Some journalists have also claimed the gang had links to neofascist militant and terrorist groups, such as the Nuclei Armati Rivoluzionari (NAR), responsible for the 1980 Bologna massacre; the Italian secret services (SISMI), and political figures such as Licio Gelli, grand-master of the Freemasonic lodge Propaganda Due (P2).
It has been alleged that, along with Gladio, the NATO clandestine anti-communist organization, P2 was involved in a strategy of tension during the Years of Lead which included false flag terrorist attacks.
[3] The Banda della Magliana was involved with the usual activities of Italian criminal gangs, such as drug dealing, horserace betting, and money laundering, among others; its ties to political groups set it apart.
The mysterious disappearance of Emanuela Orlandi, a case peripherally linked to former Grey Wolves member Mehmet Ali Ağca's 1981 Pope John Paul II assassination attempt, has also been related to the gang.
In exchange for financing his political activities, Aldo Semerari proposed psychiatric expertise to arrested gang members in order to help them be released.
Besides being a famous far-right criminologist, Aldo Semerari was also a member of Propaganda Due (P2) masonic lodge and maintained links with the SISMI, the Italian military intelligence agency.
Massimo Carminati quickly became a "pupil" of the gang and he introduced to them Valerio Fioravanti, Francesca Mambro, and Pierluigi Bragaglia with whom were accused of complicity in the 1980 Bologna massacre.
However, their most mysterious "joint venture," which raised serious questions, concerned weapons: ammunition, guns and bombs belonging to both groups were surprisingly found in the basements of the Italian Health Ministry.
Coming from the same lot were four bullets, of the same type and use, which marked them as the ones used for a specific homicide: Carmine Pecorelli, a journalist who had published allegations about Prime minister Giulio Andreotti's ties to the Mafia, and was murdered in 1979.
During the trial, the Italian justice clearly proved the involvement of the banda della Magliana in Pecorelli's murder, although the person materially responsible for the killing, Massimo Carminati, was released.
Roberto Calvi, alias "God's Banker" (Il banchiere di Dio) in charge of Banco Ambrosiano, whose main-shareholder was the Vatican Bank, was killed in London on 18 June 1982.
Banco Ambrosiano, which crashed in one of the major financial scandals of the 1980s, was involved in money-laundering activities for the Mafia and allegedly in funnelling funds to the Polish Solidarity trade union (Solidarność) and the Contras in Nicaragua.
In 1997, Italian prosecutors in Rome implicated a member of the Sicilian Mafia, Giuseppe Calò, in Calvi's murder, along with Flavio Carboni, a Sardinian businessman with wide-ranging interests.
Two other men, Ernesto Diotallevi (purportedly one of the leaders of the Banda della Magliana) and former Mafia member turned informer Francesco Di Carlo, were also alleged to be involved in the killing.
The defence had suggested that there were plenty of people with a motive for Calvi's murder, including Vatican officials and Mafia figures who wanted to ensure his silence.
The church of Saint Apollinare, located near Rome's Piazza Navona, is home to a crypt where popes, cardinals and Christian martyrs are buried, as well as to the tomb of Enrico De Pedis, also known as Renatino, one of the most powerful heads of the Magliana gang, assassinated on 2 February 1990.