Last week, investigators announced a probe into suspected Mafia involvement in Pompeii restoration works undertaken as part of a €105 million ($160 million) project funded by the Italian Government and the European Union after decades of "neglect and mismanagement" at the site.
The Unesco World Heritage site certainly needs careful restoration - and lots of money to pay for it. The €105 million was intended for a high-tech, underground drainage system, complete with scanners to detect problem areas (many recent collapses have been blamed on heavy rainfall) as well as the restoration and reopening of important parts of the site.
In 1956 64 individual structures in Pompeii were open to the public; today no more than five are accessible at any one time.
The two-year project began in February, six months behind schedule. It seemed like the end of the neglect, or at least the beginning of new era.
But even as the restorers were readying their tools, police were arresting the head of one restoration contractor previously involved at the site and probing the activities of four senior officials suspected of paying inflated prices for restoration work.
The bill for one contract, originally priced at less than €500,000 ($765,000), rose mysteriously to €5 million ($7.65 million). With cost inflation of that magnitude, even the EU largesse wouldn't go very far.
The contractor placed under house arrest in February was Annamaria Caccavo, the owner of a restoration company that was awarded contracts worth €8 million for work on Pompeii's Teatro Grande.
Engineers employed for the job had already been blacklisted from their profession, and materials of suspect quality were used in the building's reconstruction.
One of the officials under investigation for suspected abuse of office was Marcello Fiori, the special commissioner appointed by Rome to oversee the "state of emergency" repair work at Pompeii from August 2008 to July 2010.
But the buck does not stop with a few managers accused of lining their own pockets. Something more worrying lurks in the shadows - the Camorra mafia. Just 24km away lies Naples, the crime group's home base, where it has a hand in everything from drugs to construction projects and rubbish collection. Over the past year, tit-for-tat murders have raised fears that one of Italy's bloodiest mob turf wars - played out in the crime-plagued southern port in 2004 and 2005 when more than 60 people were killed - is flaring up again.
Ministers are putting a brave face on things. Last month in an interview with the in-house publication of the national police force, Interior Minister Anna Maria Cancellieri, said: "We have had excellent results by implementing protocols that reinforce security and development of important projects. We've done it for Expo [the World's Fair due in Milan in 2015], for the site of Pompeii and for the post-earthquake reconstruction of Emilia Romagna."
But as recently as last week, reports suggested Expo was months behind schedule and continuing to bleed vast amounts of public money. And questions remain over how to ensure that public money intended for Pompeii and its treasures go where they are intended.
Underlining these concerns, a small army of carabinieri officers, finance police and officials led by the head of the Naples prefecture anti-mafia unit, Mariolina Goglia, marched into the Pompeii site last week in the hunt for evidence of Camorra activity.
The investigators checked documents, restoration activities and the identity of all the workers present for signs of organised crime. The results of the checks have not been announced but some observers noted that dispatching uniformed carabinieri appeared more like a PR stunt that meaningful sleuthing.
Campaigners in Naples and the surrounding region have little doubt what investigators will find if they scratch the surface.
"With such large amounts of money on offer, there's no question that the Camorra, as the local mafia organisation, will be seeking to profit," said Fabio Giuliani, the Naples spokesman for the anti-mafia group Libera.
But Shirin Wheeler, spokeswoman for EU Regional Affairs Commissioner Johannes Hahn, who is leading the European Commission's efforts to save Pompeii, told the Independent she was confident the mob would not get its hands on the money.
"We think there is [a] very strong anti-mafia infiltration system," she said. "We've concentrated on this aspect of the project because the area is, unfortunately, infected by the Camorra. But our system will be effective because a special prefect, Fernando Guido, sent from Rome - not hired locally - will be there from start to finish to ensure security and, in particular, public procurement."
But wasn't the former special commissioner Marcello Fiori - who is now under investigation - also appointed by Rome?
"The new prefect, Mr Guido, will be closely watched by three Italian ministries - Culture, Interior and Regional Development - and the EC, all of which have invested their credibility in the project," Wheeler said.
Some observers say concerns over corruption and organised crime should not distract from the Italian state's failure to look after its peerless cultural patrimony. The president of the Observatory for Cultural Heritage campaign group, Antonio Irlando, is among them.
"Is the Camorra the cause of all the problems and collapses at Pompeii? Some of them, maybe. But certainly not all of them," he said.
"Loving daily maintenance" - which the authorities had conspicuously failed to provide for many decades - was the solution, he said.
Similar neglect can be seen at the Colosseum in Rome, where chunks of the building have fallen off in recent years, and the Domus Aurea, Nero's fabled Golden Palace, a large area of which collapsed in 2010.
There is general agreement that the generous EU grant and the money it coaxed out of Italian coffers will - if applied properly - help save Pompeii for future generations.
The EU's Hahn has said he hopes the project will be adopted as a model for saving other important sites.
"Pompeii is a site which is important to the world," he said. "The work we have started there is ground-breaking both in terms of restoration technology and in crime prevention."
- Independent
