The Mafia may be keeping fentanyl out of Italy

hnrprtlpdb

Did wastewater drug monitoring for a while, and the annoying bit was fentanyl metabolites sitting near the detection limit, so absence isn't proof.

glimshe

"For years I paid my people extra so they wouldn't do that kind of business. Somebody comes to them and says, 'I have powders; if you put up three, four thousand dollar investment, we can make fifty thousand distributing.' So they can't resist. I want to control it as a business, to keep it respectable. I don't want it near schools! I don't want it sold to children! That's an infamia." When AI can write screenplays like this one, then it's game over.

aswegs8

Feels like they caught up to internet archive being used to circumvent paywalls. Unfortunate.

bilekas

I'm no expert, but I've always thought that adding much more risk to the lives of your customers unnecessarily is not good for business.

pluc

This was the way it worked up here (in QC) with the 81s. If you sold shit that could draw attention to you, your organization or suppliers, you were swiftly taught not to. They had decent quality control, but as their grip slipped so did quality. Now we get fentanyl overdoses weekly.

be8e9dmrro

Why not goverment "is keeping fentanyl out of italy"? If you would sell unaproved medication during covid, you would get several years in prison. Why someone who sells unapproved medication without prescription, gets released and can keep selling this stuff? Medication thst kills people!!!

genericacct

I'm afraid some crime syndicates have found out they can just steal it from hospitals, some 80 vials went missing from the ospedale israelitico in Rome during the summer and there are already reports of an increase of users in the outskirts of the city..

dotcoma

And who is keeping it out of the other European countries?

qoez

I always assumed this was an america-only drug that no one actually does or at least not to the excess that it's claimed by the publications using it for the normal fear journalism purposes.

lawgimenez

From what I’ve read online Ndrangheta are much more powerful than the mafia in Italy.

pvaldes

Totally different healthcare systems, and no sane doctor will commit the same mistake again.

gumby

It’s CLV (customer lifetime value): the integral of the MRR. Something most companies mentioned on HN should understand though it feels like Apple is the only one that takes it seriously (And with Apple’s new CEO, the early signs are that commitment is headed for the ash heap as well, but it seems the Mafia may have a longer horizon)

silverFork

Not in their own backyard!

GreenLightGo

Humanity is being poisoned from all sides. The scariest part is that people willingly go along with it.

shevy-java

> IN “The Godfather”, Don Vito Corleone refuses to engage in the heroin trade because he considers it “a dirty business”. The movie was well-planned by Francis - but the mafia is a mass-murder organisation, without exception. Japan finally got the better of Yakuza for the most part (it is nowhere near as powerful as it was once); Italy still struggles, in particular with regards to Ndrangheta. So any article that attempts to white-wash the mafia in Italy - nope, sorry, not even good movies such as the godfather should disguise the mass-murder organisation. See how they bombed Giovanni Falcone to death, let's not forget that; and more recently how Ndrangheta executed women (2026; see https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c39mr81j2j1o ) who stopped being silent about the genocidal activities of Ndrangheta. Let's put it short: the mafia needs to be eliminated completely. It's not easy since they infiltrated so much in Italy and in parts elsewhere (just study how Capone in the USA got big, then you realise that the USA has an even bigger problem here - plus, fentanyl too), but it has to be done. There is no alternative unless you want organisations to undermine the state and continue its genocidal tendencies. You can be sure they are also involved in smuggling weapons, thus contributing to genocide outside of Italy directly as well. Please no more white-washing articles of the mafia as glorious heroes "because they keep fentanyl out of Italy". (Besides, this is not even correct to begin with; fentanyal at the least right now, plays a very small role in Europe at best; in the USA this is different. See how Trump tries to blame Canadians for Fentanyl, smuggled via eggs, which is another one of his non-stop lies about Canadians.)

mexicocitinluez

The Godfather overly romanticized the mafia and made them out to be "violent but in a principled way" people and nothing could be further from the truth. It's complete fantasy that the mafia didn't deal hard drugs. https://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/the-pizza-connection-35th-a... Orson Welles said it best: "'The Godfather' was the glorification of a bunch of bums who never existed."

m101

There is not that much difference between the state and a mafia. The fact that the mafia has successfully managed to keep out fentanyl shows just how much democratically elected states are failing their citizens. This outcome is not surprising.

jmpman

I've had a friend pass from an OD, when consuming what he thought was cocaine, which was actually laced with fentanyl. I wonder if the Italian mafia has a more profitable cocaine market, and don't want it contaminated, as is likely to happen with fentanyl, as the cocaine market, which I assume is recreational, would contract.

shell0x

The Singapore model is to execute all the dealers.

bell-cot

That I've heard, on the street , the Mafia is a credible alternative state power in a fair fraction of Italy. Just one not claiming Democratic ideals, nor much desire to become a nation state or adopt a political agenda. Wielding power to benefit the ordinary people, long-term, is an age-old sign that those wielding the power have and/or aspire to some level of long-term legitimacy and popular support. Doesn't matter if you're looking at early Chinese dynasties, Old Testament kings, or modern authoritarian states banning non-government organizations.