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Mafia cashes in on credit crunch

by Catherine Woods - Wednesday, 12th November 2008 - - Business comment

Mafia cashes in on credit crunch

Spare a thought for your fellow entrepreneurs in Italy; apparently many of them are being forced to turn to the Mafia for cash because of the credit crunch.

The head of a small business group has told the BBC the Italian government and the country’s banks must intervene and provide more funding to small businesses to stop them going to Don Corleone and his mates for capital.

Here in Britain, things are bad but they're not that bad!

Gordon Brown has now published a code to monitor lending to small businesses to ensure banks keep money flowing to the SME sector.

And perhaps there’s also better access to companies such as Richard Pepler’s Ultimate Finance, which provide an alternative funding source to the banks.

Still, if you've got tales of funding desperation or Mafia connections, do let us know.

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Picture source

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