Everytime i hear about those stories i wonder how italy got its free pass to enter the european union. It sometimes feel like a country from the other side of the sea.
It's so much worse since Greece hasn't been infiltrated by the mafia on a state level. Greek politicians are corrupt but in a populist, power-to-rule-over-masses way.
There are no large-scale mafia organizations that control parts of the country, parts of the government, like in Italy which is pretty much a mafia state.
This means that rackets like toxic waste disposal (= poisoning your own land and killing your people) are unheard of in Greece.
We have no mafia here in Poland, and yet in my very own city some criminals have been disposing illegally of some toxic waste on a large scale. Criminals are everywhere, and all it takes is shitty police and judicial system for them to thrive.
