Thank you for that kind introduction, Minister [Andrea]
Orlando. Thank you, Deputy National Anti-Mafia Prosecutor [Giovanni] Russo, for
your steady leadership in the fight against organized crime. And Commander
General [Tullio] Del Sette, thank you for hosting this wonderful event at this
beautiful and historic venue. It is a privilege to be here. I know that the
Carabinieri, have been on the front lines of Italy’s decades-long fight against
organized crime. You have given your all to this struggle, including many of
your best and bravest. We still honor the loss and legacy of General Carlo
Alberto Della Chiesa, who was murdered for his relentless pursuit of the Mafia
throughout the 1970s. I am delighted to see so many of our Italian law
enforcement partners in the audience, including members of the Carabinieri, the
Italian National Police, and the Financial Police. Many prosecutors traveled
from near and far to join us today, and I am grateful to you all for being
here. I thank you all for joining me here as we celebrate our nations’ proud
history of cooperation against organized crime, and as we reaffirm our
determination to address the challenges that still lie ahead.
For more than 30 years, the United States and Italy have
been staunch allies in the fight against organized crime. We have recognized
its international dimensions, the utter lack of respect not just for human life
but for man-made borders. And we have been at the forefront, indeed the model,
of the kind of international law enforcement cooperation that is being called
upon today to fight emerging foes. Our unique and forward thinking cooperation
dates back to the early 1980s, when our nations worked together to investigate
and prosecute a massive Mafia-run drug enterprise that spanned the ocean.
Sicilian Mafiosi and Sicilian-American mobsters smuggled billions of dollars’
worth of drugs across international borders, laundering their proceeds through
pizza parlors in the United States. In order to dismantle this transatlantic
operation, authorities in the United States and Italy began working together
with unprecedented coordination. By pooling our resources in a number of ways –
from case strategy, to witness protection, to joint task forces – we deepened
our shared commitment to stem the tide of organized crime and protect the
public. And together, we succeeded in putting a stop to this nefarious scheme.
Thanks to dedicated law enforcement officers and prosecutors like Louis Freeh –
who would later direct the FBI – and Judges Giovanni Falcone and Paolo
Borsellino, our governments together put hundreds of Mafiosi behind bars.
As you know, Judges Falcone and Borsellino both paid for
their public service with their lives. Judge Falcone and his wife and three
police bodyguards were brutally killed by a roadside bomb outside of Palermo.
Judge Borsellino, too, was murdered by a car bomb as he walked to his mother’s
door, less than two months after Judge Falcone’s death. In the aftermath of
these vicious attacks, the U.S. Department of Justice joined in the
investigation to unmask the assassins. Working hand-in-hand with Italian
experts, the FBI helped to investigate the crime site, analyzing the bomb
signatures and matching DNA left on cigarette butts recovered at the bomb site
to one of the suspects. We were honored to work with you, because our brothers
in the struggle had also fought for us, and your loss was our loss.
Today, the threat of organized crime has evolved.
Sophisticated cross-border schemes – involving narcotics, fraud, cybercrime,
trafficking, and many other crimes – link together not just criminals from the
United States and Italy, but also organized crime rings in South America,
Central Europe, Africa, and Asia; and we also have seen in some areas the rise
of a crime-terror nexus. The proliferation of computer networks and social
media has given syndicates the ability to collaborate more easily, and it has
created entirely new forms of organized crime, like organized computer
intrusions and identity theft. And in places where they wield powerful and
dangerous influence, organized crime syndicates continue to undermine
democratic governments by colluding with corrupt politicians. That is why in
2011, President Obama announced a new Strategy to Combat Transnational
Organized Crime, in recognition that such crime “poses a significant and
growing threat to national and international security, with dire implications
for public safety, public health, democratic institutions and economic
stability across the globe.” One of the key pillars of our Strategy to Combat
Transnational Organized Crime is international cooperation and partnerships –
and I am proud to say that in this regard we could ask for no better partner
than Italy. The Justice Department’s Federal Bureau of Investigation and Drug
Enforcement Administration, along with Homeland Security Investigations and
U.S. Customs and Border Protection, coordinate with their counterparts here in
Italy on a daily basis to share information on fast-moving, transnational crime
investigations, including anti-narcotics and anti-money laundering operations.
And law enforcement officials in both nations continue to share resources and
strategy in investigating cross-border organized crime. Moreover, Italy’s
leadership in fighting organized crime has been felt worldwide: in bringing
forward the Palermo Convention – the United Nations Convention on Transnational
Organized Crime – Italy has helped to create a transnational framework for law
enforcement to confront a transnational threat.
I have had the privilege to witness our cooperation
firsthand. In 2014, when I was serving as the U.S. Attorney in Brooklyn, the
Department of Justice coordinated with Italian law enforcement partners to
arrest and charge members of the Gambino organized crime family in New York and
members of the ‘Ndrangheta, one of Italy’s most powerful and most dangerous
organized crime syndicates. They plotted to use legitimate shipping businesses
as cover to move narcotics between the United States and Italy. But U.S. and
Italian law enforcement partners did what we do best; we collaborated
intensely, sharing evidence and cooperating on undercover operations, and
eventually arresting more than twenty conspirators. Our joint efforts ensured
that ‘Ndrangheta would not find a foothold in New York. And this type of
collaboration has become the norm in our partnership with Italian law
enforcement, not the exception. Just last year, our nations collaborated to
intercept a drug trafficking operation whose tentacles reached from Italy to
Queens, New York and Costa Rica. Moreover, the techniques that our organized
crime investigators and prosecutors pioneered – attacking and dismantling an
entire criminal enterprise – have provided the model we now use to attack
terrorist networks and other forms of criminality. For all the work we have
done together as partners and as friends, on these and so many matters large
and small, it is my privilege, on behalf of the American people and as the
Attorney General of the United States, to say thank you. We could not do this
work without you. Of course, we still have a long way to go to extinguish the
threat of organized crime. It continues to tear at the fabric of our societies.
It steals from the public and abuses the vulnerable. It brandishes fear as a
weapon against innocent people. It mercilessly takes human lives for craven
ends. But we have made tremendous progress together – and as I look around this
room at so many dedicated leaders and law enforcement officers, I am not just
hopeful, but confident that we will build on the work that devoted public
servants like Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino began more than 30 years
ago.
That work continues to inspire us. In May of 2014, I had the
honor of leading a delegation from the Justice Department to the Falcone
memorial in Palermo. the memorial and the foundation do such honor to Judge
Falcone’s memory and his courage. During the Sicilian Mafia investigation, he
knew of the deadly threats against him, but he never faltered. He said, “Men
pass through. Ideas remain, but they walk on the legs of other men.” Today, the
ideas that animated Judges Falcone and Borsellino walk on in the work that we
carry on together. Today, it is our responsibility to ensure that the scourge
of organized crime will not be tolerated by law enforcement anywhere. And
today, it is our responsibility – and great privilege – to continue the proud
history of cooperation between our two nations.
I want you to know that the United States remains committed
to standing alongside Italy in the fight against organized crime. We will
continue to work side by side with our law enforcement partners here. We will
continue to build on our historic friendship. And we will continue the hard
work of honoring the values Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino defended with
their lives.
Thank you for your warm hospitality and your presence here
today. And thank you for your tireless work and dedication.
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