- Italy's landmark China Truck mafia trial stalled for years
- Missing interpreters, lost files fuel sabotage suspicions
- "Coat hanger wars" spread violence across Europe's fashion hub
- Weak China cooperation hobbles probes, Italian prosecutors say
A landmark trial in Italy of Chinese crime gangs has suffered so many mishaps - from the disappearance of documents to the resignation of interpreters - that a senior prosecutor suspects it's being sabotaged to protect the criminals' grip on Europe's fashion industry.
The case, launched after two Chinese men were hacked to death with machetes in 2010, is aimed at dismantling an illicit network accused of controlling the logistics of the continent's multi-billion-euro garments sector from the city of Prato in Tuscany.
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"The suspicion is that there is interference from the Chinese community and Chinese authorities in this matter," said Luca Tescaroli, a veteran of Italy's war against the mafia who is now Prato's chief prosecutor and leading the charge against Chinese crime gangs.
The Chinese embassy in Rome did not reply to emails requesting comment on Tescaroli's remarks.
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When the latest court interpreter failed to show up to a hearing at the end of September, a quick check revealed she had returned to China and her transcripts were "incomprehensible and unusable", Tescaroli said.
The translator was the second to walk off the job and no other Chinese interpreter in Tuscany has agreed to take over. Tescaroli has opened an investigation into the possibility that someone is looking to sink the trial.
The violence prosecutors hoped to curb has only intensified as the trial flounders, with the battle for control of coat hanger production and fast-fashion freight spawning a string of bomb and arson attacks in Italy, France and Spain.
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The Prato prosecutor and his colleagues are pressing the judges in the so-called China Truck trial to define the Chinese gangs legally as mafia groups โ a designation that would unlock sweeping powers, asset seizures and stiffer sentence.
However, in Italy that label is difficult to secure, even more so if the organisations are rooted abroad, making them harder to penetrate than home-grown crime groups such as Sicily's Cosa Nostra.
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Wedged in the hills northwest of Florence, Prato is billed as Europe's largest textile manufacturing hub, hosting more than 7,000 textile and garment companies that register some 2.3 billion euros ($2.68 billion) in official annual exports. Over 4,400 of firms are Chinese owned, local authorities say.
Almost a quarter of its residents are foreigners, the largest ratio in Italy, but the percentage is likely much higher as many newcomers are illegal immigrants without work permits.
Prato's streets are lined with Chinese-owned workshops, warehouses, and businesses that have transformed the city into a global fast-fashion production centre, and a flashpoint for violence linked to criminal networks.
The China Truck investigation closed in 2018 with prosecutors alleging that the 58 suspects had formed "a criminal association equipped with very significant financial means ... with support and resources abroad".
Seven years on, not a single defendant or witness has been called to testify.
Meanwhile, the alleged mastermind Zhang Naizhong, described by investigators as a "boss of bosses", slipped back to China in 2018 after he was released from pre-trail custody and prosecutors doubt he will ever return to Italy.
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Chinese businesses in the textile district have long operated within what investigators call the "Prato system", marked by corruption and irregular practices, including labour and safety abuses as well as tax and customs fraud.
These companies can appear and disappear overnight, engaging in a cat-and-mouse game with authorities to dodge taxes and avoid having to give workers proper contracts, according to Arturo Gambassi, a representative from the Sudd Cobas union, which defends workers' rights in the textile sector.
"In all the firms where we have initiated labour disputes, we saw that their business name had changed in the previous two years," he told Reuters.
Police say fabrics are often smuggled in from China to avoid customs duties, while profits are sent back through illicit money-transfer channels, with up to 4 million euros shipped out of Rome's Fiumicino airport each week, according to prosecutors and police.
To maintain their competitive edge, the industry depends on cheap, round-the-clock labour, largely from China and Pakistan, with workers facing a backlash if they seek legal contracts.
On November 17, more than 15 Chinese citizens assaulted a union demonstration in Prato. Plain clothes police who were observing the protest were also attacked, with two officers needing hospital treatment, a police statement said.
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Without the mafia designation or Chinese cooperation, Tescaroli's case in the China Truck trial relies on the fragile scaffolding of Italian procedure, and the willingness of translators to show up.
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