(AGI) Rome, June 30 - The balance of Ecomafia's activitiesreported by the Legambiente environmental association onTuesday are truly alarming. The number of confirmed crimes areroughly 80 a day, slightly less than 4 an hour, for a total of29,293 criminal activities worth 7 billion more than in theprevious year, for a total of 22 billion euros. A surprisingcontribution was made by the agro-food sector, which recorded aturnover of more than 4.3 billion euros. The reportreveals an increase in criminal activities in the four regionstraditionally under the control of the Mafia (Apulia, Sicily,Campania and Calabria), where more than half of the 14,736total crimes were recorded, with 12,732 reports filed, and 71arrests and 5,127 seizures executed. The number of crimes fellby roughly 21 percent in Campania, perhaps due to all theattention recently focused on the region. Apulia insteadwitnessed a 15.4 percent increase in the number of crimes, with4,159 reports filed and five arrests executed. The figures arethe result of the capillary monitoring and control workperformed by the law enforcement forces (especiallyCarabinieri, the Tax Police and the State Forestry Corps),whose operations have been coordinated for several years thanksto a special agreement promoted and financed by the Region ofApulia. Waste management crimes also grew 26 percent at theend of 35 investigations into the organised trafficking ofurban waste. Another group of crimes that are on the rise arewrongdoings in the cement production process: the total numberof crimes grew 4.3 percent to a total of 5,750 and were mainlyreported in Campania, followed by Calabria, Apulia and Lazio.Rossella Muroni, the national director of Legambiente stated:"2015 is an extraordinary year, because a law was finallypassed that introduces a specific Title in the Criminal Codedevoted to crimes against the environment, which sanctionsanyone wanting to draw a profit to the detriment of people'scollective health and ecosystems. It is an essential instrumentto combat the grey area governed by corruption which has becomethe environment's number one enemy because too many localadministrations have colluded with criminal organisations, andalso because of bid-rigging, dishonest administrators andemergency management procedures that bypass rules and atransparent adjudication process." . .