Reading so much detective fiction set in Italy reminds me of a curious incident in Rome earlier this year.
Our hotel was on a quiet street near the Colosseum. Parked outside all day and night was a Guardia di Finanza car with two officers inside. They periodically came into the hotel to get a coffee and use the bathroom. The GdF is the oldest police force, founded 1774 in the Kingdom of Sardinia, and I’m told the most feared. They are most visible in Venice in stylish boats.
Some quarter of a century ago a friend left a restaurant in Italy and was set on by two young men in leather jackets and jeans speaking in rapid Italian. He tried to get away from them but was pushed up against a wall. He wriggled free and ran back into the restaurant where he got a frosty reception. So friendly minutes before, now unable to speak English. He had been accosted by GdF officers asking to see his restaurant receipt. You may not be aware but under Italian law you must retain your receipt (scontrino or ricevuta fiscale) and keep it with you for a short distance after leaving a restaurant. This prevents businesses evading taxes by not recording transactions. Failure to comply results in fines for the business and the customer. My friend was a victim as the restaurant had not paid the customary dues to the GdF and so was being staked out.
When I was working as an oil futures broker we had a client in Rome trading and supplying physical oil. The boss was very approachable and I remember visiting their office for a cigar-fuelled meeting. Subsequently it transpired the company had bought, not entirely inadvertently, Libyan oil through an intermediary said to be connected to organised crime (you know what that means). Sales of Libyan oil were sanctioned at the time. He was in trouble and I followed the case after I stopped working. Italian court cases are only heard in court as few as two days a month so a long case can go on for many years. The case against my client was dropped because it had gone beyond the statute of limitations.
Italian police procedures and methodology are described in exhaustive detail in The Medici Conspiracy by Peter Watson and Cecilia Todeschini (2007); subtitled “the Illicit journey of looted antiquities from Italy’s tomb raiders to the world’s greatest museums”. It complements Watson’s earlier book about art thefts in Italy: The John Blake Conspiracy.
To digress, the three sections of the Italian police were all part of the military: the GdF, the Arma di Carabiniere and the Polizia di Stato. The PdS became a civil police force only in 1981. Rivalry between AdC and PdS is a recurring feature in Italian detective fiction and in real life.
Oh, what were the GdF doing outside the hotel? I asked the receptionist who was evasive. There had been a fatal accident on a nearby building site and they were checking there would be no recurrence. Neither of us believed this.