Contship Italia, which runs the Italian port of Gioia Tauro, has strongly rejected a study by a parliamentary commission that alleged that the mafia group Ndrangheta has had a foothold in Gioia Tauro port from the start and extorted a US$1.50-per-box security tax from Angelo Ravano, the founder of the Medcenter Container Terminal (MCT) transhipment facility at the port as he worked to get it off the ground.
The study came as a shock to Contship Italia, which has run MCT since the beginning.
Contship chairman Cecilia Battistello said: "We would never pay a lira to organised crime. Rather than do that we would pack our bags and leave Gioia Tauro. We don't need it enough to succumb to such demands. We have Tangier. We have Cagliari."
She said she had no interest in whether there was any deal between the Ndrangheta and Ravano, who died 18 months before the first ship arrived at the port. Whatever he might have agreed, she said, MCT has never made any such payment.
The study came as a shock to Contship Italia, which has run MCT since the beginning.
Contship chairman Cecilia Battistello said: "We would never pay a lira to organised crime. Rather than do that we would pack our bags and leave Gioia Tauro. We don't need it enough to succumb to such demands. We have Tangier. We have Cagliari."
She said she had no interest in whether there was any deal between the Ndrangheta and Ravano, who died 18 months before the first ship arrived at the port. Whatever he might have agreed, she said, MCT has never made any such payment.