Investigations are very much like wars between truth and lies. When I teach ‘great investigations’ to the student detectives of my detective agency Octopus I am often inspired by ‘The Art of War’. About a thousand years ago, El Cid Campeador won his battles by catapulting baskets of bread into fortresses to be conquered; today, Read more about To the student detectives of my detective agency Octopus I teach The Art of War.[…]

Many years ago a client approached my first detective agency Octopus in Bergamo for an international investigation. My research ended up in the United States, where I met a fellow private detective who had opened his own detective agency in Los Angeles after a career as a policeman in an anti-gang squad in California. At Read more about We Italians were lucky not to have street gangs like in the States[…]

I have to say that I have never liked Roberto Saviano. He owes his initial success to the fact that he wrote uncomfortable truths about the Neapolitan camorra and since then he sees organized crime everywhere, tending to give mobster organizations more importance than they have. Even on the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, the Read more about I have never liked Roberto Saviano[…]

The war between Ukraine and Russia is uncovering who are the real allies, the clever international statesmen and the good diplomats; unfortunately, Italy lacks all three. I speak of bad allies because Biden’s United States is playing a dangerous tug-of-war over our heads, without considering the risks that will fall over the whole Europe, and Read more about War between Ukraine and Russia[…]

My detective agency Octopus has been investigating fraud since 1988 and in forty years of private investigations I have never seen a fraudster pay the price for his misdeeds. In Italy, you can’t say ‘make the law, find the loophole’ because the loophole is already in the law itself. This was confirmed by the latest Read more about Once the law is made, find the loophole[…]

Some people are ruling out Silvio Berlusconi for the Quirinal, but the possibility is more likely than it seems. When Silvio Berlusconi was entering the entrepreneurial world of private television, I was a collaborator of some investigative agencies in Milan. I was asked to gather information about him, who at that time was still a Read more about Silvio Berlusconi at the Quirinal[…]

I was about to go and get vaccinated against covid-19. They had almost convinced me, or rather: I was letting myself be carried away. Even though I knew I would have regretted it: vaccination is the shortcut to come back to productivity, not for ourselves but for the ticks that infest our poor Italy (let’s Read more about The vaccine is the shortcut to come back to productivity, not for ourselves but for the ticks of our government that are infesting our poor Italy[…]

The sex scandal that has engulfed Prince Andrew and the entire British Crown has predictably unleashed the worst side of the tabloids. The journalists have discovered, thanks to the revelations of a former court maid, that the Duke of York has an obsession with soft toys and tends to be rude if the toys are Read more about The sex scandal that has engulfed Prince Andrew has unleashed the worst side of the tabloids[…]

Novak Djokovic’s visa has once again been cancelled (it feels like Italy). Immigration Minister Hawke has exercised his power and revoked the Serbian tennis player’s permit to stay in Australia, which was initially reactivated by Judge Anthony Kelly (actually not really: in Italy it would be the judiciary who would have the final say). Alex Read more about We need more Novak Djokovic[…]

Never as in this time of coronavirus pandemic emergency has my detective agency Octopus received more requests for help with online romance scams. I think this is due to the increased isolation caused by the covid-19 pandemic. Isolation brings people to spend many more hours online, often losing touch with reality. In fact, I first Read more about Isolation caused by covid-19 pandemic encourages online romance scams[…]