The complexity and dangerousness of the current economic sit- uation, especially concerning its transnational dimensions and links with illegal markets – strongly accentuated by globalization – require a specific contrast strategy based on economic policy options, financial analyzes, supranational collaborations, intelligence activity. It is much more than traditional police operations. For these reasons, intelligence activities will take a strategic geopolitical role.

From a multidisciplinary and financial intelligence perspective, it is necessary to combine the competencies of economists – real experts of the background of unconventional crimes – with those of criminologists, sociologists, victimologists, and investigators.

Compared to the United State’s solid experience and the theories of Gary Becker and James Buchanan, an integrated Italian approach has developed recently, characterized by some analytical and organizational backwardness. However, it deserves to be remembered that in Italy, over a century ago, sociologists, economists, and criminologists collaborated to investigate serious financial crimes.

This paper intends to recall shortly the pioneering experience related to the financial scandals linked to the so-called “Bank of Rome affair”, which shook the political and financial establishment and the entire Italian society between 1892 and 1894.

In the wake of that remote experience, a specific culture has developed, relating to the underworld in the economy, which is a pride of Italian history.

Di Pierpaolo Martucci