Fabrizio Calvi

This biography of a living person needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. Find sources:  –  ·  ·  · scholar · JSTOR (March 2016) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)

Calvi in 2019

Fabrizio Calvi^[1] (born 27 May 1954 in Alexandria, Egypt) is an Investigative journalist who specializes in cases involving organized crime and the secret services, Fabrizio Calvi has been working as a writer, a journalist and has been the author of several films since he started in 1972. He is most notably the author of more than twenty books and of more than forty films, including Série Noire au Credit Lyonnais (now known as LCL), Elf, une Afrique sous influence, l’Orchestre Noir and FBI « les routes de la terreur 911 » which were broadcast by Arte.

Career[]

Calvi was involved in the birth of the newspaper Libération, where he specialized in foreign policy. From 1976, he covered social movements and terrorist groups in Italy. By the late 1970s, he followed the Mafia wars in Sicily and witnessed the birth of the anti-Mafia pool of the court of Palermo. From his many visits to Sicily, he wrote two bestsellers, La Vie Quotidienne de la Mafia and L’Europe des Parrains, both of which have been translated into ten languages, and a dozen documentary films such as La Parade des Saigneurs and Familles Macabres.

In 1979, he also handled major investigations for Liberation. He signed one of the first investigations on the Islamist atomic bomb with a BBC team that then made a film and a book entitled The Islamic Bomb. He also published revelations about the role played by France in a vast traffic of uranium from Namibia which was in direct violation of a UN resolution.

In 1981, Calvi published his first major paper at Grasset "Camarade P.38" which focuses entirely on the blood trail of a gang of young killers of journalists in Milan during its "années de plomb". This book, the fruit of his Milanese years, is probably one of his more personal books. He was crowned in 2009 by a special mention at the Cesco Tomaselli Prize in Italy.

From 1983 to 1984, he was the editor in chief in charge of major investigations and cases at the Matin de Paris. He published, among other documents, revelations about arms trafficking and drug use in the Balkans (investigation taken up by the daily La Republica that led to a documentary played on Antenne 2). After leaving the Matin de Paris, he published two books on the secret services, including the OSS la guerre secrète en France pendant la seconde guerre mondiale, book based on the comparison of records declassified by the CIA, on the unpublished testimonies of former French, English or American OSS agents and on the testimonies of the German secret agents responsible for tracking them (Abwehr).

Calvi has since then been pursuing a dual activity as a book writer of "non-fiction" books and an author of documentary films.

Fabrizio Calvi interviewed judge Paolo Borsellino on 21 may 1992, two day before the Capaci massacre

As part of a film that to date has not been released, on the relationship between the Mafia and the Italian media magnate Silvio Berlusconi, he made an interview with the judge Paolo Borsellino that today is seen as a landmark. Two months after this interview, Paolo Borsellino was killed by the Mafia. Made public by the weekly L'Espresso in 1994 on the eve of the first election victory of Silvio Berlusconi, the transcript of the interview provoked strong reactions in Italy. Since 2000, a pirated version of a rudimentary editing of this interview has been broadcast by RAI and circulates on the Internet (where it has been seen by over six hundred thousand users). The full version of this exceptional document was released in Italy in December 2009 on DVD by the newspaper Il fatto quotidiano.

His participation in nine films on the secret services during World War II allowed Calvi to work with Igor Barrere and Pierre Desgraupes. His collaboration with Jean-Michel Meurice led to a dozen of films about the Mafia, a series on the Credit Lyonnais scandal, Série noire au Crédit Lyonnais, and another series on the Elf affair including the widely acclaimed movie Elf une Afrique sous influence. His investigation on black terrorism in Europe during the Cold War led to two films, including L'orchestre noir which was broadcast by Arte and the Italian RAI.

His knowledge of American archives led him to revisit some of the darkest chapters of World War II. He published and co-directs Pacte avec le Diable, book and movie devoted to American intelligence and the Holocaust. Written with Marc Mazurovsky from the Holocaust Museum in Washington, Le Festin du Reich draws an inventory of the ruthless economic pillage of France by the Germans.^[2]

Between 2007 and 2010, he worked on a vast fresco of the FBI. This work resulted in a book published by Fayard in late January 2010 and in five films released by France 5. His latest work focuses on the actions that led to the terrible events of September 11, 2001. A book, 11 Septembre, la Contre-enquête^[3][4] and two films, Les Routes de la Terreur, aired on Arte in September 2011.

Since 2013 he works with SEPT.info, magazine and website based in Switzerland. SEPT.info is one of the few media to publish very long surveys. The freedom of tone, the curiosity of his team, his openness to new media and experiments have reinforced this choice. His first series was his 1992 investigation of Berlusconi's relationship with the mafia. Other topics covered for SEPT.info included lengthy behind-the-scenes investigations of the September 11’s attacks, Snowden before Snowden (3 long formats), Switzerland's Spy Nest (11 episodes), The Mystery Jimmy Hoffa (three articles) ); FBI against Martin Luther King, The FBI's secret war against Hackers, The mafia against journalists in Italy, The plunder of Charlie Hebdo and the mental illness in Bali.

Bibliography[]

• Italie 77, Le Seuil, 1977
• La Vie Quotidienne de la mafia, Hachette, 1986
• Intelligences secrètes annales de l'espionnage (with Olivier Schmidt), 1988
• OSS, la guerre secrète en France, Hachette, 1990
• 20 ans de police politique, (with Jacques Harstrich), Calmann-Lévy, 1991
• L’Europe des Parrains, Grasset, 1993 RG
• Les nouveaux réseaux de la corruption (with Leo Sisti), Albin Michel, 1995
• Piazza Fontana (with Frederic Laurent) Mondadori, Milan, 1997
• L’Œil de Washington (with Thierry Pfister), Albin Michel, 1997
• Série noire au Crédit Lyonnais, (with Jean-Michel Meurice), Albin Michel, 1999
• Le repas des fauves (with Thierry Pfister), Albin Michel, 2000
• France - États-Unis, cinquante ans de coups tordus, (with Frederic Laurent), Albin Michel, 2004
• Pacte avec le diable, les États-Unis, la Shoah et les nazis, Albin Michel, 2005
• Le festin du Reich, le pillage de la France (1940-1944), (with Marc J Masurovsky) Fayard, 2006
• Camarade P 38, Grasset, 1982. (Special mention for Prix Cesco Tomaselli, 2009).
• FBI : L'histoire du bureau par ses agents, (with collaboration of David Carr-Brown) Fayard, 2010 ISBN 978-2213638690.
• 11 Septembre, la Contre-enquête, Fayard 2011.
• Un Parrain à la Maison Blanche, Albin Michel, 2020.

Filmography[]

• 1982: Le terrorisme, with Michel Honorin (documentary), TF1
• 1983: La filière bulgare, (documentary 15 min)
• 1987: L'armée rouge, Taxi VI press (documentary)
• 1989: Les dissidents des brigades rouges (documentary).
• 1988: Portrait d'une ville : Milan (documentary)
• 1991: L'homme qui voulait s'offrir Hollywood de Jean-Pierre Moscardo (documentary 52 min)
• 1994: Les secrets de la guerre secrète, (documentary 9 x 90 min), France 2 et France 3
• 1994: La parade des saigneurs, with Jean-Michel Meurice (documentary), ARTE
• 1995: Familles macabres, with Jean-Michel Meurice (documentary 90 min), ARTE
• 1996: La justice en Europe (documentary)
• 1996: Autopsie d'un massacre, with Jean-Michel Meurice (documentary 90 min), ARTE
• 1997: Dernières nouvelles de la Mafia, with Jean-Michel Meurice (documentary 40 min), ARTE
• 1998: Terrorisme en Italie Part 1 : Piazza Fontana, l'histoire d'une machination' - Part 2: La stratégie de la tension), with Jean-Michel Meurice (documentary), ARTE & RAI 20
• 1999: Série noire au Crédit Lyonnais (Arnaque à Hollywood, Des trous dans le béton, Jeunes loups et grands fauves, La peur au ventre, L'heure des comptes, Sauve qui peut), with Jean-Michel Meurice (documentary), ARTE (Lauriers de la radio et de la télévision, Club audiovisuel de Paris)
• 2000: ELF : une Afrique sous influence, with Jean-Michel Meurice (documentaire 2h16), ARTE (prix de l'enquête documentaire au festival international du scoop et du journalisme d'Angers - France 2000)
• 2000: ELF : les chasses au trésor, with Jean-Michel Meurice, (documentary 87 min), ARTE
• 2001: La prise du pouvoir par François Mitterrand, (documentary 90 min), ARTE
• 2002: Comment ça va la santé publique? (documentary 3 x 52 min), ARTE
• 2005: Pacte avec le diable, (documentary 52 min) with Steeve Bauman, Canal +
• 2007: L'affaire Octogone, with Jean-Michel Meurice & Frank Garbely (documentary), ARTE
• 2010: Série FBI (Copyright FBI, Un cauchemar américain, FBI contre Mafia, sur le fil du rasoir, American psycho, La menace terroriste), with David Carr-Brown, (documentaire 52 min), France5
• 2011: Les routes de la terreur 1993-2001 : Le compte à rebours, (documentary 52 min), Arte.
• 2011: Les routes de la terreur 1979-1993 : Ils étaient du côté des anges, (documentary 52 min), Arte. (les étoiles de la SCAM)
• 2012: Noire Finance, (documentary 2 x 52 min), Arte.

References[]

External links[]

• Official website
• Articles on Sept.info (in French)

Fabrizio Calvi at IMDb