Italy’s one of the most notorious organized crime syndicates knows as Mafia Inc. are thriving during the world economy crisis, investigators say.

They are managing gas stations, making loans to cash-shorted businesses, putting hands on supermarket franchises and acquiring building in Rome and Milan. Those mobsters have lots of what is short supply for many businesses these days, prosecutors and police said in recent interviews.

The crime syndicates are making billions of Euros from extortion, drug trafficking and sales in fake designed clothing made in China. For the mob bosses, the global economic meltdown is only an advantage, said anti-mafia prosecutor Franco Roberti in his office in Naples, one of the chaotic port city of the Italy's major crime syndicates.

All that means the mob is free to sink cash into the areas of real estate and credit markets.

And also the mob keeps growing, in recent years they are grabbing many legitimate businesses in the financial crisis.

In Rome, anti-Mafia prosecutor Giancarlo Capado said in a courthouse interview that mobsters have taken over hotels, restaurants and cafes in Rome, police seized assets of some of these businesses. He declined to identify the establishments because the probe is still being conducted.

These places are well run because they want to make money, Capaldo said.

The mobsters would make euro 6.3 billion ($8.5 billion) last year , according to the Intelligence services report.

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