The origins of Wanna Marchi
Of humble origins, Wanna Marchi is the daughter of farmers from Castel Guelfo, a small village in the province of Bologna. You were born on 2 September 1942, Italy is still a country at war and poverty hangs above all on that segment of the population.
He lost his father when he was young, when he was only 15 years old.
It almost seemed like her destiny was sealed, she would almost certainly marry a local farmer with whom she would have children. But we know well, that she did not go that way.
With a simple elementary school certificate in hand, Wanna embarks on odd jobs, including a job at a mortuary where she was in charge of makeup for the deceased.
She married at a young age, at 18, with a wealthy boy: Raymond Nobile with whom he had two children: Maurizio and Stefania. A marriage, among other things, born against the opinion of her mother-in-law who even on her wedding day did not fail to insult her "As you're ugly".
The Wanna Marchi family
Who is Stefania Nobile, the daughter of Wanna Marchi?
Stefania is famous as “the daughter of Wanna Marchi”, her mother's constant companion in telesales from a young age. She was born on November 16, 1964 during her marriage to Raimondo Nobile, but already in 1983 she began to support her mother in telesales at the Wanna Marchi Show.
Arrested with her mother, she has always been her accomplice in the activities for which she was condemned.
After his release he had various companies in Albania, but all of them ceased their activity within a year.
Who is Vanna Marchi's husband? Raimondo Nobile in brief
Raimondo Nobile was a son of bourgeois Bologna, of good origins and a wealthy family. He was a successful entrepreneur, he married Wanna Marchi at a young age against his mother's advice. From this he had two children: Stefania and Maurizio.
He separated from his wife in the 80s, just before the beginning of the “Do Nascimiento” era.
The career of Wanna Marchi, from beautician to billionaire teleseller
How did Wanna Marchi's career start? The years as a beautician
It was precisely in that work in the morgue, when she was making up the dead, that an opportunity came suddenly, in what was probably the most unexpected place.
A mother who had lost her daughter in a serious accident, he gave her a large sum to thank her for the care with which she had treated the girl. A figure that Marchi invested in a car, which allowed her to go to hairdressers and beautician studios in neighboring countries: so she began her career as a beautician.
The first shops and the activity as an entrepreneur: the insults to sell better
Strengthened by contacts and experience as a beautician, which allowed her to learn to "talk to people", Wanna opens the first physical stores.
Activities that flourish in a very short time thanks to the aggressive salesmanship of the woman.
Wanna was famous for "insults”With which he approached customers, he was also capable of stop people on the street criticizing their appearance and hair care, inviting them to come to her to solve the problem.
A questionable method but that actually worked: the shops were full and sales were fine.
The first telesales of Wanna Marchi and the beginnings at the Grand Bazaar
Fate came knocking again and this time it did it as a young local promoter.
The boy was involved in door-to-door promotion, touring local shops to sell advertising space on a local TV.
An aspect that, however, we must contextualize well over time.
TV was one thing "new“, A novelty still not well understood.
At the time, the promotion that attracted so much was that on the radio, as much as it is today with social media, while TV was still a misunderstood tool and teleshopping was born very recently.
Wanna Marchi accepted and bought the spaces for 3 days.
The first failures as a TV seller
One thing that many don't know is that he wanna, in his first attempts as a TV seller, it was bad: on his first try he couldn't sell absolutely anything.
The second attempt went no better and this led her to think, ironically, of not be cut out for this job.
It was the third attempt, more discouraged than ever, to paradoxically bring it to success: but how?
The woman proposed to the screen without products in hand, selling herself and apologizing for the failure of the other days.
Thus began the era of Wanna Marchi.
How Wanna Marchi sold and what it said to people: from green algae to cheesecloths
The secret of Wanna Marchi was in a very aggressive sale, outspoken encouraging the buyer to see the worst in himself and immediately seek a solution: that of Wanna.
And let's talk about insults that then became almost an icon of the character, Wanna gave the audience some “lardos”, showed them slices of veal fat that he tore up live comparing it to their abdominal fat.
His "Agree??“, Which also became the refrain of a song.
And we talked about fat because the flagship products of Wanna Marchi were slimming products, from white seaweed creams that were spread all over the body to the "cheeks".
The birth of the cheesecloths, sold before they were even invented
Curious is the anecdote about the cheesecloth, a product that Wanna Marchi advertised before it was even invented.
Sales of "cheesecloth"Went so well that, in the middle of the night, it was she who contacted the chemical company she worked with asking him to invent and supply, closely, a product to sell to those who had already bought.
Wanna Marchi was something that had never been seen before, a typhoon without limits which, however, actually sold. It also sold a lot, we are talking about billions of lire a day in sales.
The company fire and the first suspicions about the organized crime
Let me be clear: that Wanna Marchi had relations with the organized crime has never been proven and has not even been convicted for this.
But some suspicions at the time arose above all when her business was burned, a damage of over a billion lire in a period in which it seems, from court documents, that she had asked for a loan from a person of dubious patrimonial origins.
The first crisis, the failure of Wanna Marchi srl and the first sentence
It was in 1990 that Wanna Marchi faced the first legal problems and they were linked to its main company: Wanna Marchi srl.
Budget holes and shortages led to the prosecution for fraudulent bankruptcy, later confirmed in a sentence of one year and one month of imprisonment.
It seemed like the end of Wanna Marchi.
The activity with Attilio Capra De Carré: the phoenix returns from the ashes
It was the meeting with Attilio Capra De Carrè that brought Wanna Marchi back to success. successful businessman and man very close to the "powerful" of the time, so much so that his name was found among the members of the Masonic lodge of P2.
Attilio Capra opened a new sales channel through teleshopping with Wanna Marchi as the bow of the ship: it was a success that brought Wanna and her daughter Stefania back to the top.
The meeting with Do Nascimiento
It was Attilio Capra who introduced them to Mario Pacheco, better known as Do Nascimiento.
Little more than a waiter at a private evening at Capra's home in Milan, but it was more than enough to create a synergy that then led to the explosion of Wanna Marchi and Do Nascimiento.
He was presented as a holy man with divinatory arts known on a trip to Brazil, who had given proof of his skills in anticipation of what would happen to Marchi in the following 2 years, events that later occurred.
The character seemed to work: people believed in Do Nascimiento.
The relationship with Attilio Capra, however, will soon decline.
Wanna Marchi claims to have left it because some of its partners asked her to separate and open a new business.
Ascié srl is born: the first broadcasts with Do Nascimiento and luck for sale
In 1996 Ascié srl was born, a name proposed by Do Nascimiento as a propitious one.
Do Nascimiento who this time was a partner in the business, as was Stefania.
The goal was always the sale through teleshopping, but this time the "core business" was no longer slimming products, now the focus was exclusively on the fight against the evil eye and on the sale of fortune.
The magic of Nascimiento: lucky numbers in the lotto
The first product marketed was that of lucky numbers, combinations of safe numbers that would have guaranteed a lottery win.
It seems strange, almost absurd, but there were so many who called and bought.
The figures? Really mind-boggling: a combination also cost 300.000 lire, which compared to the current purchasing power are over € 300.
A credulous Italy was revealed, still very attached to old beliefs such as the "evil eye".
Sales flocked, but greed dominated and the trio was not satisfied: they wanted more.
Magic rituals and lucky products against the evil eye
The sale of the Lotto numbers soon became a hook to catch customers, no longer the definitive product but only the hook-up product that would have led to follow-ups for the sale of anything else at much higher figures.
If 300.000 lire seems like a lot to you, know that there were people who even spent hundreds of millions to get rid of the evil eye.
The technique was simple: the dissatisfied customer called because his numbers had not come out, instead of apologizing, the operator or the operator put the responsibility on the person.
Evidently she has the evil eye, we have to remove it to get the numbers out.
It may seem absurd, it is understandable.
Why did people believe these things? How come no one suspected that he was the victim of a scam?
It is difficult to put yourself in the shoes of the victim, but you have to realize that the cultural context was different, and we are also talking about real persuasion professionals.
In the testimony in the courtroom, some people have quoted truly gruesome phrases.
Do you want your daughter to die? For 20 million are you willing to let her daughter die? There's a terrible evil coming and she doesn't want to stop it.
The salt of Wanna Marchi: what it was and how it worked
Among the various lucky products, such as amulets and crystals loaded by the magician Do Nascimiento, the real success came with the "salt of Wanna Marchi".
Together with the lucky numbers, a sachet of salt was delivered to be dissolved in water by practicing a specific ritual developed by the magician Do Nascimiento, a ritual that would lead to winning the Lotto.
When the win didn't come, the question was immediate
But did the salt dissolve?
When the salt did not dissolve it was an immediate demonstration of the presence of the evil eye which, following the previous strategy, had to be removed with very expensive amulets. It started from 4 million up to hundreds.
Wanna Marchi and Strip the news: the service that put an end to the Marchi era
Fosca Marcon is a name that Wanna Marchi will never forget in the course of his life.
It was precisely the phone call from an operator to Fosca that triggered the chain of events which led to the collapse of Wanna Marchi.
And where did the operator get Fosca's number? From an old log of the times of slimming treatments, the woman in fact many years ago had bought a slimming cream from Wanna Marchi and so it had been inserted in the database.
The proposal was simple and already tested: the sale of winning Lotto numbers for 300.000 lire.
The problem was that the woman reported the matter to Striscia La Notizia and from there the investigation of a very young Jimmy Ghione began.
The "trap" of Striscia La Notizia and the Pandora's box was uncovered
It's almost funny, but the Striscia correspondent did not use any method of "espionage", he simply put the speakerphone on the phone and made the woman call the operators.
The answer was the expected one: Fosca had the evil eye because the salt had not melted, the solution was the purchase of an amulet loaded by the magician for the modest sum of 4 million lire, a courier would come to bring the amulet that would have took the money in cash.
The day the courier came, the woman called, with Jimmy Ghione hiding in another room, to say that he had changed his mind and was not feeling up to it.
It so happened that right at that moment Stefania Nobile was near the operator, who took the receiver and answered the woman personally, even insulting her.
It was all recorded, the scandal went on TV with millions of viewers and the investigation of the financial police began.
The house of cards had collapsed.
Nascimiento's escape and the trial live on TV
Do Nascimiento did not take long to smell burning and not within a few days fled from Italy to return to Brazil, he never got in touch with Wanna Marchi and Stefania Nobile, nor did he take part in the trial.
Shortly after his departure, a container should have followed him but was stopped by the police. Inside there are all kinds of valuables, from vases to squares and precious items.
The fraud allegations. How did the contacts work? How much did people pay?
The testimonies during the trial were numerous and very detailed, there were also those who had paid more than 250 million lire to get rid of the evil eye, destroying not only their own savings but also those of their closest loved ones.
They all had the same modus operandi: the numbers did not work, the salt had not melted, this was a demonstration of the evil eye that had to be removed with amulets, at the price of several million.
Then came the phone calls, even one a week that heralded an imminent and disastrous danger. To escape it it was necessary to follow a ritual or purchase an amulet, again costing several million.
When the numbers did not come out again, the answer was simple: the evil eye was very powerful and an even stronger operation was required by the magician, at the cost of several millions here too.
There is even talk of billions in sales.
The trial was broadcast live on TV as requested by the two defendants, who were probably convinced that the TV that had put them on a pedestal would have equally defended them.
It wasn't like that.
The imprisonment of Wanna Marchi and Stefania Nobile
Wanna Marchi and her daughter were sentenced, in cassation, to 9 years and 4 months in prison, a little less than the 10-year sentence in the first degree.
An unexpected sentence for the two, convinced that they would not exceed two years.
In prison they were initially imprisoned in the same cell, but later they were separated and Stefania was transferred to Pisa.
The newfound freedom and the Netflix documentary
In 2015 the two women were released and set free, there were various attempts to return to TV but always ineffective.
There was also a possible participation in the Island of the Famous, but the heated controversies led the production to discard them and were excluded.
In 2022 Netflix produces a docuseries called "Wanna"On the topic.
A well done documentary, which however has led the two to strong criticism regarding certain "omissions" according to what they have declared.
It seems that a book is also planned following the Netflix series.
What Wanna Marchi was selling
The products were of many types, but originally it was cosmetics that attracted women, a sector in which she was very competent and knowledgeable.
- White algae cream based on dandelion and algae for slimming
- "Reducing cream" Dissolving belly
- Lucky numbers
- Amulets against the evil eye
- Lucky salt
How high is Wanna Marchi's assets? Is there really a hidden treasure?
In the boom years with slimming products, Wanna Marchi even earned 1 billion lire a day, even if on average it seems to sell 300 million lire of products daily.
But between bad investments and management problems came bankruptcy.
During the trial, the Finance Police estimated the total earnings of Wanna Marchi and Stefania Nobile to be well 63 billion lire.
3 curiosities about Wanna Marchi
In 1989 he entered the charts with the single "Agree?”Engraved with the group Wanna Marchi & The Pommodores.
His famous "Okay?" it is also present in the song "I smile while I drown" by Caparezza.
In 2017 he was supposed to hold a training course, together with his daughter, for aspiring sellers at the Volta institute in Bari. The controversies that followed led the institute to take a step back.
Photo source: Netflix Italy
