Our Authors

Pompeo Micheli is a retired Lieutenant Special Charge of the Carabinieri Command for the Protection of Cultural Heritage (TPC). Over a nearly 40-year career, he coordinated major national and international investigations against art trafficking, earning the Bronze Medal for Merit in Culture and Art in 2006.

He is the author of The Barefoot Gang. The Theft at Rome’s Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna (2026), an insider account of the infamous 1998 heist where two Van Goghs and a Cézanne were stolen. Having led the field investigation, Micheli reconstructs the operations that brought the masterpieces back undamaged in just 48 days. Today, he writes and lectures on museum security, cultural heritage protection, and legality.