It’s the 7th of August 2019 and a bullet is shot in one of Rome’s finest parks. The bullet hit Fabrizio Piscitelli, the hooligan leader of Lazio’s football team. But Piscitelli was much, much more than that just a supporter. In Mantova's Piazza Castello, Francesca Fagnani, journalist, and Gigi Riva, writer, discuss Rome's crime situation with the criminologist Luigi Caracciolo. Fagnani, with her latest book Mala. Roma Criminale (Mob: Criminal Rome) investigates the dense net of criminal associations in the city. Riva, with his Ingordigia (Greed), tells the story of Massimo Bochiccio, a broker who was able to defraud several Italian VIPs. The two authors tell two sides of the same story, the criminal world that flows in the streets of the Eternal City.

Fagnani explains how after the death of Piscitelli, the judiciary of Rome discovered his links with the most important groups engaged in the city's drug trade. The web of drug cartels, says the journalist, reach from their headquarters in the suburban neighbourhoods to the pulsing centre of the city. There, they bond with Rome’s wealthiest aristocrats like Massimo Costacurta, says Fagnani, a rich North Rome man. He had two passions: playing polo and killing people. He may sound like a character from Narcos, she adds, but he is not.

From the underworld to ground zero. Riva describes Bochiccio as a skilled crook, able to convince rich Italian VIPs he could make them even richer. He acted on the most glamorous rooftops of Rome, Milan, London, using his charm and his affable personality convince people to part with their money . His most peculiar trait, Riva says, was his greed, his willingness to make money using money.

Although Rome’s criminal scene is wide and multi-faceted, and thus difficult to contrast, the authors share a common view: to fight the evil you first need to know it. How to do so? The two books have interesting answers.