Francesco Gullino

Who is Francesco Gullino?

Francesco Gullino is a Dane of Italian origin, born in Bra, Italy in 1946, who was named in June 2005 by The Times as the prime suspect in the 1978 "Bulgarian umbrella" murder of Bulgarian dissident Georgi Markov. He was known by the code name "Piccadilly".

According to Bulgarian journalist Hristo Hristov, Gullino was an occasional smuggler arrested twice in Bulgaria and given the choice of going to prison or becoming a secret agent in the West. Based in Copenhagen with a cover as an art dealer, Gullino was supposedly active until 1990 and received two Bulgarian state medals “for services to security and public order”. He was briefly detained in 1993 and questioned by the British and Danish police in Copenhagen, and, according to Hristov, has not been seen or heard from since.

A British documentary, The Umbrella Assassin, interviewed people connected with the case in Bulgaria, Britain and the United States, and revealed that Gullino is alive and well and still travels freely throughout the European Union. In 2012 the German TV channel ZDF produced a documentary film Zum Schweigen gebracht in which Francesco Gullino was interviewed in Wels, Austria. He did not answer any question precisely, and said that if he had been the murderer of Markov, why should he admit it. On Nov 5th 2013 this film was shown on the German-French TV channel arte.tv. In the film the possibility was discussed that Gullino made a deal with the Danish security services which guaranteed his impunity.