Man convicted for building a fake “ancient city” of styrofoam and charging €40

A court in Italy last month sentenced Franco Malozo after finding that he had fabricated an entire “ancient city” of 5,000 square metres near Vicenza and charged visitors €40 to enter, claiming the site was 2,000 years old.

Investigators and the court record show the complex at Arcugnano was built using modern construction machinery, ordinary cement and newly quarried stone rather than hand-carved blocks from antiquity. According to the files, the retaining wall of the tiered seating even contained a layer of styrofoam, while stairs and seats had been artificially finished to appear aged.

How the illusion was created

To increase the attraction’s appeal, Malozo installed plaster sculptures, concrete columns and excavated an artificial pool where an ancient stage would normally sit. He promoted the site under several grand names and staged shows and private tours there on a regular basis.

Despite many glowing online reviews on travel platforms, experts who inspected the location quickly identified the fraud. The site had been presented as a Greek theatre in northern Italy — a region where ancient Greeks never founded colonies, unlike in the south — and was even marketed as a “sea amphitheatre” despite being located in forested terrain more than 80 kilometres from the nearest coast.

After a ten-year legal process, Italian authorities closed the case, calling it one of the most unusual examples in recent history of a complete falsification of an archaeological site. The sentence marks the end of a long investigation into a privately run tourist attraction that misled visitors about its historical authenticity.

Photo: ilustracija / Wikimedia Commons