Thirty years later, Italy is still searching for the remains of an anti-mafia judge beneath the House of Jazz

RomeIn the early hours of July 2, 1994, Italian judge Paolo Adinolfi said goodbye to his wife and two children with a "I'll be back later, see you for lunch" and left home. That midday, no one sat down at the table. The 52-year-old judge parked his BMW in front of the Church of San Valentino in northern Rome and disappeared without a trace. Since then, his family has not heard from him again. Thirty-one years later, Italian police are searching for his remains in the basement of the former mansion of Enrico Nicoletti, considered the "treasurer" of the "Banda della Magliana," a now-defunct mafia that took hold in Rome between the 1970s and 1980s. Forensic and canine units have been excavating the cellars of this residence, now the Casa del Jazz, a well-known concert hall, for days. The mansion, surrounded by a garden of over 25,000 square meters and near the Baths of Caracalla, had been seized from the Mafia. A week after excavations began eight months ago, investigators discovered a 500-meter underground tunnel and a hidden shaft beneath the current recording studio, equipped with ground-penetrating radar, thanks to the identification of an access door to the tunnel. According to several local media outlets, two underground chambers were identified during the investigation in an area adjacent to the house. However, Italian authorities are maintaining absolute secrecy. The reopening of the case comes after a complaint filed with the Public Prosecutor's Office by former judge Guglielmo Muntoni, who has never stopped searching for clues about Adinolfi's disappearance. "We will not stop until we get to the bottom of this and clear the tunnel," Muntoni declared this week. The former magistrate had suspected for 29 years that Adinolfi's body might be found beneath the House of Jazz.

The mafia may be behind his disappearance

At one point, it was thought that Adinolfi might have left voluntarily, but his family never believed it. Over the years, several hypotheses have been put forward about his fate, one of them related to the sensitive legal cases the judge was investigating, including some concerning the bankruptcy of companies that might have links to the Roman mafia, such as Fiscom, which had connections to some figures in organized crime. Paolo Adinolfi began his career in Milan, where he became famous for his firmness, and in the mid-1980s he returned to the Italian capital to work in the bankruptcy section of the Rome Court, which handled litigation related to corporate crises. Twenty days before his disappearance, Adinolfi had been transferred to the Court of Appeals and shortly afterward called a colleague in Milan, the prosecutor Carlo Nocerino. He wanted to meet with her to give her information about the bankruptcy of the insurance company Ambra. Nocerino, who was leading that investigation, had ordered the arrest of several people, including Enrico Nicoletti. They never met. Nicoletti served several sentences and died in 2020 in Rome at the age of 84.

This is not the first time the House of Jazz has been excavated. In 1996, a Sicilian businessman arrested in connection with a criminal operation revealed that Adinolfi had been murdered "by men from the Banda della Magliana" because he was about to reveal important information to prosecutor Nocerino. He also pointed to the Roman mansion of ATM of the criminal organization as the place where his remains might be found. The Perugia prosecutor's office, in charge of cases involving Roman magistrates, reopened the investigation, but the case was closed shortly afterward.