One of the software companies I worked for in the early 2000s had a project going on in Southern Italy near Naples. The contractual arrangements were a little fishy to say the least as our parent company outbid us for the job by JUST enough and then sub-contracted us to do the work. When this was pointed out by our English relationship manager on a trip over there the Italian PM took him into an office, showed him a gun in a draw and said "I don't like how this conversation is going". Very little doubt the guy was "connected". I did feel sorry for the manager involved even though he was a Palace fan.