The workers who were “seconded from first-level companies to railway construction sites” often had “no professional skills” and the “documentation certifying the necessary qualifications” was also falsified. It can be read in the decree signed by the investigating judge of Milan, Luca Milani, which led to the preventive seizure of over 10 million euros for tax fraud, carried out by the GDF, against 11 companies in a new tranche of the DDA investigation into alleged infiltration of the ‘Ndrangheta in the works on the railway network.
As emerged from the investigations, RFI, which is the offended party, would have commissioned maintenance work from large companies, such as Gcf of the Rossi Group and Francesco Ventura Costruzioni Ferroviarie (among the companies investigated). And these, in turn, would have appealed, with the formula of “detachment of manpower”, to other companies (the ‘paper mills’ that issued false invoices) attributable to the Aloisio and Giardino families linked, according to the prosecution, to the Nicoscia-Arena gangs. The employed workers, summarizes the investigating judge, «were forced to work in exploitative conditions, being underpaid, not enjoying the rights due to regular workers (overtime, holidays, rest), in violation of the regulations on safety and hygiene at work and without being able to make any claims, under penalty of losing one’s job or being subjected to violence and threats.”
Workers who were «mainly originally from areas, such as Ionian Calabria, where finding employment is extremely difficult» and “they were beneficiaries of a job opportunity, a factor capable of creating consensus in favor of the mafia families”. The large companies in the sector, in the meantime, would have managed to «win the majority of the orders from RFi spa precisely thanks to the large quantity of labor supply that the ‘toxic’ company manages to guarantee, being able to make use of low-cost labour. recruited’, without any specialization” and “making them have it ‘falsely’, mostly in Calabria, in Isola Capo Rizzuto and Crotone”. Also recruited “among ‘affiliates’ or criminals even with convictions” for mafia association.