Speaker 1: Hello, Death of an Artist's listeners. I'm Simon Willis the
Speaker 1: host of another podcast I think you'll like. It's called
Speaker 1: The Professor Hunting for the Mafia's Missing Masterpiece. I follow
Speaker 1: the story of William Veres, a man who is alleged
Speaker 1: to have stolen forty million pounds worth of art and
Speaker 1: antiquities from Italy. If he's convicted, he faces up to
Speaker 1: twenty years in prison. But William Veres has a plan.
Speaker 1: He struck a deal to avoid jail if he can
Speaker 1: solve the coldest case in the history of art crime,
Speaker 1: the theft of Caravajo's Nativity. Keep listening to hear the
Speaker 1: first episode and find the rest of the series by
Speaker 1: searching for The Professor Hunting for the Mafia's Missing Masterpiece.
Speaker 1: Wherever you get your podcasts, Behi. It's three o'clock in
Speaker 1: the morning on July third, twenty eighteen. The police are
Speaker 1: banging on the door of a house and a quiet,
Speaker 1: respectable suburb of North London.
Speaker 2: This is police, yeah please.
Speaker 1: The owner is a sixty four year old man called
Speaker 1: William Veres.
Speaker 3: I went to the window and there were a large
Speaker 3: number of individuals waving torches.
Speaker 1: Bleary eyed, he goes downstairs to see what all the
Speaker 1: commotion is about. The lights aren't working in the hallway
Speaker 1: and in the dark. He's confronted by nine officers from
Speaker 1: Britain's National Crime Agency, London's Metropolitan Police, and the Italian Carabinieri.
Speaker 3: I immediately began to understand the nature of the visit.
Speaker 1: Dawn raids don't happen in this part of town. Vera's
Speaker 1: his neighbors are bankers and property developers, lawyers and accountants.
Speaker 1: And him. He's an numismatist. He buys and sells ancient coins.
Speaker 4: At least that's his story the.
Speaker 1: Police, they take a different view us as barge passed
Speaker 1: him and begin to spread out. They searched the living room,
Speaker 1: They head upstairs to raid the bedrooms in Vera's study.
Speaker 1: They even climb a ladder to get into the attic
Speaker 1: and inspect to shed at the end of the garden.
Speaker 1: They stripped the place bare, clearing shelves and cabinets, emptying
Speaker 1: drawers and.
Speaker 3: Trays, thousands of coins of all sorts. They took away
Speaker 3: a large marblehead of Augustus, which may or may not
Speaker 3: be ancient, a collection of Anglo Saxon penny They asked
Speaker 3: me for wrapping materials, which I gave him all the
Speaker 3: bubble wrap I had. What would they expect to find
Speaker 3: with somebody of my standing. Somebody's been a dealer for
Speaker 3: fifty years.
Speaker 1: The Italian police have been on Vera's trail for years.
Speaker 1: It's the largest investigation ever conducted by the Italian art
Speaker 1: squad code name Operation Demetra. They've arrested him before, but
Speaker 1: the charges didn't stick. Now they have enough evidence to prosecute.
Speaker 1: They surveiled him at meeting and tapped his phones in
Speaker 1: the conversations they overheard. The speakers often use nicknames to
Speaker 1: mask their identities. One of them goes by Big Hair
Speaker 1: because his flowing locks make him look like a cross
Speaker 1: between John Travolta and Jeff Bridges and Veres. He was
Speaker 1: the expert that all the other guys looked up to,
Speaker 1: the one they deferred to, the one they really respected.
Speaker 1: They called him the Professor. According to the police, he
Speaker 1: is the kingpin of a pan European art smuggling ring
Speaker 1: made up of tomb raiders, counterfeiters, fences and frontmen. Together,
Speaker 1: he and his co conspirators are alleged to have stolen
Speaker 1: forty million euros worth of art and antiquities. After emptying
Speaker 1: the house, the police bundle Veres into an unmarked car
Speaker 1: and take him into custody. They charge him with fourteen counts,
Speaker 1: including money laundering, wire fraud, fourury and conspiracy. If Verres
Speaker 1: is found guilty, he faces a jail term of up
Speaker 1: to twenty years. Veres's home isn't the only one being
Speaker 1: raided that morning. Across Europe. The police in Italy, Germany
Speaker 1: and Spain are carrying out more than fifty simultaneous raids
Speaker 1: to round up Veres's alleged accompasses. By the time the
Speaker 1: sun is up, the authorities have seized over twenty five
Speaker 1: thousand objects and fifty one people are in custody. Veres
Speaker 1: doesn't deny doing business with his co accused.
Speaker 3: I've known these people for many, many years in most cases.
Speaker 1: But he claims their business was perfectly innocent and he
Speaker 1: never led a smuggling cartel.
Speaker 3: I didn't command anybody. These people are all autonomous individuals.
Speaker 1: But there's something you should know about his co defendants.
Speaker 1: Some of them are suspected of having links with the
Speaker 1: Sicilian mafia. So Veres just a simple coin dealer from
Speaker 1: Brazen and PRX. This is the professor. I'm Simon Willis.
Speaker 1: I'm a journalist and a few years ago I was
Speaker 1: looking for stories about art crime. One day I was
Speaker 1: having lunch with a contact who worked as a private detective,
Speaker 1: and he told me that if it was art crime
Speaker 1: I was interested in, I had to meet William Veres.
Speaker 1: This guy was accused of being an international art criminal,
Speaker 1: but that was only half the story. There was also
Speaker 1: his plan to get out of trouble. Let's put it
Speaker 1: this way, it was audacious. In this show, we are
Speaker 1: going to follow Veres as he puts that plan into action.
Speaker 1: It is a journey that will take us deep into
Speaker 1: the underworld and to the dark heart of the most
Speaker 1: famous criminal organization of them all, the Sicilian mafia Causa Nostra.
Speaker 1: It's a story of drug dealers, hit men, smugglers, spies,
Speaker 1: even a corrupt prime minister. And in the middle of
Speaker 1: it all is one man's quest to save himself, how
Speaker 1: by solving the most famous cold case in the history
Speaker 1: of art crime.
Speaker 4: Episode one, The Nativity.
Speaker 1: Normal toy with a bit of milk nur. When you
Speaker 1: imagine the house of an international crook, trafficking in millions
Speaker 1: of dollars of stolen art. You might think of a
Speaker 1: luxurious penthouse, gold taps, giant TVs, a long lost Picasso
Speaker 1: hanging on the wall. That kind of thing that isn't
Speaker 1: how William Veres lives. It is March twenty nineteen, eight
Speaker 1: months after the raid. Vera's is out on bail and
Speaker 1: I'm in his living room. The place is comfortable, but shabby,
Speaker 1: the house of a middle class bohemian. There's a dirty
Speaker 1: fish tank full of colorful guppies, a worn out leather sofa,
Speaker 1: bits of wood strewn all over the floor.
Speaker 3: My son started a piano restoration. That's us mini grand
Speaker 3: over there, and your see bits of it everywhere.
Speaker 1: Verez has a taste for elegant tweed jackets and paisley
Speaker 1: silk scarves. He is portly balding and has a neatly
Speaker 1: quaffed handlebar mustache. His conversation is frequently interrupted by phone calls,
Speaker 1: which he fields in one of the nine languages he speaks,
Speaker 1: Italian come or germangen.
Speaker 3: Okay, or Turkish mehrhabah. The hebc ben Burda.
Speaker 1: Veres may be out of custody, but he's still in
Speaker 1: a cage. He is wearing an electronic tag around his ankle,
Speaker 1: lives under a curfew and isn't allowed to spend the
Speaker 1: night away from home. Several times a week he has
Speaker 1: to present himself at a police station. Meanwhile, his lawyers
Speaker 1: are fighting an extradition claim from the Italian authorities. His
Speaker 1: legal bills are mounting, but he can't pay them. His
Speaker 1: bank has blocked his accounts. They don't like doing business
Speaker 1: with suspected money launderers. Whether his career was criminal or not,
Speaker 1: it's in ruins veres reckons. The police stripped him of
Speaker 1: four hundred thousand pounds worth of possessions. He says he
Speaker 1: doesn't have anything left.
Speaker 3: I don't have many shares or pension policy, so it's
Speaker 3: my wealth, basically total wealth. The way of this type
Speaker 3: of punishment, if we look at his in the cold
Speaker 3: light of day, it is actually to ruin you.
Speaker 1: It's been a hard fall for Veras. Over the course
Speaker 1: of his career, he has had houses in Switzerland, Germany
Speaker 1: and the South of Spain, businesses in London and Zurich,
Speaker 1: clients all over the world, billionaires, politicians, even the British
Speaker 1: Museum He's been photographed at glamorous art world parties chatting
Speaker 1: to the rock star Chrissy Hind, lead singer of The Pretenders.
Speaker 1: In the world of antiquities, his expertise was in high demand,
Speaker 1: even from fellow experts.
Speaker 5: I'm Elenni Vasilica that cut my teeth at the Brooklyn Museum,
Speaker 5: and then I was keeper of ancient art in the
Speaker 5: Fitzwilliam Museum at the University of Cambridge for ten years.
Speaker 5: William is a coin nerd, very knowledgeable in history. If
Speaker 5: I needed to ask someone, I might I might actually
Speaker 5: want to ask him about a certain period or what
Speaker 5: was going on. He would know that. I've read that
Speaker 5: he's called the professor in southern Italy by dealers and
Speaker 5: traffickers because he is so knowledgeable.
Speaker 1: And now to make ends meet, Veres is trying to
Speaker 1: buy and sell a few things online.
Speaker 3: Some English pennies.
Speaker 5: Here.
Speaker 3: I bought one eBay from a German dealer, a nice
Speaker 3: penny of Henry the second. I believe that's Richard the first. Possibly, yes,
Speaker 3: that's Richard Lionheart on a bad coin.
Speaker 1: Veres was born in Hungary in nineteen fifty three. When
Speaker 1: he was three years old, his family escaped Budapest just
Speaker 1: before Soviet tanks rolled into the city to crush the
Speaker 1: revolution in nineteen fifty six. They settled in London. Veraz's father,
Speaker 1: who was a tailor, got a dream job on Savile Row.
Speaker 3: Cyril Castle, who was turned in those days Taylor to
Speaker 3: the Stars. The Castle's actually dressed James Bond in the
Speaker 3: form of Roger Moore at the time, So we got
Speaker 3: to know Roger Moore coming to my father's telief. That's
Speaker 3: what you want to call it. Those are hiss still
Speaker 3: you see Taylor Scissors.
Speaker 1: Growing up, Verez's school friends called him weird Veers, deliberately
Speaker 1: mispronouncing his foreign name. Veres was the kind of kid
Speaker 1: that bullies are drawn to, nerdy, solitary, obsessive. Already his
Speaker 1: main obsession was coins, and he remembers his first big
Speaker 1: deal to this day, nineteen sixty days.
Speaker 3: So I'm fourteen years old. Then we're looking at her
Speaker 3: receipt for a coin left at the Spinx.
Speaker 1: Spinx is an auction house then located in Mayfair, London's
Speaker 1: Poshus district. Verez is haggling with its main coin expert.
Speaker 3: You can see it's a letter from Douglas Little. On
Speaker 3: the fourteenth of November nineteen sixty eight, he writes to me,
Speaker 3: dear mister Vera's, with reference to the small penny of
Speaker 3: Elizabeth I which you left with me, I have now
Speaker 3: explored the market for this and could obtain for you
Speaker 3: and net sum of one hundred and fifty pounds. I
Speaker 3: think this is a very fair offer, because although the coins,
Speaker 3: of course excessively rare, is a very small one and
Speaker 3: also in poor condition, and therefore very much a student piece. Yours, sincerely,
Speaker 3: d Little.
Speaker 1: Stepping into the famous sale room's Sphinx, Verez rubbed shoulders
Speaker 1: with rich establishment collectors. From that moment, coins became more
Speaker 1: than just his hobby. They became his route into English society.
Speaker 1: All he needed was a steady supply of valuable antiquities
Speaker 1: to sell to those collectors, and in the nineteen seventies
Speaker 1: and nineteen eighties, that was easy, especially if you had
Speaker 1: friends in Sicily.
Speaker 3: Oh, I love it, I lovely.
Speaker 1: This is Domenica Maduno, a singer from southern Italy. He
Speaker 1: recorded this song in nineteen seventy three. It's called the
Speaker 1: Mara Terrama My bitter Land, and it's a lament for
Speaker 1: the place he's leaving behind.
Speaker 6: Y y.
Speaker 1: E goodbye, goodbye love. I leave my bitter land, bitter
Speaker 1: than beautiful. This was Sicily in the nineteen seventies. Poor, violent,
Speaker 1: riddled with crime and corruption.
Speaker 7: Here has become dominated by a more sinister kind of family,
Speaker 7: one so secret, event so ruthless, that most Sicilians spirit
Speaker 7: and publicly denied even exists.
Speaker 1: Almost every morning there was another bullet riddled body in
Speaker 1: the streets of Palermo, Sicily's capital, or slumped over the
Speaker 1: steering wheel of a car, victims of the Mafias turf wars.
Speaker 1: Since the Second World War, thousands had been leaving every
Speaker 1: year for better lives elsewhere, people like the man in
Speaker 1: the song, but where some sort of terror and desperation.
Speaker 1: Others saw opportunity because Sicily was a gold mine.
Speaker 8: Sicily was the bread basket of the ancient worlds. It
Speaker 8: was part of Magna Grecia, which was the kind of
Speaker 8: Greek diaspora, and the colonies there created an agricultural society
Speaker 8: that really fed much of the ancient world, and as
Speaker 8: a result of that wealth, they built huge monumental temples
Speaker 8: to the Greek gods and lavishly decorated these and had
Speaker 8: a populous there that was quite wealthy.
Speaker 1: That's Jason Felt, an author and investigator who published a
Speaker 1: book called Chasing Aphrodite about the illicit antiquities trade.
Speaker 8: So the grave goods in Sicily are amongst the best
Speaker 8: archaeological evidence we have of Greek society and the riches
Speaker 8: that the ancient Greek world had.
Speaker 1: But the Sicily of the nineteen seventies was very different.
Speaker 8: Yeah, you had the combination of two factors that are
Speaker 8: usually behind archaeological looting. You had a very rich archaeological
Speaker 8: history just below the surface, and at the same time,
Speaker 8: on the surface, you have political instability, unrest, poverty, a
Speaker 8: lack of government, of tension in that region because the
Speaker 8: government did not play a strong role in society, Mafia
Speaker 8: groups really dominated and organized crime communities really controlled businesses
Speaker 8: above grounds. And the combination of those two the rich
Speaker 8: archaeological sites and organized crimes dominant role in society, meant
Speaker 8: that it was a prime spot for for decades.
Speaker 1: Whereas began going to Sicily as a young dealer in
Speaker 1: the nineteen seventies, I used to go to coin fares there.
Speaker 3: Now the coin fares were somewhat different there, because, of
Speaker 3: course in Sicily you'd get more diggers.
Speaker 1: Sicily's diggers were usually poor, unemployed people armed with metal
Speaker 1: detectors and shovels and hoping to hit the jackpot statues, ceramics,
Speaker 1: gold and silver, vessels, and sometimes literally money.
Speaker 3: So there was a huge boom when the first detectors
Speaker 3: came out. You could imagine you could find hundreds of
Speaker 3: coins within the day. So it goes hand in hand
Speaker 3: unemployment lots of archaeology.
Speaker 1: If these diggers and tomb raiders struck it lucky, the
Speaker 1: art world was waiting to buy up their discoveries because
Speaker 1: in those days nobody cared whether antiquities were looted or
Speaker 1: legitimately acquired.
Speaker 6: You could do everything you wanted. Nobody was interested.
Speaker 1: This is Arthur Brand. Brand is a kind of art
Speaker 1: world celebrity, lorded in the international media for his work
Speaker 1: recovering stolen art.
Speaker 6: If a grave robber in Italy found the doom of
Speaker 6: a royal or whatever, and he found gold, silver, stuff
Speaker 6: like that, now we say this should go to a museum,
Speaker 6: but in those days a grave robber would put it
Speaker 6: up for auction. Even the biggest museums in the world
Speaker 6: bought from these grave robbers.
Speaker 1: At the time this trade was worth millions of dollars.
Speaker 1: Here's Jason Felch, the author and investigator.
Speaker 8: Again, some of the most remarkable pieces of ancient Greek
Speaker 8: art in the world came from archaeological looting in Sicily
Speaker 8: in the seventies, eighties and nineties. This would include the
Speaker 8: Getty's Aphrodite, which has dug up in Morgantina. In the
Speaker 8: late seventies. They broke this massive sculpture into three pieces
Speaker 8: and smuggled it in the back of a carrot truck
Speaker 8: from Sicily all the way up the spine of Italy
Speaker 8: to Switzerland, where it was smuggled across the border and
Speaker 8: put back together before it was sold to the Getty
Speaker 8: in nineteen eighty eight for eighteen million dollars.
Speaker 1: So how close was there is to the biggest looters
Speaker 1: in Sicily. Well, put it this.
Speaker 3: Way, Razio de Simoni was the one who smuggled out
Speaker 3: of Italy the Aphrodite of Morgantina. Arazio de Simoni, in
Speaker 3: fact was my best man at my wedding, and I
Speaker 3: had nothing to do with that. But of course the
Speaker 3: association is rather unfortunate in Sicily.
Speaker 1: Where there was money to be made, there was the mafia.
Speaker 1: Here's a Leni Vasilica, the ancient art expert.
Speaker 5: If you think of some poor Sicilian who barely speaks
Speaker 5: or cannot even speak Italian, speaks dialect, it's not possible
Speaker 5: for that person to sell something to a dealer in
Speaker 5: Mayfair or in New York without some sort of infrastructure.
Speaker 5: And the mafia provided that infrastructure. It's a kind of
Speaker 5: force that can negotiate judges, customs officers, transport agencies and
Speaker 5: hide the material or pay people off in order to
Speaker 5: get the material out of Sicily.
Speaker 1: If you were a dealer working in Sicily, you probably
Speaker 1: crossed paths with the mafia, whether you knew.
Speaker 2: It or not.
Speaker 3: In Sicily, it's impossible not to know somebody who is
Speaker 3: in the mafia, whether it's a relative, a friend of
Speaker 3: a friend. It's just like saying it's impossible not to
Speaker 3: speak English in Wales.
Speaker 1: Some of the contacts Vera's cultivated in Sicily turned out
Speaker 1: to be directly implicated in mafia activity. His biggest sale
Speaker 1: came in nineteen ninety one, when he acquired a golden
Speaker 1: bowl from the fifth century BC for ninety thousand dollars.
Speaker 1: The man he got it from was an old Sicilian friend.
Speaker 3: He was a very erudite collector. He was a landowner,
Speaker 3: well positioned in Sicilian society, and he was a very interesting,
Speaker 3: eccentric character, a typical collector, a little bit loopy.
Speaker 1: The ball was eventually sold to a billionaire in New
Speaker 1: York for one point two million dollars. Veres acted as
Speaker 1: an intermediary in the sale, and the man he bought
Speaker 1: it from, well, one day in nineteen ninety nine, Sicilian
Speaker 1: police came to his palatial house to arrest him.
Speaker 3: Well, as I say, I can't remember the exact details,
Speaker 3: but he was accused of collusion with the mafia, using
Speaker 3: mafia money to collect and make money with antiquities and coins.
Speaker 1: In the art world. Having contacts like this can ruin
Speaker 1: your reputation, but it can also make you useful. Here's
Speaker 1: Arthur Brand again.
Speaker 6: It's like a pyramid, and the bottom you have the
Speaker 6: petty thieves, the people who do illegal diggings in Italy
Speaker 6: or wherever, and at the top you have like forty
Speaker 6: men and women who control more or less to business.
Speaker 6: William knows them all from the top to the bottom.
Speaker 1: We'll be back after this shortbreak. Yeah, I will press
Speaker 1: record here now. Good Okay, So yes, Arthur, what I
Speaker 1: want to do today is just talk a bit about
Speaker 1: the Caravaggio. Arthur Brand, the art world celebrity, is the
Speaker 1: second big character in our story. He started out as
Speaker 1: a small time coin collector, but about two decades ago
Speaker 1: he began to track down stolen masterpieces Picasso's Darley's Treasures
Speaker 1: looted by the Nazis during the Second World War. He's
Speaker 1: often compared to a certain brash, swashbuckling hero.
Speaker 6: This is a man who's been referred to as the
Speaker 6: Indiana Jones of the art world.
Speaker 1: He's been dubbed the Indiana Jones of the art world.
Speaker 6: My guest today is perhaps the world's greatest art detective.
Speaker 1: Dubbed the Indiana Jones of the art world. Brand has
Speaker 1: turned this work into a small media empire and flucable days.
Speaker 1: He has his own show on Dutch TV called The
Speaker 1: Art Detective a Knowful Impact, and has written a best
Speaker 1: seller about his recoveries. Arthur Brand has become well a brand,
Speaker 1: and right now he is hoping to crack the coldest
Speaker 1: case in the history of art crime.
Speaker 6: One or two or three or four thieves entered this
Speaker 6: church in Palermo, cut off the caravacco and walked away.
Speaker 6: That's all we know.
Speaker 1: The caravadu in question is the Nativity with Saint Francis
Speaker 1: and Saint Lawrence, painted in sixteen hundred. It was stolen
Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty nine from a Sicilian church. It could
Speaker 1: be worth as much as one hundred million dollars today,
Speaker 1: making it one of the biggest deaths in our history.
Speaker 1: But for fifty years the case has thwarted investigators.
Speaker 6: Well, there are some facts and the rest is speculation.
Speaker 6: The most credible theory is that two or three or
Speaker 6: one local thief cut down the caravaccio and afterwards this
Speaker 6: group voluntarily or forced gave it or sold it to
Speaker 6: the mafia boss. That's normally the theory which is most accepted.
Speaker 6: Every criminal in towns like Palermo is somehow under protection
Speaker 6: of the mafia. You just can't go around stealing from
Speaker 6: tourists or starting your own drug transport unit or whatever
Speaker 6: without permission of the mafia.
Speaker 1: For brand, the caravaggio is the holy grail of art.
Speaker 1: Recovery is to find it, but he doesn't work alone.
Speaker 1: Over the years, he has cultivated a network of Underworld informants,
Speaker 1: people who know where stolen stuff ends up and who
Speaker 1: has the keys. That's where William Barras comes in. Brand
Speaker 1: calls him Bill. By the way.
Speaker 6: I once asked Bill, how many mobsters do you know
Speaker 6: in Sicily? He said, well, officially none because it's not
Speaker 6: like they are dressed in a uniform. But he said
Speaker 6: to me, Luke Arthur, we all know that if you
Speaker 6: go to Sicily you're on a bed and breakfast, or
Speaker 6: you go there shopping oranges, the guy could be a mobster.
Speaker 6: You know, It's so widespread there that you never know
Speaker 6: who we are dealing with. So he said, I probably
Speaker 6: know some of them without knowing that they are in
Speaker 6: the organization.
Speaker 1: But these two men need each other. Veres and his
Speaker 1: mafia contacts to find the Caravaggio, and he thinks he
Speaker 1: can help Veres in return, because Brand also has contacts
Speaker 1: with police all over Europe, including in Italy.
Speaker 6: You cannot go around as a civilian as I am
Speaker 6: in the Underworld without having some kind of permission. You
Speaker 6: have to do everything in coordination with the police forces.
Speaker 1: If Veres can make himself useful to Brand and to
Speaker 1: the Italian authorities. Maybe they can help Veres cut a
Speaker 1: deal with the Sicilian public prosecutor who has put him
Speaker 1: on trial, find the caravaggio, and stay out of jail.
Speaker 6: When I asked William to help me, I have to
Speaker 6: offer him something. They said, Look, I know you have
Speaker 6: troubles with the law. You're going to face a judge,
Speaker 6: and the judge will say, look at all the things
Speaker 6: you did wrong. Is that not anything good you did?
Speaker 6: In the meantime that you are waiting at home to
Speaker 6: face the judge, let's do something, Guje. Bad people can
Speaker 6: do good things.
Speaker 1: Verz doesn't just need Brand's help for his own sake.
Speaker 1: He has a family to support, and his family life
Speaker 1: is complicated. While I was reporting this show, one of
Speaker 1: his three sons died in a car accident. After a
Speaker 1: long struggle with mental illness, Veres cannot afford to go
Speaker 1: to prison. The caravaggio may be the only thing between
Speaker 1: him and a jail cell. It's a Friday morning in
Speaker 1: October nineteen sixty nine. Antonella Lampone is fifteen years old.
Speaker 1: She lives in Palermo, Sicily, where her mother works as
Speaker 1: a caretaker In the Oratorio di San Lorenzo, a Baroque
Speaker 1: church in the city's old center. Their tiny apartment is
Speaker 1: right across the courtyard from the church's heavy wooden door.
Speaker 1: That Friday, Antonella watches as her mother strolls across the
Speaker 1: cobbles to unlock the church and prepare it for Mass
Speaker 1: the following Sunday.
Speaker 9: And when she went in, she looked and saw that
Speaker 9: the canvas had been cut, and she came out crying.
Speaker 1: Library This is Antonella speaking to me in twenty twenty two,
Speaker 1: remembering that day more than fifty years earlier. The church
Speaker 1: had been shut all week since last Sunday's Mass, but
Speaker 1: at some point someone broke in and stole one of
Speaker 1: Italy's most valuable paintings, Caravaggio's Nativity with Saint Francis and
Speaker 1: Saint Lawrence. It was a precision job. The thieves scaled
Speaker 1: the altar to get to the painting, which hung high
Speaker 1: above it. Then they cut the canvas from the frame
Speaker 1: so perfectly that not a speck of paint was left behind.
Speaker 9: It was a night of very heavy rain with thunder.
Speaker 9: With that thunder, you couldn't hear anything. They had also
Speaker 9: stolen a carpet in the sacristy, a very large rug
Speaker 9: of no value, which had certainly been used to wrap
Speaker 9: the canvas painting.
Speaker 1: This wasn't one of those ingenious crimes where a cracked
Speaker 1: team of expert thieves outsmarts, museum guards and high tech security.
Speaker 1: It didn't have to be. The old center of Palermo
Speaker 1: had been badly bombed during the Second World War and
Speaker 1: hadn't yet been rebuilt. The place was practically abandoned. Not
Speaker 1: even the Caravaggio was protected.
Speaker 5: Temple.
Speaker 9: I know it sounds crazy. At that time, there were
Speaker 9: not even grates on the windows. It was very easy
Speaker 9: to steal it.
Speaker 2: From mult.
Speaker 1: All you had to do was forced the lock and
Speaker 1: you're in. Any old petty thief could have done that.
Speaker 1: We're going to get to the police investigation in the
Speaker 1: next episode. For now, all you need to know is
Speaker 1: that the painting has never been seen again. This was
Speaker 1: Palermo in the nineteen sixties. The mafia controlled the island.
Speaker 1: Palermo was its power center. You couldn't so much as
Speaker 1: open a coffee kiosk in the city without the Mafia
Speaker 1: knowing about it. Much less steel than multimillion dollar painting,
Speaker 1: and so suspicion inevitably began to fall on them. If
Speaker 1: there's one thing the mafia does well, it is keeping secrets,
Speaker 1: and nobody was saying anything. But then twenty years after
Speaker 1: the painting disappeared, and completely out of the blue, someone
Speaker 1: began to talk. His name was Francesco Marino Manoya, but
Speaker 1: within the mafia he was known as the Chemist. In
Speaker 1: the nineteen seventies and nineteen eighties, the Sicilian mafia controlled
Speaker 1: the international heroine trade, supplying addicts across Europe and the
Speaker 1: United States from a network of heroin refineries in Sicily.
Speaker 1: Manoya round the labs, hence the Chemist. The police also
Speaker 1: suspect that he worked as a hit man. He once
Speaker 1: said that to strangle a man is very cruel and horrifying.
Speaker 1: By comparison, dissolving the body in acid is nothing, because
Speaker 1: by then the victim has stopped suffering. But eventually the
Speaker 1: killer became the prey.
Speaker 10: The early nineteen eighties or appearance of intense violence in
Speaker 10: which literally thousands of people are murdered in and around.
Speaker 1: Sicily, This is Alexander Steeler. He is an American journalist
Speaker 1: who covered Italy and the mafia in the nineteen eighties
Speaker 1: and nineteen nineties. At that time, a new branch of
Speaker 1: the mafia from the town of Corleone began a war
Speaker 1: within Cosinostra in a bit to take control of the
Speaker 1: organization and its drug business.
Speaker 10: As part of that power drive, they began killing everybody
Speaker 10: associated with the old clans. People who were connected to
Speaker 10: the old families are on the run, hiding out and
Speaker 10: in many cases watching helplessly as their relatives are being exterminated,
Speaker 10: and this inevitably creates a kind of backlash.
Speaker 1: Manoya was one of the people who turned against the mafia,
Speaker 1: and in nineteen eighty nine he began to collaborate with
Speaker 1: the state.
Speaker 11: Annoya's Francisco Marino, Manoya's brother, disappeared, was kidnapped and probably killed,
Speaker 11: and Manoya understood that he would be next, so he
Speaker 11: essentially cooperated to save his life.
Speaker 1: Bartila Vita, This is Marizia Ortoland. He is a retired
Speaker 1: Italian cop. In the nineteen eighties, he was tasked with
Speaker 1: protecting mafiosi who returned state's evidence. Manoya's decision would have
Speaker 1: catastrophic personal consequences. In revenge for his betrayal, the mafia
Speaker 1: murdered his mother, sister and Auntquetra.
Speaker 11: At that time, the mafia followed a scorged earth policy.
Speaker 11: With any mafia members who collaborated with the state, they
Speaker 11: killed all their relatives.
Speaker 1: Come Minoya began to give evidence to Italy's leading anti
Speaker 1: mafia investigator, Giovanni Falcone. Ortolan was there to transcribe the testimony.
Speaker 1: The three men gathered in a small theater in Rome,
Speaker 1: usually used for police training. On stage were two desks
Speaker 1: illuminated by a single light bulb.
Speaker 11: Is moggd a lot? Because doctor falconees mogged a lot?
Speaker 11: Marino Manoya has mogged more than him. Eyes smoked as well.
Speaker 11: There was always a cloud of smoke on this stage.
Speaker 1: Manoya's testimony was a litany of assassinations, international drug trafficking
Speaker 1: and extortion. He himself was responsible for over twenty murders.
Speaker 1: But that day, in nineteen eighty nine, he was talking
Speaker 1: about how he joined Cosenostra in the first place. It
Speaker 1: was all because he stole a painting.
Speaker 2: He Manoya Racnto Monoya recounted, when he was still a boy,
Speaker 2: not even eighteen years old, some of your guys started
Speaker 2: inviting him along to commit petty theft or small criminal episodes.
Speaker 11: One of these times that they took him with them.
Speaker 11: He told me that he participated in the theft of
Speaker 11: the Caravajia nativity. It was one of the first things
Speaker 11: he did.
Speaker 1: John del remu to Manoya at the Caravaggio wasn't all
Speaker 1: that important and it was just something he took to
Speaker 1: prove himself to local bosses.
Speaker 2: See Luira, Kontoke and Arno.
Speaker 11: And he said that they went to this place called
Speaker 11: the Oratory of San Lorenzo. They got in very easily
Speaker 11: because there were no locks on the windows, and they
Speaker 11: cut the painting, leaving the frame in place. Then they
Speaker 11: rolled the painting and loaded it on a track that
Speaker 11: they had brought to take it away.
Speaker 2: Soon Camion cadover per Portaloya.
Speaker 1: Finally, after twenty years of silence about the theft of
Speaker 1: Caravajo's nativity, here was confirmation that the mafia had taken it.
Speaker 1: The question is do they still have it. It's twenty
Speaker 1: twenty one. Veras and Brand are in a back room
Speaker 1: of an Amsterdam hotel. Behind the lobby, Brand has arranged
Speaker 1: a meeting.
Speaker 6: I informed the Dutch police and I said, look, the
Speaker 6: Caroaco I'm going after it, and then I asked them.
Speaker 6: Police informed the Italians that I am trying to recover
Speaker 6: their piece.
Speaker 1: Today, three Italian agents are here to meet with Brand
Speaker 1: and Veras. They are from Italy's Anti Mafia Investigative Directorate,
Speaker 1: the DIA.
Speaker 3: Two male agents I've calculated there late thirties early forties,
Speaker 3: and a woman who was supposedly the second in command
Speaker 3: of the organization.
Speaker 1: The DIA oversees mafia investigations. It also tries to seize
Speaker 1: mafia assets, assets like priceless stolen paintings.
Speaker 6: The police, the Caramanieri and other police groups. Of course,
Speaker 6: they know that the mafia.
Speaker 1: Is involved, but the trouble is getting current members of
Speaker 1: the mafia to admit that or to give up information
Speaker 1: about the painting might be. And that's why Veras and
Speaker 1: Brand are at the hotel in Amsterdam. They are going
Speaker 1: to offer to help obtain information, and if Brand and
Speaker 1: Veras are successful, the Italians agree to talk to the
Speaker 1: public prosecutor in Sicily to help Veras in his own case.
Speaker 3: If I managed to recover something, they would speak to
Speaker 3: the prosecutors.
Speaker 1: The Italian police are used to doing this kind of deal,
Speaker 1: offering favors in exchange for information has been the key
Speaker 1: to cracking down on organized crime for decades. Members of
Speaker 1: the mafia who collaborated with prosecutors were often given lighter sentences,
Speaker 1: some avoided jail completely. So here's Vera's plan. He is
Speaker 1: going to reach out to contacts in the underworld to
Speaker 1: see whether he can shed light on a case that
Speaker 1: has eluded the Italian authorities.
Speaker 3: You find it simply by using human resources, by speaking
Speaker 3: to people who have a chance to speak to people
Speaker 3: who you or they suspect know something about the case.
Speaker 3: You have to get to mafia sources or people, and
Speaker 3: then of course at some state, somebody within the mafia
Speaker 3: will be making a decision or how to give it back,
Speaker 3: under what terms to give it back.
Speaker 6: Sometimes when you put somebody in the middle like me
Speaker 6: who knows friends or friends or friends, sometimes it does
Speaker 6: work out. So that's one of the reasons why I
Speaker 6: think they'll let me do what I do. And the
Speaker 6: most important thing is Bill is willing to help for
Speaker 6: whatever motive.
Speaker 1: Now is the perfect time. Verez's lawyers have successfully fought
Speaker 1: against his extradition, and a British judge has agreed to
Speaker 1: lighten his bail conditions. Meanwhile, his case is stuck in
Speaker 1: a COVID related backlog in the Sicilian courts.
Speaker 3: If you can recover the caravad Joe, it would obviously
Speaker 3: make a great deal of difference.
Speaker 1: The delay gives him a window of opportunity and he
Speaker 1: knows it exactly where to start next time.
Speaker 6: On the Professor, it wouldn't surprise me that some informants said, look,
Speaker 6: this is the person with Carvacco and if they turned
Speaker 6: out to be a very close friends to Berlusconi, well.
Speaker 2: What do you think.
Speaker 1: This has been? The Professor with me, Simon Willis. This
Speaker 1: podcast is written and co created by me. The show
Speaker 1: is produced by Brazen in partnership with PRX Rubini. Bamashaker
Speaker 1: is managing producer. Susie Armitage is our story editor, and
Speaker 1: Lucy Woods is our associate producer and fact checker. Mixing
Speaker 1: and sound designed by Claire Urbarne. Executive producers for Brazen
Speaker 1: are Bradley Hope and Tom Wright. At Brazen, Mariannel Gonzalez
Speaker 1: is our project manager, Meghan Dean is our network manager.
Speaker 1: Francesca Gilardi Quadrio Curzio is Italian research assistant and podcast
Speaker 1: strategist arn Avbinikia and nor Abdel Latif are as stant strategists.
Speaker 1: Ryan Hoe is the series creative director. Cover art designed
Speaker 1: by Julian Pradier. Our interpreters are Daria Bocchetti and Lawrence Moggridge.
Speaker 1: Voiceover translation from Denise Morino and Tomaso Tollun. For more
Speaker 1: information on this podcast and other podcasts from Brazen, go
Speaker 1: to our website Brazen dot fm
Speaker 4: St