Trying to get a break from all financial crisis, all the time, I went to a dinner discussion about global organized crime last night. The worry among international prosecutors, crime-fighting agencies and anti-corruption NGOs was that the world’s attention is shifting away from drugs smuggling, human trafficking or the $1 trillion sucked up by bribes and corruption each year. Paris, London and Geneva continue to be shopping paradises for kleptocrat dictators, their families and cronies. With roughly 20 percent of global GDP produced by criminal activity, there was agreement that the situation wasn’t getting any better – even though efforts to fight international crime and corruption have multiplied since the 1990s.

And it turns out that even the underworld is feeling the effects of the crisis – but unfortunately, it’s not exactly cyclical decline. Leisure activities such as prostitution and recreational drug use usually do decline in a downturn, as disposable incomes drop and unemployment rises. For the same reason, counterfeiters should see a boom as consumers economize with cheap fakes in clothing, electronics or medicines. Another big worry among some of the experts was that the giant spigots of government cash (bailouts, subsidies, stimulus programs) opening up in more and more countries around the world are sure to encourage all kinds of illicit rent-seeking, such as bribes or political “donations” in return for subsidies.

If anything, the crisis seems to have already sparked the creativity of criminal organizations. With credit in such short supply, guess who’s stepping in to provide it? According to a November survey by Confesercenti, the Italian association of small-business owners, the crisis has led to a surge in mafia loan sharking, as Italian shopkeepers and restaurant owners find they can’t get loans from their local banks. In just the past year, the number of Italian businesses getting loans from mafia organizations like the Camorra or ‘Ndrangheta is up by 20 percent, from 150,000 to 180,000. In the underworld, there is always fresh cash that needs a place to go. And defaults don’t seem to be much of a problem, either.