The Medici Conspiracy Read Online Free PDF Page B

do so either because they already have a buyer, or they think they have a buyer ready. Many times we have tracked thefts and lootings as far as the Swiss border, but usually our inquiries stop there. Our jurisdiction goes no further, the Swiss laws are helpful to the criminals and it was always my hope that one day we could extend our investigations beyond Italy’s border, to show the international side of the traffic in antiquities. When the vases at Melfi were stolen, and we learned that the thieves drove a Swiss car, I remember thinking, “This could be the springboard that takes us into Europe.”
    But Conforti had no idea what was about to unfold.

    Italian police (to use the term loosely, since the Carabinieri are in fact part of the army) have one advantage over similar authorities elsewhere. Because the looting of antiquities is such a widespread problem, at any one time the Art Squad has a number of people under surveillance. In particular, phone tapping is routine. The taps are voice activated, and the legal permissions to operate them have to be renewed every fifteen days. In the wake of a big theft like that at Melfi, however, they are essential, for the telephone traffic tells the police who to focus on.
    Long experience had taught the investigators what to look out for. At the lowest level, the tombaroli, or tomb robbers, are invariably laborers or farm workers, who don’t make many calls. Above them come those the tombaroli call the capo zona, the head of a region. The tomb robbers normally sell their finds to a capo zona, frequently a man with a white-collar job, meaning he has some sort of education, and whose telephone records as often as not show that he regularly makes calls abroad. In this case, following the Melfi raid, there was a burst of telephone traffic centered on the Casal di Principe area. Casal di Principe is a small town north of Naples, in the center of the region that produces the delicious buffalomozzarella cheese.
    Analysis of the telephone records in Casal di Principe showed that four men in particular had recently been making a lot of international calls. One of these, a certain Pasquale Camera, was particularly interesting, for a check on his background produced the arresting information that he had been a captain in the Guardia di Finanza, Italy’s finance and customs police. He was careful not to use his home telephone very much, but the calls that he did make were to Germany, Switzerland, and Sicily.
    This early burst of telephone activity didn’t last, however, and it seemed that the investigation had stalled. Spring came and went; so did summer. Then, quite by chance, Art Squad headquarters in Piazza Sant’Ignazio received a call from the German police in Munich. The Germans said they had received a request from the Greek police, asking them to raid and search the home of a certain dealer in antiquities who lived in Munich. This man was an Italian named Antonio Savoca, known as
“Nino,” and he was believed to be involved in the illegal traffic of antiquities out of Greece and Cyprus. In view of the fact that Savoca was Italian, the Germans said, were the Carabinieri interested in taking part in the upcoming raid? Colonel Conforti didn’t need to be asked twice. He selected two officers, a lieutenant and a marshal, who took the first Alitalia flight to Munich. The raid was scheduled for October 14, 1994.
    At the briefing on the morning of that day, twelve people were gathered in Munich police headquarters—two Italians, two Greeks, the rest German. Savoca, they were told, lived in a three-story villa in the Pullah suburb of the city, a prosperous area in the south, wooded and quiet. The villa had been under discreet surveillance for some time, and the raiding party was shown a sketch of the house and its surrounding garden. There was a high hedge, enclosing some mature trees and a well-kept English-style lawn, bordered by flowers. Four