For the Lazio Regional Administrative Court, the symptomatic and indicative elements of interference by criminal organizations are sufficient for the cancellation from the Register of Merchants authorized to carry out activities related to amusement machines - slot machines.
The Second Section of the Lazio Regional Administrative Court, with a sentence, recently rejected three appeals filed against which requested the annulment of the measures issued by the Customs and Monopoly Agency for the cancellation of the appellant company from the Register of Merchants qualified for related activities to amusement machines - slot machines (RIES). In fact, for the administrative judges, recalling the prevailing orientation on the matter, the danger of mafia infiltration must be evaluated according to an "inductive reasoning, of a probabilistic type, which does not require to draw a level of certainty beyond any reasonable doubt, typical of the assessment aimed at affirming criminal responsibility, and therefore based on evidence, but implies a prognosis assisted by a reliable degree of verisimilitude, based on serious, precise and consistent evidence ", so as to make us believe" more likely than not ", in fact, the danger of mafia infiltration (see State Council, III, 5.9.2019, no. 6105; State Council, III, 30.1.2019, no. 758; State Council, III, 3.5.2016, no. 1743). We can read in the sentence in question that the Council of State, in applying the institution in question, has repeatedly established that this disqualification measure, being the power exercised an expression of the logic of anticipating the social defense threshold and, therefore, aimed at ensuring advanced protection in the field of contrasting the activities of organized crime, does not necessarily have to be linked to investigations matured in criminal proceedings of a definitive nature on the existence of the contiguity of the company with criminal organizations and, therefore, of the current conditioning of the business activity , but it can be supported by symptomatic and circumstantial elements from which sufficient elements emerge of the danger that there may be an attempt to interfere in the entrepreneurial activity of organized crime. Ultimately, for the laziel administrative court, although it is necessary that suitable and specific elements of fact, objectively symptomatic and revealing of concrete connections or possible links with criminal organizations, must be identified and indicated, which advise against the establishment of a business relationship with the Public Administration, a disqualification measure of this type can legitimately be based on facts and events having a symptomatic and circumstantial value and make use of the aid of investigations that can also go back to events that occurred after some time.
