At the crossroad of the Mediterranea, Italy has always been a center for criminal activities in Europe. With the fall of the Berlin Wall and the expansion of technologies and communications, powerfull heterogeneous mafias have been able not only to develop trade with the Italian ones but also, as they did in most other European countries, to settle permanently on the Italian territory. Meanwhile, Italian mafias are extending their imperium from Western Europe until the heart of the Soviet Republics.

Due to lack of ressources for scientific research, and to lack in exchanging informations and in international cooperation in the field of police and justice, very little is known until now about the nature and modalities of cooperation of these criminal networks. However, police and judiciary investigations about criminal interests project the shape of such criminal settlements and agreements.