Who is Francesco Gulino? After in 2007 the journalist Hristo Hristov condemned the National Intelligence Service (NRS), now called the State Intelligence Agency (DAR), for accessing his file, the world learned that the Italian with a Danish passport, Francesco Gulino, had been a “Piccadilly agent” of Parvo since 1971 Main Directorate (PGU) of the DS, responsible for foreign espionage. To this day, he remains the prime suspect for “the murder with the Bulgarian umbrella” of Georgi Markov. But who was this man? A new Danish documentary by journalist Ulrik Skote reveals incredible details about the Italian’s life. It is clear from it that even the DS did not know its “agent Piccadilly” at all.
In 1970, the militia in Bulgaria arrested Gulino for smuggling and illegal trade. Gulino imported second-hand cars into the country and sold them for parts. Shortly after, he was recruited by the DS under the code name “Piccadilly”. His agency bosses were of the opinion that he had “the mentality of a small-time crook involved in minor high-risk, low-reward affairs.” But training in the DS, according to his leading officers, strengthened his “progressive thinking” and his “criticism of capitalism”. Gulino is said to have called the DS officers “my only friends”. Like many other things in Gulino’s life, this was a complete fabrication, on which State security however, she caught herself.
Fascist and twin agent?
The producer of the film, Ulrik Scotte, told DV that there is information from high-ranking Italian sources, according to which Gulino did not accidentally end up in Bulgaria in the 1970s, but had connections with the Italian secret services. According to Scotte, however, this trail has not yet been fully investigated, as has evidence that the Mondial import-export company, where Gulino worked as a truck driver, traveling between Italy and Turkey in the 1960s , was close to the Turkish extremist organization “Grey Wolves”. Both of these things should have been of great interest to DS.
State security however, it completely omits the fact that Gulino was a staunch fascist. He owned a personal copy of Hitler’s “My Struggle” as well as a calendar with pictures of Mussolini and other fetishes. Gulino’s repulsive character is also evidenced by his pornographic photos with prostitutes, whom he made to pose in Nazi uniforms and with flags. In Copenhagen, Gulino even rented a photo studio posing as a model agent in order to take pornographic photos and use sexual services. His relationship with a Danish prostitute even made Gulino a suspect in a murder case. And the alibi, with the help of which he gets out of the affair, turns out to be completely false.
Why does Piccadilly get away with it?
In early 1993, Gulino was questioned by the Danish secret service PET and Scotland Yard. In the meantime, the investigators have received remnants of Piccadilly’s purged file and are questioning him about the murder of Georgi Markov. Gulino got away with silence, understatement, avoiding questions or asking counter-questions. He learned some of these tricks during his agent training from the Bulgarian DS in the 1970s.
Gulino declared the “Piccadilly” file to be fake. He claimed that he had never seen the forged passports containing his photo. He admitted that in 1978 he was indeed in London, but neither knew Markov nor had anything to do with his murder. Already the same year, the investigators were forced to release him because they found no evidence of his participation in the murder of Georgi Markov. But, as the film’s producer Scotte says, that’s only half the truth.
There are many reasons to believe that Gulino made confessions to the Danish secret service PET and gave them important information. Exactly what they were is still being explored by Scotte. In return, Gulino was given the opportunity to live undisturbed in Austria and receive his Danish pension quite officially, through the consulate.
But where does the new information available to Danish journalists come from? The key figure was Franco Invernizzi, a journalist and friend of Gulino’s in Copenhagen. After Gulino was interrogated for the murder of Georgi Markov in 1993, the very next day he appeared excitedly at the door of Invernitsi. In the following months, Gulino moved in with his friend and told him the story of his life. He also gave him documents, notebooks, photos – supposedly because of the film that Invernitsi was going to make about him and about “the true story of Markov’s murder”.
Six months later, Gulino suddenly left Denmark. Invernici’s widow appears in the film, and Gulino’s belongings passed down to her late husband form the basis of the new film. In 2021, Scotte’s team personally interviewed Gulino in Austria.
Gulino, the perfect agent
So who is Francesco Gulino? Sexually deviant fascist, art dealer, secret agent, murder suspect, pathological liar. Gulino was obviously a real chameleon, he managed to make friends everywhere. It had a story to appeal to everyone and an answer to every question, no matter how difficult. The Danish documentary shows in an impressive way that the real face of Francesco Gulino can hardly be discovered among the stories, versions, half-truths and lies accumulated over decades. Or maybe he didn’t even exist at all?
Gulino, as Markov’s biographer Dimitar Kenarov says, was above all one thing: a real chameleon. And just born to be a secret agent. Gulino died alone in the summer of 2021. His body was found a week after his death, cremated and buried anonymously. Just before his death, he called the Danish TV crew again, says Skote. But there was only a soft wheeze on the other end of the line.
