50 Years
Tomponzi Investigations was founded by Tomponzi 50 years ago, in 1948. At a time when Italy was slowly rising again. There was a feeling of wellbeing and Tomponzi (one of the first to obtain prefectorial authorization to work as a detective) took advantage of the economic boom of the fifties to open his agency. His name became very famous in 1956 due to the 'Terrazzano' case. Two psychopaths, the Santato brothers, entered the Terrazzano primary school, a few kilometers from Milan, kidnapping several students and three teachers, threatening their lives. The police surrounded the building for hours to no avail. Then Tomponzi armed with only a ladder and his bare hands entered the school neutralizing the two bandits. His first "case" though, that helped to put him on the headlines of the news was in 1949. Someone was making a living counterfeiting, not money as one may think, but bullion cubes. Tom uncovered the mystery by personally tracking the truck that delivered the counterfeit bullion cubes to the stores. Which led to his excellent reputation in all fields, investigation and others, demonstrating his great qualities as a detective. Qualities that he used yet again to solve another case of counterfeit, this time medicinal. In those years, other than his usual important activities Tomponzi accepted other types of cases. One case in particular was a case of private investigation. A case concerning the Aga Khan, the grandfather of today's Aga Khan Karim, who did not believe his fourth wife was being faithful to him, he hired Tomponzi to find out who she frequented. After 23 days of surveillance, he went to the Negresco Hotel in Nice bringing to the Aga Khan what he thought to be good news: Begun, Miss. France in 1930, was a faithful and devoted wife. The leader of the Islamists was not pleased with the results of the investigation in which he had invested a considerable amount of money and communicated his displeasure to the investigator. Ponzi, not being the type of man to be easily discouraged replied: "If you wanted to be labeled as cuckold, all you had to do was ask". The Aga Khan broke into laughter and invited him to dinner ending any further arguments. This investigation for the richest man in the world was the final stepping stone to success for Tomponzi and his agency. Another renowned client, in 1972, was Senator Vittorio Cini who had created a foundation in his son Giorgio's name, this case was a lot more dramatic than an infidelity. It was concerning a letter signed "The Maffia" in which they threatened to kidnap the senators little niece if he did not pay a sum of 300 million lire. Tom discovered that several phrases in the letter were taken from a book, a thriller, which led him to the identity of the blackmailer: not the Mafia, an electrician that had worked in the Cini house. That was the period when his daughter Miriam began to work with the agency, which at a later time she directed, first the Lugano branch and eventually the Rome one. If it was their incredible intuition that brought the Ponzi Investigations to great accomplishments, deign students of the great teacher Tom, it was also due to their enormous steps towards an understanding of the techniques and an expertise of the newest instruments on the market, that radically changed detective work. Tom followed closely by his daughter, always gave great importance to the technological evolutions. Which allowed the agency to specialize in telephone reclamation, environmental reclamation, data protection and industrial counter-espionage.