The collapse of Parmalat is turning into one of the most bizarre as well as one of the biggest fraudulent bankruptcies in Europe for decades.
The repercussions are putting bankers, auditors and regulators under the spotlight in many parts of the world as investigators unravel clues to how many billions of euros may be missing, for how long and why.
Parmalat, they seem to have discovered, was held together by a Milky Way of companies and accounts to service food activities from South and North America to Europe and Australia -- and allegedly to dress up scanty finances and siphon funds into other pockets.
Among countries touched by the investigation are: Austria, Brazil, Cayman Islands, Germany, Luxembourg, Italy, the Netherlands, Switzerland, the US, and Venezuela.
The affair has also besmirched some top names in finance which had dealings with the group. Among banks in the spotlight are Citigroup, Bank of America, JP Morgan, Deutsche Bank, ABN Amro, UBS, Banco Santander Central Hispano, and in Italy, Banca Intesa and Capitalia.
It has also embarrassed international auditing groups Grant Thornton and Deloitte and Touche which Parmalat, under administration by rescue specialist Enrico Bondi, dismissed recently.
But it is in Europe that the continuous stream of revelations is hitting hardest.
The EU Commission, as well as the Italian government, is reviewing ways to strengthen watchdogs.
The commission has said it must "begin to analyse the implications for EU financial services policies" and that in February it would tighten proposals on auditing to "greatly strengthen the oversight of audit firms."
The Italian government has criticized the Consob stock regulator and Bank of Italy for their monitoring of Parmalat and is working on new financial regulations "with urgency to give a response to the international markets which want to be told that Italy is a safe country".
And the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development has redrafted guidelines, originally intended for emerging countries, in response to frauds of the Enron and WorldCom type but made specific reference to Parmalat when it published them this week.
OECD director general Donald Johnston declared: "It's clear there are a number of areas where changes are needed, and this is most striking in the Parmalat affair ... We never contemplated a need to discuss this in the United States and Europe."
The astonishing story of how the rapid rise of the Italian food empire built on milk came to end in tears for many, has been unfolding for six weeks. Several enquiries are under way and nine people have been detained for suspected fraud.
In all, 26 people have been told they are being investigated with a view to charges being laid, a procedure which gives them access to evidence.
No formal charges have been laid and much of the picture has emerged through press reports and allegations by investigators. But the company is insolvent and 36,000 employees are waiting to hear if the Italian state will orchestrate a rescue or if predators will pick up the pieces.
The plot so far, unproved but widely told, is worthy of the most imaginative scriptwriter: Calisto Tanzi, a young man in Parma, the home of Italian cured ham and Parmesan cheese, takes over his family's small meat business in the 1960s, diversifies into milk and builds a global empire.
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