Calisto Tanzi

Italian fraudster (1938–2022)

Calisto Tanzi (17 November 1938 – 1 January 2022) was an Italian businessman and convicted fraudster. He founded Parmalat in 1961, after dropping out of college. Parmalat collapsed in 2003 with a €14bn ($20bn; £13bn) hole in its accounts in what remains Europe's biggest bankruptcy. Although sentenced to up to 18 years in prison, Tanzi served just over two years in jail and then was placed under house arrest.

In December 2008, Tanzi was convicted by a Milan court and sentenced to 10 years in prison for fraud. Tanzi appealed the sentence but the appeals court upheld it in May 2010. The Corte di Cassazione reduced it to eight years and one month, after which Tanzi was imprisoned on 5 May 2011.

On 9 December 2010, a court in Parma found Tanzi guilty of fraudulent bankruptcy and criminal association and sentenced him to 18 years in prison. Tanzi appealed the sentence and the appeal trial started in December 2011 in Bologna.

On 20 December 2011, Tanzi was sentenced to a further nine years and two months for the Parmatour bankruptcy.

Tanzi was fined €10,000 and given a six month ban from football for false accounting of Parma A. C. in 2002–03 season.

In 2001, according to Forbes, he was listed as a billionaire with a net worth of roughly $1.3 billion. In December 2009 the Italian authorities announced that they had seized nineteen works of art belonging to Tanzi which had been concealed at the houses of his friends. The works of art were said to be worth more than €100 million and included paintings and drawings by Picasso, Monet, and van Gogh. Tanzi had denied owning any hidden works of art. Parma Prosecutor Gerardo Laguardia, said that officials had acted quickly to seize the pictures after discovering that they had been offered for sale. The authorities said that Stefano Strini, Tanzi's son in law, was being investigated for allegedly handling the artwork. On 29 October 2019, Tanzi's art collection was auctioned off in Milan. “Rediscovered Treasures: Impressionists and Modern Masterpieces from a Private Collection” included artworks by such artists as Balla, Gauguin, Cézanne, Kandinsky, Matisse, Modigliani, and van Gogh.

Tanzi was appointed Cavaliere del Lavoro in 1984 and Cavaliere di Gran Croce Ordine al Merito della Repubblica Italiana in 1999. Both honours, however, were withdrawn on grounds of 'indignity' in the wake of the Parmalat affair — yet before the final bankruptcy conviction — by President Giorgio Napolitano.

Tanzi died of pneumonia in a Parma hospital on the New Year's Day of 2022, at the age of 83.