Infrastructure Minister Danilo Toninelli, center left with glasses, speak to the media in front of the collapsed Morandi highway bridge in Genoa, northern Italy

No fairy story now: Italian Deputy Premier Luigi Di Maio, center right, and Italian Transport and Infrastructure Minister Danilo Toninelli, center left with glasses, speak to the media in front of the collapsed Morandi highway bridge in Genoa, northern Italy

Di Maio’s Five Star Movement party, which is governing alongside the League party, vowed to fine highway agency Autostrade 150million euros (£133million) for breach of contract while calling for its bosses to be sacked. 

However, Di Maio’s own party dismissed fears that the Morandi bridge in Genoa would collapse as a ‘fairy story’ while opposing repair work as a ‘waste of money’ as recently as 2013.

A now-deleted statement on the party’s website argues against a project to improve Genoa’s highways – including the bridge – saying those who backed the plan showed ‘an embarrassing lack of critical sense.’

The plan is ‘an obsolete idea with exorbitant costs that, in the end, would fall entirely on citizens’ who would have to deal with a decade of building works and disruption, the statement says. 

Repair work was eventually carried out on the bridge in 2016 but plans to rebuild it were shelved amid fears it would be too disruptive to locals.

One of the people singled out at responsible for the disaster is one of Atlantia’s well-paid and sharply-dressed executives with a reported love of fast cars and tropical beaches.

Paolo Berti, 47, from Milan, is the Operations and Maintenance manager of Atlantia, and therefore directly responsible for maintaining the Morandi Bridge – and the scores of other motorway structures – that span Italy’s mountainous landscape.

The others are Stefano Marigliani, the director of the Genoa stretch of carriage way and Giancarlo Guenzi, Atlantia’s chief financial officer with responsibility of approving – or refusing –maintenance budgets. 

Atlantia is a public company listed on the Milan Stock Exchange.

It’s largest single shareholder is Sintonia, an investment vehicle of the Benetton family – known for their international fashion brand. Billionaire Gilberto Benetton, 77, one of the founders of United Colors of Benetton Sisley, is a director of Atlantia. 

Several people are now asking what role of the executives – who each earn in excess of £100,00 per year – played in the up-keep of the ruined structure.

Atlantia said on its website today that it has spent 11.4 billion euros (£10.17bn) to improve 923km (574 miles) of Italian motorways, and was waiting for approval from authorities to build a bypass around Genoa. 

Local politician have also been accused of failing the people of Genoa, by refusing to allocate funds to carry out vital maintenance work on the crumbling bridge. 

In December 2016, Genoan newspaper Il Secolo XIX claimed maintenance of bridges in the area had been lacking funds because authorities ‘preferred to allocate more funds to new works’.

The paper accused officials in the Liguria region of only making important restorations when issues with bridges had become obvious. 

In addition, some have sought to blame the local Mafia, citing urban legends of crime bosses selling bad concrete with not enough cement, and known incidents of the Mafia infiltrated the Italian construction industry.



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