The factory hall stretches along the street for a length of four hundred meters. Marble facades shine in the morning sun. Mirror windows, behind them modern clothing stores. It looks like Milan, like a luxury. Angelo parks a police car in front of the penultimate store. We get off. Policemen are marching towards the entrance. I knock on the facade – an empty sound is heard. Marble turns out to be plastic. Shopping center – only with a facade.
Prato has always been one of the most important centers of the clothing industry in Italy. Currently, Chinese companies have taken over 90 percent. plants.
The first Chinese came to Prato 40 years ago. “They bought a house, divided it into small flats for workers,” explains Angelo. – The neighbors had enough noise, so they sold their apartments at low prices to newly arrived Chinese. This is how the domino effect was created – he adds. Today they constitute almost one -fifth of the city's inhabitants.
In the fake marble district, police enter a fashion store. They remove the shirts from hangers, touch the material. The saleswoman at the counter is Italian. “But her boss is a Chinese,” says Angelo.
“Fashion threat”
Chinese employees soon founded their own companies and were employed by luxury brands, such as Dior and Armani, as a cheap subcontractors. Over the years, about half of the local employees lost their jobs. Currently, most Chinese companies in Prato produce cheap clothing. Label: “Made in Italy”.
– says Enrico Blandini, head of the financial police in Prato, in an interview with “Blick”.
Gang fights
We return towards the center and stop in the west of Prato. Locals call this district around old textile factories. Shops, restaurants, pharmacies – everything is written in Chinese. In one of the bars, Maia is bustling between the coffee maker and e-cigarettes. Her clients do not know the Italian, so she learned several Chinese phrases.
“I don't feel safe here,” says Maia. – Gang fights came several times before the bar. It is dangerous here, especially after dark. From 2023, “Guerra Delle Grucce”, a war of hangers, has been going on in Prato. Chinese mafia clans are fighting for dominance in the clothing hangers industry. They set fire, send packets-bomb.
Double mafia murder
In mid -April this year. In Rome, the Chinese couple was lost with a few arrows in the head. Investigators combine a double murder with the war of hangers. The man was a member of the textile mafia and was soon to testify in a great trial.
The financial police are trying to master the situation through control. – This year we have reported 486 people – explains Blandini.
The most common crimes are fraud related to VAT, tax evasion, smuggling and human trafficking. The working conditions in Chinese factories are catastrophic. – People sometimes sit twelve hours without a break at sewing machines, without any safety standards – we hear.
Anonymous workshops
Old factory buildings in the west of the city are falling apart. Damaged cars and garbage bags block narrow streets. Only the silent noise of sewing machines reveals that work is underway inside.
The lawyer of the main perpetrator of the assault on the casino describes the working conditions of his client. – He earned from 1000 to 2000 euros a month (from over 4,200 PLN to almost 8,500 PLN) and apparently stayed among his countrymen. He did not know Italian – he emphasizes.
We stand back. No sign, no name, an anonymous workshop, one of the hundreds. It smells of oil and plastic. Only the label left here from “Made in Italy”.
