For a whole lot of different reasons – some simple, and others not – banks still aren’t lending money to borrowers often enough and corporations are hoarding unprecedented amounts of cash. These conditions have conspired to create enormous investment opportunities for one specific type of organization: organized crime syndicates.

Bloomberg reports:

The mafia has cranked up money laundering activities in Italy after the credit crunch prompted banks to stop lending, leaving a funding gap that criminal capital has filled, according to the Bank of Italy.

“The crisis has given organized crime room to thrive because access to credit has become more difficult,” said Anna Maria Tarantola, the central bank’s deputy general director, in a July 12 interview in her Rome office. “Whoever holds large amounts of cash, like crime groups, can make investments that aren’t possible for others. They can now invest in fully legal businesses.”

I think this — mobsters having attractive investment opportunities in legitimate businesses, thereby making money-laundering activities much, much easier to execute — is what economists call an externality.