A vocational school in Corleone, a senior citizens’ drop-in centre overlooking Lake Como, a jazz club in a Roman villa, a biological farm co-operative in Calabria: none looks like the hot new weapon in Italy’s battle against organised crime but they are, each a success story in an Italian programme that confiscates property and puts it to good social use.

More than 8,000 pieces of real estate are among the assets, worth an estimated €40bn, seized since 1992 from Sicily’s Cosa Nostra, Campania’s Camorra, and Calabria’s ’Ndrangheta as well as smaller groups such as Puglia’s Sacra Corona Unita and non-Italian gangs. Real estate is undoubtedly the biggest share of confiscated property. In 2006, half the haul was residential; apartments and villas.