Roberto Calvi
Encyclopedia
Roberto Calvi was an Italian
banker dubbed "God's Banker" by the press because of his close association with the Holy See
. A native of Milan
, Calvi was Chairman of Banco Ambrosiano
, which collapsed in one of modern Italy's biggest political scandal
s. A source of enduring controversy, his death in London in June 1982 was ruled a murder
after two coroner
's inquest
s and an independent investigation. In Rome
, in June 2007, five people were acquitted of the murder.
Claims have been made that factors in Calvi's death were the Vatican Bank
, Banco Ambrosiano's main shareholder; the Mafia
, which may have used Banco Ambrosiano for money laundering; and the Propaganda Due
or P2 clandestine Masonic Lodge
.
when it went bankrupt in 1982. In 1978, the Bank of Italy
had produced a report on the Banco Ambrosiano, which found that several billion lire
had been exported illegally,which led to criminal investigations. In 1981, Calvi was tried, given a four-year suspended sentence and fined $19.8 million for tranferring $27 million out of the country in violation of Italian currency laws. He was released on bail pending appeal and kept his position at the bank. During his short spell in jail he attempted suicide. Calvi's family maintains that he had been manipulated by others and was innocent of crimes attributed to him.
The controversy surrounding Calvi's dealings at Banco Ambrosiano echoed a previous scandal in 1974, when the Holy See
lost an estimated $30 million upon the collapse of the Franklin National Bank
, which was owned by the Sicilian-born financier Michele Sindona
. Bad loans and foreign currency transactions had led to the collapse of the bank, and Sindona later died in prison after drinking coffee laced with cyanide
.
On 5 June 1982, two weeks before the collapse of Banco Ambrosiano, Calvi had written a letter of warning to Pope John Paul II
, stating that such a forthcoming event would “provoke a catastrophe of unimaginable proportions in which the Church will suffer the gravest damage." Banco Ambrosiano collapsed in June 1982 following the discovery of debts (according to various sources) of between 700 million and 1.5 billion US dollars. Much of the money had been siphoned off via the Vatican Bank (strictly named the Istituto per le Opere Religiose or Institute for Works of Religion), which was Banco Ambrosiano's main shareholder.
In 1984, the Vatican Bank agreed to pay US$224 million to the 120 creditors of the failed Banco Ambrosiano as a “recognition of moral involvement” in the bank's collapse.
, and from there he apparently hired a private plane to London
. At 7:30 AM on Friday 18 June 1982 a postman found his body hanging from scaffolding beneath Blackfriars Bridge
in the financial district of London. Calvi's clothing was stuffed with bricks, and he was carrying around $15,000 worth of cash in three different currencies.
Calvi had been a member of Licio Gelli
's illegal masonic lodge, P2
, and members of P2 referred to themselves as frati neri or "black friars". This has led to a suggestion in some quarters that Calvi was murdered as a masonic
warning because of symbolism associated with the word "Blackfriars".
On the day before his body was found, Calvi had been stripped of his post at Banco Ambrosiano by the Bank of Italy
, and his 55 year old private secretary Graziella Corrocher had jumped to her death from a fifth floor window at Banco Ambrosiano. Corrocher left behind an angry note condemning the damage that Calvi had done to the bank and its employees. Corrocher's death was ruled a suicide, although as with Calvi's death there have been suggestions of foul play.
Calvi's death was the subject of two coroner
's inquests in the United Kingdom
. The first recorded a verdict of suicide
in July 1982. The Calvi family then secured the services of George Carman
QC. At the second inquest, in July 1983, the jury recorded an open verdict
, indicating that the court had been unable to determine the exact cause of death. Calvi's family maintained that his death had been a murder, and following his exhumation in December 1998, an independent forensic report published in October 2002 concluded that indeed he had been murdered, as the injuries to his neck were inconsistent with hanging, and he had not touched the bricks found in his pockets. Additionally, there was no trace of rust and paint on his shoes from the scaffolding over which he would have needed to climb in order to hang himself. When Calvi's body was found, the level of the Thames had receded with the tide, giving the scene the appearance of a suicide by hanging, but at the exact time of his death, the place on the scaffolding where the rope had been tied could have been reached by a person standing in a boat.
This aspect of Calvi's death has been the focus of the theory that he was murdered, and it is the version of events that is depicted on screen in Giuseppe Ferrara's film reconstruction of the event. In September 2003 the City of London
police reopened their investigation as a murder
inquiry.
Roberto Calvi's life was insured for $10 million with Unione Italiana, and attempts by his family to obtain a payout resulted in litigation (Fisher v Unione Italiana [1998] CLC 682). Following the forensic report of 2002 which established that Calvi had been murdered, the policy was finally settled, although around half of the sum was paid to creditors of the Calvi family who had incurred considerable costs during their attempts to establish that Calvi had been murdered.
(a mafioso turned informer) Francesco Marino Mannoia
claimed that Roberto Calvi had been killed because he had lost Mafia funds when Banco Ambrosiano collapsed. According to Mannoia the killer was Francesco Di Carlo
, a mafioso living in London at the time, and the order to kill Calvi had come from Mafia boss Giuseppe Calò
and Licio Gelli
. When Di Carlo became an informer in June 1996, he denied that he was the killer, but admitted that he had been approached by Calò to do the job. However, Di Carlo could not be reached in time, and when he later called Calò, the latter said that everything had been taken care of already. According to Di Carlo, the killers were Vincenzo Casillo
and Sergio Vaccari, who belonged to the Camorra
from Naples and have been killed since.
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
, a Roman Mafia-like organization) and former Mafia member turned informer Francesco Di Carlo, were also alleged to be involved in the killing.
In July 2003, the Italian prosecutors concluded that the Mafia
acted not only in its own interests, but also to ensure that Calvi could not blackmail "politico-institutional figures and [representatives] of freemasonry
, the P2
lodge, and the Institute of Religious Works
with whom he had invested substantial sums of money, some of it from Cosa Nostra and Italian public corporations".
On 19 July 2005, Licio Gelli
, the grand master of the Propaganda Due
or P2
masonic lodge, received a notification – required by Italian law – informing him that he was formally under investigation on charges of ordering the murder of Calvi along with Giuseppe Calò
, Ernesto Diotallevi, Flavio Carboni and Carboni's Austrian ex-girlfriend, Manuela Kleinszig. The four other suspects were already indicted on murder charges in April in a separate indictment. According to the indictment, the five ordered Calvi's murder to prevent the banker "from using blackmail power against his political and institutional sponsors from the world of Masonry, belonging to the P2 lodge, or to the Institute for Religious Works (the Vatican Bank) with whom he had managed investments and financing with conspicuous sums of money, some of it coming from Cosa Nostra and public agencies".
Gelli was accused of having provoked Calvi's death in order to punish him for embezzling money from Banco Ambrosiano
that was owed to him and the Mafia
. The Mafia was also claimed to have wanted to prevent Calvi from revealing that Banco Ambrosiano had been used for money laundering. Gelli denied he was involved but has acknowledged that the financier was murdered. In his statement before the court, he said the killing was commissioned in Poland
. This is thought to be a reference to Calvi's alleged involvement in financing the Solidarity trade union movement at the request of the late Pope John Paul II, allegedly on behalf of the Vatican
. However, Gelli's name was not in the final indictment at the trial that started in October 2005.
, Flavio Carboni, Manuela Kleinszig, Ernesto Diotallevi, and Calvi's former driver and bodyguard Silvano Vittor. The trial took place in a specially fortified courtroom in Rome's Rebibbia prison.
On 6 June 2007, all five individuals were cleared by the court of murdering Calvi. Mario Lucio d'Andria, the presiding judge at the trial, threw out the charges citing "insufficient evidence" after hearing 20 months of evidence. The verdict was seen as a surprise by some observers. The court ruled that Calvi's death was murder and not suicide. 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. Legal experts who had followed the trial said that the prosecutors found it hard to present a convincing case due to the 25 years that had elapsed since Calvi's death. An additional factor was that some key witnesses were unwilling to testify, untraceable, or dead. The prosecution had earlier called for Manuela Kleinszig to be cleared, stating that there was insufficient evidence against her, but it had sought life sentences for the four men.
The private investigator
Jeff Katz, who was hired by Calvi's family in 1991 to look into his death, claimed it was likely that senior figures in the Italian establishment had escaped prosecution. "The problem is that the people who probably actually ordered the death of Calvi are not in the dock - but to get to those people might be very difficult indeed," he said in an interview. Katz said it was "probably true" that the Mafia had carried out the killing but that the gangsters suspected of the crime were either dead or missing. The verdict in the trial may not be the end of the matter, since the prosecutor's office in Rome had already opened a second investigation implicating, among others, Licio Gelli
. Giuseppe Calò
is still serving a life sentence on unrelated Mafia charges.
On 7 May 2010, the Court of Appeals confirmed the acquittal of Calò, Carboni and Diotallevi. The public prosecutor Luca Tescaroli commented after the verdict that for the family "Calvi has been murdered for the second time." On November 18, 2011, the court of last resort, the Court of Cassation
, confirmed the acquittal.
in the character of Frederick Keinszig.
In 1990 The Comic Strip Presents, a BBC
television series, produced a spoof version of Calvi's story under the title Spaghetti Hoops, with Nigel Planer
in the lead role. The Calvi affair also inspired the comedy film The Pope Must Die
(1991) in which a naive priest, played by Robbie Coltrane
is unexpectedly made Pope and takes on a mafia dominated Vatican.
In the 2009 film The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus
, the character of Tony, played by Heath Ledger
, is found hanging (alive) under Blackfriars Bridge, described by director Terry Gilliam
as "an homage to Roberto Calvi".
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
banker dubbed "God's Banker" by the press because of his close association with the Holy See
Holy See
The Holy See is the episcopal jurisdiction of the Catholic Church in Rome, in which its Bishop is commonly known as the Pope. It is the preeminent episcopal see of the Catholic Church, forming the central government of the Church. As such, diplomatically, and in other spheres the Holy See acts and...
. A native of Milan
Milan
Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...
, Calvi was Chairman of Banco Ambrosiano
Banco Ambrosiano
Banco Ambrosiano was an Italian bank which collapsed in 1982. At the centre of the bank's failure was its chairman, Roberto Calvi and his membership in the illegal Masonic Lodge Propaganda Due...
, which collapsed in one of modern Italy's biggest political scandal
Political scandal
A political scandal is a kind of political corruption that is exposed and becomes a scandal, in which politicians or government officials are accused of engaging in various illegal, corrupt, or unethical practices...
s. A source of enduring controversy, his death in London in June 1982 was ruled a murder
Murder
Murder is the unlawful killing, with malice aforethought, of another human being, and generally this state of mind distinguishes murder from other forms of unlawful homicide...
after two coroner
Coroner
A coroner is a government official who* Investigates human deaths* Determines cause of death* Issues death certificates* Maintains death records* Responds to deaths in mass disasters* Identifies unknown dead* Other functions depending on local laws...
's inquest
Inquest
Inquests in England and Wales are held into sudden and unexplained deaths and also into the circumstances of discovery of a certain class of valuable artefacts known as "treasure trove"...
s and an independent investigation. In Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
, in June 2007, five people were acquitted of the murder.
Claims have been made that factors in Calvi's death were the Vatican Bank
Vatican Bank
The Institute for Works of Religion , commonly known as the Vatican Bank, is a privately held institute located inside Vatican City run by a professional bank CEO who reports directly to a committee of cardinals, and ultimately to the Pope...
, Banco Ambrosiano's main shareholder; the Mafia
Mafia
The Mafia is a criminal syndicate that emerged in the mid-nineteenth century in Sicily, Italy. It is a loose association of criminal groups that share a common organizational structure and code of conduct, and whose common enterprise is protection racketeering...
, which may have used Banco Ambrosiano for money laundering; and the Propaganda Due
Propaganda Due
Propaganda Due , or P2, was a Masonic lodge operating under the jurisdiction of the Grand Orient of Italy from 1945 to 1976 , and a pseudo-Masonic or "black" or "covert" lodge operating illegally from 1976 to...
or P2 clandestine Masonic Lodge
Masonic Lodge
This article is about the Masonic term for a membership group. For buildings named Masonic Lodge, see Masonic Lodge A Masonic Lodge, often termed a Private Lodge or Constituent Lodge, is the basic organisation of Freemasonry...
.
The Banco Ambrosiano scandal
Roberto Calvi was the chairman of Italy's second largest private bank, Banco AmbrosianoBanco Ambrosiano
Banco Ambrosiano was an Italian bank which collapsed in 1982. At the centre of the bank's failure was its chairman, Roberto Calvi and his membership in the illegal Masonic Lodge Propaganda Due...
when it went bankrupt in 1982. In 1978, the Bank of Italy
Banca d'Italia
Banca d'Italia is the central bank of Italy and part of the European System of Central Banks. It is located in Palazzo Koch, Roma, via Nazionale...
had produced a report on the Banco Ambrosiano, which found that several billion lire
Italian lira
The lira was the currency of Italy between 1861 and 2002. Between 1999 and 2002, the Italian lira was officially a “national subunit” of the euro...
had been exported illegally,which led to criminal investigations. In 1981, Calvi was tried, given a four-year suspended sentence and fined $19.8 million for tranferring $27 million out of the country in violation of Italian currency laws. He was released on bail pending appeal and kept his position at the bank. During his short spell in jail he attempted suicide. Calvi's family maintains that he had been manipulated by others and was innocent of crimes attributed to him.
The controversy surrounding Calvi's dealings at Banco Ambrosiano echoed a previous scandal in 1974, when the Holy See
Holy See
The Holy See is the episcopal jurisdiction of the Catholic Church in Rome, in which its Bishop is commonly known as the Pope. It is the preeminent episcopal see of the Catholic Church, forming the central government of the Church. As such, diplomatically, and in other spheres the Holy See acts and...
lost an estimated $30 million upon the collapse of the Franklin National Bank
Franklin National Bank
Franklin National Bank, based in Franklin Square in Long Island, New York was once the United States' 20th largest bank. On October 8, 1974, it collapsed in obscure circumstances, involving Michele Sindona, renowned Mafia-banker and member of the irregular freemasonic lodge, Propaganda Due...
, which was owned by the Sicilian-born financier Michele Sindona
Michele Sindona
Michele Sindona was an Italian banker and convicted felon. Known in banking circles as "The Shark", Sindona was a member of Propaganda Due , a secret lodge of Italian Freemasonry, and had clear connections to the Mafia...
. Bad loans and foreign currency transactions had led to the collapse of the bank, and Sindona later died in prison after drinking coffee laced with cyanide
Cyanide
A cyanide is a chemical compound that contains the cyano group, -C≡N, which consists of a carbon atom triple-bonded to a nitrogen atom. Cyanides most commonly refer to salts of the anion CN−. Most cyanides are highly toxic....
.
On 5 June 1982, two weeks before the collapse of Banco Ambrosiano, Calvi had written a letter of warning to Pope John Paul II
Pope John Paul II
Blessed Pope John Paul II , born Karol Józef Wojtyła , reigned as Pope of the Catholic Church and Sovereign of Vatican City from 16 October 1978 until his death on 2 April 2005, at of age. His was the second-longest documented pontificate, which lasted ; only Pope Pius IX ...
, stating that such a forthcoming event would “provoke a catastrophe of unimaginable proportions in which the Church will suffer the gravest damage." Banco Ambrosiano collapsed in June 1982 following the discovery of debts (according to various sources) of between 700 million and 1.5 billion US dollars. Much of the money had been siphoned off via the Vatican Bank (strictly named the Istituto per le Opere Religiose or Institute for Works of Religion), which was Banco Ambrosiano's main shareholder.
In 1984, the Vatican Bank agreed to pay US$224 million to the 120 creditors of the failed Banco Ambrosiano as a “recognition of moral involvement” in the bank's collapse.
Death
On 10 June 1982, Calvi went missing from his Rome apartment, having fled the country on a false passport in the name of Gian Roberto Calvini. He had shaved off his moustache and fled initially to VeniceVenice
Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...
, and from there he apparently hired a private plane to London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
. At 7:30 AM on Friday 18 June 1982 a postman found his body hanging from scaffolding beneath Blackfriars Bridge
Blackfriars Bridge
Blackfriars Bridge is a road and foot traffic bridge over the River Thames in London, between Waterloo Bridge and Blackfriars Railway Bridge, carrying the A201 road. The north end is near the Inns of Court and Temple Church, along with Blackfriars station...
in the financial district of London. Calvi's clothing was stuffed with bricks, and he was carrying around $15,000 worth of cash in three different currencies.
Calvi had been a member of Licio Gelli
Licio Gelli
Licio Gelli is an Italian financier, chiefly known for his role in the Banco Ambrosiano scandal. He was revealed in 1981 as being the Venerable Master of the clandestine Masonic lodge Propaganda Due...
's illegal masonic lodge, P2
Propaganda Due
Propaganda Due , or P2, was a Masonic lodge operating under the jurisdiction of the Grand Orient of Italy from 1945 to 1976 , and a pseudo-Masonic or "black" or "covert" lodge operating illegally from 1976 to...
, and members of P2 referred to themselves as frati neri or "black friars". This has led to a suggestion in some quarters that Calvi was murdered as a masonic
Freemasonry
Freemasonry is a fraternal organisation that arose from obscure origins in the late 16th to early 17th century. Freemasonry now exists in various forms all over the world, with a membership estimated at around six million, including approximately 150,000 under the jurisdictions of the Grand Lodge...
warning because of symbolism associated with the word "Blackfriars".
On the day before his body was found, Calvi had been stripped of his post at Banco Ambrosiano by the Bank of Italy
Banca d'Italia
Banca d'Italia is the central bank of Italy and part of the European System of Central Banks. It is located in Palazzo Koch, Roma, via Nazionale...
, and his 55 year old private secretary Graziella Corrocher had jumped to her death from a fifth floor window at Banco Ambrosiano. Corrocher left behind an angry note condemning the damage that Calvi had done to the bank and its employees. Corrocher's death was ruled a suicide, although as with Calvi's death there have been suggestions of foul play.
Calvi's death was the subject of two coroner
Coroner
A coroner is a government official who* Investigates human deaths* Determines cause of death* Issues death certificates* Maintains death records* Responds to deaths in mass disasters* Identifies unknown dead* Other functions depending on local laws...
's inquests in the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
. The first recorded a verdict of suicide
Suicide
Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...
in July 1982. The Calvi family then secured the services of George Carman
George Carman
George Alfred Carman, QC , was a leading English barrister of the 1980s and 1990s. He first came to the attention of the general public in 1979, when he successfully defended the former Liberal leader Jeremy Thorpe after he was charged with conspiracy to murder...
QC. At the second inquest, in July 1983, the jury recorded an open verdict
Open verdict
The Open verdict is an option open to a Coroner's jury at an Inquest in the legal system of England and Wales. The verdict strictly means that the jury confirms that the death is suspicious but is unable to reach any of the other verdicts open to them...
, indicating that the court had been unable to determine the exact cause of death. Calvi's family maintained that his death had been a murder, and following his exhumation in December 1998, an independent forensic report published in October 2002 concluded that indeed he had been murdered, as the injuries to his neck were inconsistent with hanging, and he had not touched the bricks found in his pockets. Additionally, there was no trace of rust and paint on his shoes from the scaffolding over which he would have needed to climb in order to hang himself. When Calvi's body was found, the level of the Thames had receded with the tide, giving the scene the appearance of a suicide by hanging, but at the exact time of his death, the place on the scaffolding where the rope had been tied could have been reached by a person standing in a boat.
This aspect of Calvi's death has been the focus of the theory that he was murdered, and it is the version of events that is depicted on screen in Giuseppe Ferrara's film reconstruction of the event. In September 2003 the City of London
City of London
The City of London is a small area within Greater London, England. It is the historic core of London around which the modern conurbation grew and has held city status since time immemorial. The City’s boundaries have remained almost unchanged since the Middle Ages, and it is now only a tiny part of...
police reopened their investigation as a murder
Murder
Murder is the unlawful killing, with malice aforethought, of another human being, and generally this state of mind distinguishes murder from other forms of unlawful homicide...
inquiry.
Roberto Calvi's life was insured for $10 million with Unione Italiana, and attempts by his family to obtain a payout resulted in litigation (Fisher v Unione Italiana [1998] CLC 682). Following the forensic report of 2002 which established that Calvi had been murdered, the policy was finally settled, although around half of the sum was paid to creditors of the Calvi family who had incurred considerable costs during their attempts to establish that Calvi had been murdered.
Prosecution of Giuseppe Calò and Licio Gelli
In July 1991, the Mafia pentitoPentito
Pentito designates people in Italy who, formerly part of criminal or terrorist organizations, following their arrests decide to "repent" and collaborate with the judicial system to help investigations...
(a mafioso turned informer) Francesco Marino Mannoia
Francesco Marino Mannoia
Francesco Marino Mannoia is a former member of the Sicilian Mafia who became a pentito in 1989. His nickname was Mozzarella. He is considered to be one of the most reliable government witnesses against the Mafia...
claimed that Roberto Calvi had been killed because he had lost Mafia funds when Banco Ambrosiano collapsed. According to Mannoia the killer was Francesco Di Carlo
Francesco Di Carlo
Francesco Di Carlo is a member of the Mafia who turned state witness in 1996...
, a mafioso living in London at the time, and the order to kill Calvi had come from Mafia boss Giuseppe Calò
Giuseppe Calò
Giuseppe 'Pippo' Calò is a member of the Sicilian Mafia. He was referred to as the "Mafia's Cashier" because he was heavily involved in the financial side of organized crime, primarily money laundering....
and Licio Gelli
Licio Gelli
Licio Gelli is an Italian financier, chiefly known for his role in the Banco Ambrosiano scandal. He was revealed in 1981 as being the Venerable Master of the clandestine Masonic lodge Propaganda Due...
. When Di Carlo became an informer in June 1996, he denied that he was the killer, but admitted that he had been approached by Calò to do the job. However, Di Carlo could not be reached in time, and when he later called Calò, the latter said that everything had been taken care of already. According to Di Carlo, the killers were Vincenzo Casillo
Vincenzo Casillo
Vincenzo Casillo was an Italian Camorrista and the second in command of the Nuova Camorra Organizzata , a Camorra organization in Naples. His nickname was "'o Nirone" .-Second in Command:...
and Sergio Vaccari, who belonged to the Camorra
Camorra
The Camorra is a Mafia-type criminal organization, or secret society, originating in the region of Campania and its capital Naples in Italy. It is one of the oldest and largest criminal organizations in Italy, dating to the 18th century.-Background:...
from Naples and have been killed since.
In 1997, Italian
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
prosecutors in Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
implicated a member of the Sicilian Mafia
Mafia
The Mafia is a criminal syndicate that emerged in the mid-nineteenth century in Sicily, Italy. It is a loose association of criminal groups that share a common organizational structure and code of conduct, and whose common enterprise is protection racketeering...
, Giuseppe Calò
Giuseppe Calò
Giuseppe 'Pippo' Calò is a member of the Sicilian Mafia. He was referred to as the "Mafia's Cashier" because he was heavily involved in the financial side of organized crime, primarily money laundering....
, 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
Banda della Magliana
The Banda della Magliana was an Italian criminal organization based in Rome, particularly active throughout the late 1970s until the early 1990s. Given by the media, the name refers to the original neighborhood, the Magliana, of most of its members....
, a Roman Mafia-like organization) and former Mafia member turned informer Francesco Di Carlo, were also alleged to be involved in the killing.
In July 2003, the Italian prosecutors concluded that the Mafia
Mafia
The Mafia is a criminal syndicate that emerged in the mid-nineteenth century in Sicily, Italy. It is a loose association of criminal groups that share a common organizational structure and code of conduct, and whose common enterprise is protection racketeering...
acted not only in its own interests, but also to ensure that Calvi could not blackmail "politico-institutional figures and [representatives] of freemasonry
Freemasonry
Freemasonry is a fraternal organisation that arose from obscure origins in the late 16th to early 17th century. Freemasonry now exists in various forms all over the world, with a membership estimated at around six million, including approximately 150,000 under the jurisdictions of the Grand Lodge...
, the P2
Propaganda Due
Propaganda Due , or P2, was a Masonic lodge operating under the jurisdiction of the Grand Orient of Italy from 1945 to 1976 , and a pseudo-Masonic or "black" or "covert" lodge operating illegally from 1976 to...
lodge, and the Institute of Religious Works
Vatican Bank
The Institute for Works of Religion , commonly known as the Vatican Bank, is a privately held institute located inside Vatican City run by a professional bank CEO who reports directly to a committee of cardinals, and ultimately to the Pope...
with whom he had invested substantial sums of money, some of it from Cosa Nostra and Italian public corporations".
On 19 July 2005, Licio Gelli
Licio Gelli
Licio Gelli is an Italian financier, chiefly known for his role in the Banco Ambrosiano scandal. He was revealed in 1981 as being the Venerable Master of the clandestine Masonic lodge Propaganda Due...
, the grand master of the Propaganda Due
Propaganda Due
Propaganda Due , or P2, was a Masonic lodge operating under the jurisdiction of the Grand Orient of Italy from 1945 to 1976 , and a pseudo-Masonic or "black" or "covert" lodge operating illegally from 1976 to...
or P2
Propaganda Due
Propaganda Due , or P2, was a Masonic lodge operating under the jurisdiction of the Grand Orient of Italy from 1945 to 1976 , and a pseudo-Masonic or "black" or "covert" lodge operating illegally from 1976 to...
masonic lodge, received a notification – required by Italian law – informing him that he was formally under investigation on charges of ordering the murder of Calvi along with Giuseppe Calò
Giuseppe Calò
Giuseppe 'Pippo' Calò is a member of the Sicilian Mafia. He was referred to as the "Mafia's Cashier" because he was heavily involved in the financial side of organized crime, primarily money laundering....
, Ernesto Diotallevi, Flavio Carboni and Carboni's Austrian ex-girlfriend, Manuela Kleinszig. The four other suspects were already indicted on murder charges in April in a separate indictment. According to the indictment, the five ordered Calvi's murder to prevent the banker "from using blackmail power against his political and institutional sponsors from the world of Masonry, belonging to the P2 lodge, or to the Institute for Religious Works (the Vatican Bank) with whom he had managed investments and financing with conspicuous sums of money, some of it coming from Cosa Nostra and public agencies".
Gelli was accused of having provoked Calvi's death in order to punish him for embezzling money from Banco Ambrosiano
Banco Ambrosiano
Banco Ambrosiano was an Italian bank which collapsed in 1982. At the centre of the bank's failure was its chairman, Roberto Calvi and his membership in the illegal Masonic Lodge Propaganda Due...
that was owed to him and the Mafia
Mafia
The Mafia is a criminal syndicate that emerged in the mid-nineteenth century in Sicily, Italy. It is a loose association of criminal groups that share a common organizational structure and code of conduct, and whose common enterprise is protection racketeering...
. The Mafia was also claimed to have wanted to prevent Calvi from revealing that Banco Ambrosiano had been used for money laundering. Gelli denied he was involved but has acknowledged that the financier was murdered. In his statement before the court, he said the killing was commissioned in Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
. This is thought to be a reference to Calvi's alleged involvement in financing the Solidarity trade union movement at the request of the late Pope John Paul II, allegedly on behalf of the Vatican
Holy See
The Holy See is the episcopal jurisdiction of the Catholic Church in Rome, in which its Bishop is commonly known as the Pope. It is the preeminent episcopal see of the Catholic Church, forming the central government of the Church. As such, diplomatically, and in other spheres the Holy See acts and...
. However, Gelli's name was not in the final indictment at the trial that started in October 2005.
Trials in Italy
On 5 October 2005, the trial of the five individuals charged with Calvi's murder began in Rome. The defendants were Giuseppe CalòGiuseppe Calò
Giuseppe 'Pippo' Calò is a member of the Sicilian Mafia. He was referred to as the "Mafia's Cashier" because he was heavily involved in the financial side of organized crime, primarily money laundering....
, Flavio Carboni, Manuela Kleinszig, Ernesto Diotallevi, and Calvi's former driver and bodyguard Silvano Vittor. The trial took place in a specially fortified courtroom in Rome's Rebibbia prison.
On 6 June 2007, all five individuals were cleared by the court of murdering Calvi. Mario Lucio d'Andria, the presiding judge at the trial, threw out the charges citing "insufficient evidence" after hearing 20 months of evidence. The verdict was seen as a surprise by some observers. The court ruled that Calvi's death was murder and not suicide. The defence had suggested that there were plenty of people with a motive for Calvi's murder, including Vatican
Roman Curia
The Roman Curia is the administrative apparatus of the Holy See and the central governing body of the entire Catholic Church, together with the Pope...
officials and Mafia
Mafia
The Mafia is a criminal syndicate that emerged in the mid-nineteenth century in Sicily, Italy. It is a loose association of criminal groups that share a common organizational structure and code of conduct, and whose common enterprise is protection racketeering...
figures who wanted to ensure his silence. Legal experts who had followed the trial said that the prosecutors found it hard to present a convincing case due to the 25 years that had elapsed since Calvi's death. An additional factor was that some key witnesses were unwilling to testify, untraceable, or dead. The prosecution had earlier called for Manuela Kleinszig to be cleared, stating that there was insufficient evidence against her, but it had sought life sentences for the four men.
The private investigator
Private investigator
A private investigator , private detective or inquiry agent, is a person who can be hired by individuals or groups to undertake investigatory law services. Private detectives/investigators often work for attorneys in civil cases. Many work for insurance companies to investigate suspicious claims...
Jeff Katz, who was hired by Calvi's family in 1991 to look into his death, claimed it was likely that senior figures in the Italian establishment had escaped prosecution. "The problem is that the people who probably actually ordered the death of Calvi are not in the dock - but to get to those people might be very difficult indeed," he said in an interview. Katz said it was "probably true" that the Mafia had carried out the killing but that the gangsters suspected of the crime were either dead or missing. The verdict in the trial may not be the end of the matter, since the prosecutor's office in Rome had already opened a second investigation implicating, among others, Licio Gelli
Licio Gelli
Licio Gelli is an Italian financier, chiefly known for his role in the Banco Ambrosiano scandal. He was revealed in 1981 as being the Venerable Master of the clandestine Masonic lodge Propaganda Due...
. Giuseppe Calò
Giuseppe Calò
Giuseppe 'Pippo' Calò is a member of the Sicilian Mafia. He was referred to as the "Mafia's Cashier" because he was heavily involved in the financial side of organized crime, primarily money laundering....
is still serving a life sentence on unrelated Mafia charges.
On 7 May 2010, the Court of Appeals confirmed the acquittal of Calò, Carboni and Diotallevi. The public prosecutor Luca Tescaroli commented after the verdict that for the family "Calvi has been murdered for the second time." On November 18, 2011, the court of last resort, the Court of Cassation
Court of Cassation (Italy)
The Supreme Court of Cassation is the major court of last resort in Italy. It has its seat in the Rome Hall of Justice.The Court of Cassation exists also to “ensure the observation and the correct interpretation of law” by ensuring the same application of law in the inferior and appeal courts...
, confirmed the acquittal.
Films about Calvi's death
The circumstances surrounding Calvi's death were made into a feature film, I Banchieri di Dio - Il Caso Calvi (God's Bankers - The Calvi Case), in 2001. Following the release of the film, Flavio Carboni sued the director Giuseppe Ferrara for slander but lost the action. The lawsuit caused the film to be withdrawn from Italian cinemas, but it was released on video when the legal action ended. A heavily fictionalized version of Calvi appears in the film The Godfather Part IIIThe Godfather Part III
The Godfather Part III is a 1990 American gangster film written by Mario Puzo and Francis Ford Coppola, and directed by Coppola. It completes the story of Michael Corleone, a Mafia kingpin who tries to legitimize his criminal empire...
in the character of Frederick Keinszig.
In 1990 The Comic Strip Presents, a BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
television series, produced a spoof version of Calvi's story under the title Spaghetti Hoops, with Nigel Planer
Nigel Planer
Nigel George Planer is an English actor, comedian, novelist and playwright.Planer is perhaps best known for his role as Neil Pye in the cult BBC comedy The Young Ones. He has appeared in many West End musicals, including Evita, Chicago, We Will Rock You, Wicked and Hairspray...
in the lead role. The Calvi affair also inspired the comedy film The Pope Must Die
The Pope Must Die
The Pope Must Die is a 1991 comedy film starring Robbie Coltrane, Adrian Edmondson, Annette Crosbie, Alex Rocco and Peter Richardson who also directed.-Plot:...
(1991) in which a naive priest, played by Robbie Coltrane
Robbie Coltrane
Robbie Coltrane, OBE is a Scottish actor, comedian and author. He is known both for his role as Dr...
is unexpectedly made Pope and takes on a mafia dominated Vatican.
In the 2009 film The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus
The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus
The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus is a 2009 fantasy film directed by Terry Gilliam and written by Gilliam and Charles McKeown. The film follows a traveling theater troupe whose leader, having made a bet with the Devil, takes audience members through a magical mirror to explore their imaginations...
, the character of Tony, played by Heath Ledger
Heath Ledger
Heath Andrew Ledger was an Australian television and film actor. After performing roles in Australian television and film during the 1990s, Ledger moved to the United States in 1998 to develop his film career...
, is found hanging (alive) under Blackfriars Bridge, described by director Terry Gilliam
Terry Gilliam
Terrence Vance "Terry" Gilliam is an American-born British screenwriter, film director, animator, actor and member of the Monty Python comedy troupe. Gilliam is also known for directing several films, including Brazil , The Adventures of Baron Munchausen , The Fisher King , and 12 Monkeys...
as "an homage to Roberto Calvi".
See also
- Banco AmbrosianoBanco AmbrosianoBanco Ambrosiano was an Italian bank which collapsed in 1982. At the centre of the bank's failure was its chairman, Roberto Calvi and his membership in the illegal Masonic Lodge Propaganda Due...
- The Bankers of God: The Calvi AffairThe Bankers of God: The Calvi AffairThe Bankers of God: The Calvi Affair is an Italian drama film directed in 2002 by Giuseppe Ferrara.The film tells the story of the scandal of Banco Ambrosiano, mainly related to the figure of Roberto Calvi...
- Licio GelliLicio GelliLicio Gelli is an Italian financier, chiefly known for his role in the Banco Ambrosiano scandal. He was revealed in 1981 as being the Venerable Master of the clandestine Masonic lodge Propaganda Due...
- Michele SindonaMichele SindonaMichele Sindona was an Italian banker and convicted felon. Known in banking circles as "The Shark", Sindona was a member of Propaganda Due , a secret lodge of Italian Freemasonry, and had clear connections to the Mafia...
- Propaganda DuePropaganda DuePropaganda Due , or P2, was a Masonic lodge operating under the jurisdiction of the Grand Orient of Italy from 1945 to 1976 , and a pseudo-Masonic or "black" or "covert" lodge operating illegally from 1976 to...
- Strategy of tensionStrategy of tensionThe strategy of tension is a theory that describes how to divide, manipulate, and control public opinion using fear, propaganda, disinformation, psychological warfare, agents provocateurs, and false flag terrorist actions....
- Piazza Fontana bombingPiazza Fontana bombingThe Piazza Fontana Bombing was a terrorist attack that occurred on December 12, 1969 at 16:37, when a bomb exploded at the headquarters of Banca Nazionale dell'Agricoltura in Piazza Fontana in Milan, Italy, killing 17 people and wounding 88...
- Gianmario RoveraroGianmario RoveraroGianmario Roveraro was an Italian banker who founded Akros Finanziaria. He went missing on July 5, 2006 following an Opus Dei meeting. It is thought that he was kidnapped, although no ransom was made...
- ParmalatParmalatParmalat SpA is a multinational Italian dairy and food corporation. Having become the leading global company in the production of ultra high temperature milk, the company collapsed in 2003 with a €14 billion hole in its accounts in what remains Europe's biggest bankruptcy...
- Corporate scandalCorporate scandalA corporate scandal is a scandal involving allegations of unethical behavior by people acting within or on behalf of a corporation. A corporate scandal sometimes involves accounting fraud of some sort...
- Accounting scandalsAccounting scandalsAccounting scandals, or corporate accounting scandals, are political and business scandals which arise with the disclosure of misdeeds by trusted executives of large public corporations...
- Money launderingMoney launderingMoney laundering is the process of disguising illegal sources of money so that it looks like it came from legal sources. The methods by which money may be laundered are varied and can range in sophistication. Many regulatory and governmental authorities quote estimates each year for the amount...
Further reading
- Cornwell, Rupert (1983). God's Banker: The Life and Death of Roberto Calvi, London: Victor Gollancz Ltd. ISBN 0043320996
- Yallop, DavidDavid YallopDavid Anthony Yallop is an agnostic British author who writes chiefly about unsolved crimes. In the 1970s he also contributed scripts for a number of BBC comedy shows...
(1985). In God's Name: An Investigation into the Murder of Pope John Paul I, London: Corgi ISBN 0552126403 - Raw, Charles (1992). The Money Changers: How the Vatican Bank enabled Roberto Calvi to Steal $250m... London: Harvill. ISBN 000217338-7
- Willan, Philip (2007). The Last Supper: the Mafia, the Masons and the Killing of Roberto Calvi, London: Constable & Robinson, 2007 ISBN 1845292960 (Review in The Observer)