Italy Escapes Western Europe's Fentanyl Epidemic
While fentanyl is ravaging North America and spreading across Europe, Italy remains largely spared. According to journalist Roberto Saviano, local mafias are acting as a safeguard.
Italy Resists the Fentanyl Wave
According to Le Figaro, the Italian peninsula remains to date largely protected from the onslaught of fentanyl that is ravaging North America and gradually spreading across Europe. This synthetic opioid, up to 50 times more potent than heroin, has already caused thousands of deaths in North America but is struggling to take hold in Italy.
In summer, a rumour circulated in the working-class neighbourhood of Tor Sapienza, east of Rome: fentanyl would have made its appearance in this area already ravaged by trafficking. Images circulated of disoriented people in the streets. Residents remained convinced that the drug had finally crossed the Atlantic.
On Friday, Rome's prefect Lamberto Giannini categorically denied this. During the numerous operations by law enforcement, seizures have involved cocaine, crack, hashish, marijuana and occasionally heroin, "but never fentanyl". The number of seizures carried out is now so significant that any substantial presence of the product would have been detected.
According to investigative journalist Roberto Saviano, author of the investigation Gomorra on Neapolitan mafias, this relative impermeability is a matter of paradox: it is precisely the established criminal organisations that protect the peninsula. These mafia structures, unlike external traffickers, have controlled the drug market for decades and maintain a certain commercial stability — a criminal order that excludes new products likely to destabilise their networks.
Source: Le Figaro