In a story “Life is short, etc.“, from Italian Veronica RaimoOne of the characters remembers that in the 1990s someone used to say about the police: “(…) strikes during the day; Bianca is one At night.” along with “Bianca is one“One of the few asterisks appears in the footnotes in the book.
The footnote to the Asteroid Books edition translated into Spanish explains that the term refers to a gang of police officers who caused panic in the Emilia-Romagna and Marche region from 1987 to 1994. They were known by this name “because of the car they used, a white Fiat Uno, very common in Italy in those years.”
The group consisted of six members, five of whom were active police officers. Brothers – and leaders – Roberto, Fabio, Alberto Savi (non-policeman), Marino Occhipinti, Pietro Gugliotta, Luca Vallicelli. The brain was Roberto, the chief aide of the Polizia di Stato in Bologna nicknamed “Il Monaco“.
They began committing nighttime robberies in places where they could get money easily: banks, toll booths, gas stations, supermarkets, post offices. They took advantage of that expertise In their firearms proficiency, their physical training, and their police badge to avoid detection.
It is striking that the White One gang acted using Extreme and unjustified violence. They were hiding with masks, shooting left and right at anyone who stood in their way. His motivation was not only economic: It was hate too. Many of their targets were people of African descent or from the Roma communities.
His most famous attack was what the press called him Pilastro massacre (Strag del Pilastro). It happened on the night of January 4, 1991, in the Pilastro neighborhood of Bologna.
In that assault, Al-Safi killed three policemen who were traveling by car. They shot them with Ono’s automatic weapons because they thought they wrote their patent.
It was a straight shot into the heart of the national law to which they belonged. A disgrace that faced the Carabinieri and the State Police for investigation.
Initially it was believed that it was an attack by the Falang Armata terrorist group. They claimed it themselves. However, this lie only shifted focus and allowed the White One gang to continue killing.
With the help of police officer Domenico Macuda, who deliberately diverted the initial investigations, the group was able to remain active until the mid-1990s. There were seven consecutive years of robberies and murders that left them 1.1 million euros Of the total stolen.
All members of the group were arrested between 1994 and 1995.. In 1994, Ono’s gang devoted themselves exclusively to robbing banks (there were nine in total that year), and began to fall captive to their own ambition.
Police, lost by the diversity of targets and the variety of characteristics of the attacks, took action when Rimini’s department concluded that only the same gang could commit a series of crimes with motives that ranged from “ordinary” robberies to hate robberies.
Due to the identification of weapons, witnesses’ identities, and internal suspicions, all members of the Uno Blanco gang were arrested between 1994 and 1995. They proved their guilt through secret surveillance and wiretapping.
On the night of November 21, 1994, Roberto, the leader, was arrested at his workplace. Within days, other members will also be searched for and found in different places of the country.
In 1995, three judicial proceedings began in which several defendants admitted responsibility for various crimes, and the following year final rulings were issued: Roberto, Alberto, Fabio Savi and Occipinti received life sentences, Giuliotta was sentenced to 18 years and Vallicelli to 3 years and 8 months..
Aside from its peculiarities, the band’s name did not go beyond the local collective memory. Time has erased his bad reputation, and he only seems to cross borders through works like Raimo’s.