The Mussolini diaries forgery

1968

In 1968 The Sunday Times agreed to pay £250,000 for what were presented as Benito Mussolini's private diaries, handing over £60,000 before the documents were shown to be forgeries. They had been manufactured by an Italian mother and daughter, Amalia and Rosa Panvini. The episode is the direct antecedent of the 1983 Hitler Diaries, in which the same newspaper group was deceived again by Konrad Kujau's forgeries.