The "Italian Job"
From 2013 onwards Italy's anti-Mafia and anti-terrorism directorate (DNAA) convened a series of closed-door coordination meetings with senior representatives of Frontex, Europol, Eurojust and Italian law enforcement (police, navy, coast guard and judiciary) to discuss the "management" of irregular migration on the EU's southern sea border.
In the aftermath of the 2013 Lampedusa shipwrecks, Italy's National Anti-Mafia and Anti-Terrorism Directorate (DNAA) began treating irregular migration as a matter of organised crime. Just days after the launch of Mare Nostrum, the DNAA convened a series of coordination meetings bringing together representatives of Frontex, Europol, Eurojust, the Italian police, navy, coast guard and judiciary to develop a common approach to migration across the Central Mediterranean.
This marked a significant shift. While the DNAA's traditional mandate focused on trafficking and organised crime, migration itself increasingly became the object of criminal investigation. A Palermo prosecutor later described this strategy as “the Italian job”: the effort to combat irregular migration through anti-mafia and anti-smuggling frameworks.
Documents from the meetings indicate that participants were aware of the close links between emerging Libyan coast guard structures and the networks involved in migrant smuggling. Yet rather than focusing on these connections, European and Italian authorities increasingly directed their attention toward migration control and the prosecution of alleged facilitators.
The meetings continued for four years and helped shape the legal and political environment in which rescue NGOs, including the Iuventa crew, would later be investigated and prosecuted
The same period saw the DNAA spearhead the criminalisation of NGO rescue operations.
Sources
Friends of the Traffickers: Italy's Anti-Mafia Directorate and the "Dirty Campaign" to Criminalize Migration (The Intercept, 30 April 2021)
Primary source — access to previously unpublished internal documents from the DNAA coordination meetings.
EU Migration Strategy: Treat Migrants Like the Mafia (OpenDemocracy, November 2024)
Additional context on the DNAA's strategic shift and its lasting institutional legacy.
2,200 Frontex Emails to Libya (Lighthouse Reports / Der Spiegel)
Documents Frontex's operational knowledge of abuses despite continued cooperation.